Hayley Burnham

At The Gild, we believe at a very broad-level, that balancing the ideas of ‘art’ and ‘science’ is the secret of brand success.

And for many years, the beauty industry has failed miserably at finding this balance. Historically, beauty-brands have tried to sell the ‘art’ of beauty through romanticised, emotive adverting campaigns that allude to the promise that your looks and your life might be ‘magically’ improved through a new anti-aging cream, a new foundation, or a new mascara. As we’ve talked about in our What Women Want study – women these days are very savvy to these kinds of ‘empty-promises’ that offer little ‘functional’ reason to believe why this would be true.

More recently, beauty brands have tried to counteract this by highlighting and specifying a plethora of scientific ‘miracle’ ingredients that by their very mention—‘prove’ that anti-aging cream will really work (‘it contains ‘micro-glycerine anti-acids, so of course my skin will look ten years younger in a few weeks!’). For years, consumers have been sceptical about how much anti-aging the beauty world can really deliver.

However, The Sunday Times believes that times are changing: “As beauty merges more with science, that [sceptical] outlook is due for a shake-up.” It mentions Proctor & Gamble and their use of atomic force microscopes (a technology used by NASA) to observe molecular changes in hair after different ingredients in shampoo are applied to it. L’Oréal are investing £545m a year in 3,400 scientists working in 18 research centers across the world and Unilever has published their research into the links between blood-sugar, obesity and premature skin-aging.

These investments and advances in technology allow beauty brands to begin to be able to ‘prove’ the results of their products, instead of just (tenuously) talking about them.

However, I believe that the industry as a whole will face an uphill battle first. They’ll need to invest heavily in marketing and branding, as well as science, to begin to change consumer attitudes. And this is where the balance between ‘art’ and ‘science’ will become crucial. The most successful beauty brands will be able to make functional claims that are clearly backed-up by easy-to-understand empirical results, whilst at the same time, building a promise that is bigger than just the reduction in wrinkles their new anti-aging cream really can produce.

Sales of women’s facial skincare products in Britain alone are expected to generate about £1 billion this year, so it looks as though the crucial investment by beauty brands will be well worth it. This could herald the beginning of a new era in beauty marketing and branding. Watch this space.