This week at uni, I had a brief about ideas. The task was to be given a trend story, platform and client, then given 10 days prep time before presenting our big idea to the 'client'. My group were given purity as our trend, digital as our platform and John Lewis as our client. Sounds simple but question is how can we make something innovative and unique that not only suits our consumer and client but also ticks all our assessment boxes too.
To begin we had to learn the difference between an idea and an outcome, which is harder than you might think. After many a conversation and lectures we finally grasped that an 'idea' is the concept behind the outcome. The reason for doing it, the why. An idea can't be visualised but it can be understood. An outcome is something, anything that can be visualised. This can range from a product to an image, website, zine, event, space, window display. Anything! So once we'd worked that out, it was onto brainstorming the overlap of each of our topics.
Having done a week's research on our trend story purity we had a fair bit of insight into avenues we could take as to our approach. Looking into people, history and retail of the trend, we gathered several interpretations. Anything from a reason and unique ways of wearing white, to the tailored slick pant suit look, the beauty and skincare market to expression and ways in which dance and costume influence self expression. We also considered an approach based on sustainability and what makes a product or brand be considered pure. But in the end we decided on the beauty and skincare sector as we believed this could be applied in a new and unique way to the John Lewis stores.
As mental health and self confidence are such big topics of conversation currently in the media, we thought it might be interesting to look into both these areas and find out a little more about how women are feeling not only about themselves, but also their skin and wellbeing at the moment. I was shocked to find out that in the Dove Global Beauty and Confidence report in 2016 "only 20% of women in the UK say they feel confident in themselves." This report is currently being repeated at the moment and it is predicted this may fall to around 15% in the UK. Some could say it's no wonder due to the unrealistic beauty standards we are surrounded by with imagery bounced around the internet, print and advertising today. These shocking ratios led us to think of ways that we can adapt a beauty treatment, to include a self confidence boosting element, not only adding to the experience, but meaning you truly can make the most of the facial.
The clean living industry is thriving at the moment with 1 in 4 of us expected to be vegan or vegetarian by 2025. Another stat from the Vegan Society annual report from 2018 said 42% of vegans made the change just last year. These are huge numbers and show clear demand for this so called 'cleaner' lifestyle. We also looked into the meditation and relaxation market, and discovered that people practicing meditation has tripled in the last 6 years. Perhaps due to the rising awareness of it's positive effect not only on your mental health but also physically as treatment. Not only that, the meditation market is set to double in growth from 1 to 2 billion pounds in the next three years.
So having done all this research as well as asking customers in store what their thoughts were, we decided there was a definite gap in the market somewhere between these two thriving industries. After brainstorming a little more we came up with an organic, sensory experience that not only relaxes, revitalises and rejuvenates your skin, but your entire body. Sensory experiences are proven to be linked to not only your memory, but also release happy and calming endorphins to boost your self esteem. On top of this the sounds of nature are proven to put your body in a state of relaxation due to the constant pitch of 'pleasant' noise, reducing your fight or flight instincts and reducing stress by 85%.
Bingo we had our 'idea'.
Spotlight on skincare: Reigniting confidence in the consumer through sense elevation.
To do this we then came up with an outcome. Skinema.
Then in our presentation to aid the 'clients' to visualise our outcome I created this moodboard, put together to display both the facial element alongside the sensory experience.
Hope you like it.
St.
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