Singapore, Singapore
Evolving one of natures biggest activists to transform the skincare industry.
Location:
Singapore, Singapore
Selling:
World wide
Sector:
Beauty – Skincare
Our role:
Branding; Brand Development, Creative Direction, Brand Messaging, Copywriting, Art Direction, Brand Photography, Product Photography, Digital Customer Experience Strategy, Website Support.Branding: Brand Development, Creative Direction, Brand Messaging, Copywriting, Art Direction, Brand Photography, Product Photography, Digital Customer Experience Strategy, Website Support.
Packaging; Creative Direction, Packaging Strategy, Custom Packaging Design, Unboxing Experience Strategy, Paper Engineering, Product Naming.
[We’re] dedicated to transforming the beauty industry by combining science with ethics to be the forefront of beauty activism.
— Jené, Founder
LUXE Botanics is where luxury, science, activism and nature meet in perfect harmony. The brainchild of South African born biotechnologist Jené Roestorf, this revolutionary brand was developed to address the deficit in the beauty market for a sustainable, scientifically researched, socially conscious, botanical-based natural skincare range. Despite the impressiveness of their high quality products, LUXE Botanics was facing market feedback that the current branding and packaging was failing to reflect this.
Ready to take LUXE Botanics to the next level, Jené approached us with three main goals:
LUXE Botanics was established with the understanding that nature, luxury and science can co-exist to create an exquisite, sustainable and ethical product. Our approach to fulfilling LUXE Botanics’ goals was multifaceted, and ensuring their branding fully aligned with their ethos was a top priority.
In true By Ninja fashion, we began our creative process with a thorough deep dive into the heart and soul of LUXE Botanics to better understand their ideal customer. Through this process we were able to thoroughly comprehend the wants and desires as well as behaviours of their target market, allowing us to recognise how these elements play into their purchasing decisions.
Our partnership nevertheless faced practical challenges when telling this complex love story of nature and science, while staying true to LUXE Botanics' green beauty brand. Successfully navigating and overcoming the difficulties of working across four different time zones (Eastern Australia, Lisbon, Singapore and the United States) became a test in organisation, strategy, problem-solving and trust, which eventually resulted in a strengthened relationship between all parties. We employed the use of technology to bridge the distance to visually workshop and discuss our branding approach. In fact, we looked for opportunities to use the geographical distance to our advantage across multiple campaigns, curating and capturing a larger variety of cross seasonal and landscape visuals to develop their brand message.
Recognising that LUXE Botanics is primarily an online brand, meant that the first physical experience which their customer had with their product would be via the post. We therefore understood the need to ensure our packaging design extended beyond the products themselves, creating an unboxing experience that reflected both their high end luxurious status and their commitment to sustainability. To achieve this we needed to put our research and design hats on to develop a concept design that fit the brand criteria, before mircotesting it (mocking up designs ourselves). Finally, when we were satisfied with the microtesting we enlisted the paper wizardry of Platypus Graphics to develop the prototype for testing prior to the final tick of approval.
Throughout our creative approach we drew on our extensive design and branding experience, conducted thorough research into both their market and the wider beauty industry, and utilised our own close industry relationships, allowing us to address LUXE Botanics’ core goals.
In today’s market, customers are not just there for the high quality product, they’re there for the journey. They want their product to make them feel something special, and make them feel connected to something real.
Our key insight during our research was that customers want to join and be able to participate in the journey of discovery towards something better — for their skin, the environment, and for the communities and individuals that harvest the product. Brands like LUXE Botanics offer them an opportunity to feel elegant and luxurious in their skin, while simultaneously making a genuine difference.
The rebranding of LUXE Botanics was a complex, multi-layered endeavour, achieved through a variety of approaches, primarily: thoughtful curation and creative copywriting, digital marketing, custom design, photography, and custom packaging design.
The refinement of their messaging was achieved organically, through the initial management of their social media and digital marketing, allowing us to curate a visual and written strategy that clearly conveyed their brand message.
At a more tactile level, rebranding through the custom packaging designs for the existing product collection presented an opportunity to mindfully and practically meld nature and science, using recyclable materials, minimalist design and subtle embellishments. Each product box features striking landscape imagery native to LUXE Botanics’ key global ingredients — Kenya, Malawi and Brazil — transporting those opening them out of their homes and into nature, creating a retail experience unlike any other.
Similarly, our approach to the award-winning unboxing experience resulted in a simple, outer shipper with a cut brandmark seal which opened to reveal an elegant inner white box, with a blind embossed matt silver foil sticker, with the angles of the flaps emanating LUXE Botanics’ brand logo “X”. Once opened it also revealed glimpses of the striking landscape scenes, with a simple thank you and hidden message to create a personal connection, creating a truly individual experience.
The Explorer Kits: the Camu Collection and the Discovery Kits, also presented exceptional opportunities to further consolidate their brand message of environmentalism, luxury, and nature. The Camu Collection was designed to present the popular brightening routine — the full-sized luxury Camu line — while the Discovery Kits were curated, as the name suggests, to enable consumers to affordably discover the LUXE Botanics range for home, or travel. We helped LUXE Botanics create everything from the kit names to designs, with the philosophies of luxury, nature, exploration and sustainable beauty remaining front of mind. Designed with the environment in mind, from the tin, card, cloth and caps to the bottles and tubes, every aspect is either biodegradable, recyclable or reusable. Throughout this entire rebranding process we have worked closely with LUXE Botanics to demonstrate their message that luxurious, high quality skincare does not need to come at Mother Nature’s detriment.
The inspired new direction of LUXE Botanics was motivated by the founder’s love of nature, science, social and environmental consciousness, and it was our predominant goal to allow them to better connect and share that message with their customers. The numbers speak for themselves, in a mere 9 months after joining forces, our partnership with LUXE Botanics allowed them to grow in triple digits. We assisted them in increasing their check out value by 103%, website traffic by 78%, customer retention to 21% and exceed their annual retail goals by 12%.
However, our proudest result is the strong partnership built on trust and mutual respect with LUXE Botanics that continues to this day and allows us to continue to work together to bring their brand vision to life. Because giving the world beautiful skin begins with a bold, breathtaking brand strategy.
Excellent design and digital marketing agency. They have transformed not only our branding but also our brand voice and digital presence in such a way that our business has grown in triple digits since the start of the partnership. They have even won state level and national level awards for their work on our brand. Without a doubt the best agency we have worked with!
— Jené Roestorf, Founder of LUXE Botanics
Having worked with countless agencies, when you find one that understands your brand from the get go, that proactively suggests ideas to test and challenge the status quo, a team who are always up for trying something new and who go beyond the call of duty, it is like gold dust.
By Ninja are more than just our creative agency. As a start up, they are an integral part of the LUXE Botanics team. We can't imagine what the brand would be today without them.
— Rachel Chan, Chief of Relationships at LUXE Botanics
2020
National Print Awards 2020
GOLD: Designer of the Year, The LUXE Discovery Kit
BRONZE: Multi Piece Promotions and Campaigns, The LUXE 2019 Campaign
Queensland Printing Industry Creativity Awards
GOLD: Designer of the Year, The LUXE Discovery Kit
GOLD: Multi Piece Promotions and Campaigns, The LUXE 2019 Campaign
2019
National Print Awards
GOLD: Packaging & Labelling (Design), The LUXE Unboxing Experience
Queensland Printing Industry Creativity Awards
GOLD: Packaging & Labelling (Design), The LUXE Unboxing Experience
Doing things differently starts with a conversation.
