2024 Gold Health and Wellness

Agency: T&Pm and C4

Client: Karo Healthcare

Entry Title: This is my space

Executive Summary

No one feels more uncomfortable in their skin than someone assigned a gender they don’t identify with. This revelation led E45 on a mission to ‘make your skin feel comfortable, so you can feel more comfortable in your skin’, to leverage its marketing clout to build empathy for trans people.

Strategy

After 70 years of comforting skin, the unassuming brand was being overlooked in favour of new players in the category. In 2023, it began a revitalisation of E45 with a fresh identity and new purpose: ‘To make your skin feel comfortable, so you can feel more comfortable in your skin.’

The team set out to find those in society who feel most uncomfortable in their skin, looking for cases where E45 could provide relief, alleviating not just physical discomfort, but emotional discomfort too. During the research, an issue consistently surfaced online within trans communities. The brand wanted to learn more, sensitively and respectfully.

Partnering with the Diversity Standards Collective, it conducted interviews with members of the trans community, uncovering unique and overlooked dermatological challenges that someone faces when undergoing gender affirmation treatment. Those navigating gender affirmation treatment faced unique and overlooked dermatological challenges.

Creativity

Set in the privacy of trans women’s bathrooms the script provided intimate and light-hearted glimpses into the skincare routines of trans women. It exposed the impact transitioning has on how skin looks and feels, as viewers followed them undertaking rituals we all follow - waxing, shaving, moisturising - to feel comfortable in our skin.

Peppered throughout were Easter eggs bringing quiet joy to trans viewers who rarely see themselves represented on TV. The insight gathered from trans people, combined with the lived experiences of the team’s creative director (themselves transitioning) were essential.

Determined to make an impact for trans people beyond authentic and uplifting representation in advertising, the brand partnered with trans healthcare professionals, including Dr. Kamilla Kamaruddin, to publish a systematic review on the impact transitioning has on skin in the International Journal of Transgender Health.

Results

Along with significant increases in key brand health metrics including attention, perceptions and consideration:

• High levels of awareness and attention with 18 to 34s, while maintaining the interest of the key 50+ audience, translating into increased purchase intent across all audiences and increase in online sales
• The campaign drove representation and softened harmful stereotypes in a world where less than 1% of advertising features trans individuals. Online sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with ‘joy’ coming out as the emotion of conversations.
• Research into the most reported skin changes during the different stages of the transitioning journey was published in the International Journal of Transgender Health, and covered in world and national Healthcare Professionals trans health conferences

The Team

T&Pm - Jake Batty, Account Director - Georgia Ion, Planner