How The Body Shop Championed Changemaking Beauty with Native Content

The Body Shop is renowned for its ethical and sustainable approach to beauty. However, in a market crowded with brands making similar claims, The Body Shop needed a way to distinguish itself and reaffirm its position as a leader and a changemaker.

Avid Collective was tasked with helping The Body Shop develop partnerships with purpose-driven publishers who share The Body Shop’s ethical values. The strategy needed to deliver both reach and scale, while also creating authentic, trust-building narratives that deeply resonated with the target audience of Young Ethical and Environmentally-aware People (YEEP).

The Body Shop sought long-form engagement to highlight its commitment to community, environmental stewardship, and personal well-being through fresh and engaging content that effectively communicated these core values. Avid identified trusted publishers who could speak with authority on The Body Shop’s activism and changemaking initiatives, while also balancing advocacy and education around their products. This approach was complemented by a sophisticated amplification strategy that ensured the scale of delivery and maximised the impact of the time invested in creating this content.

The Solution

The “Changemaking Beauty” campaign aimed to demonstrate how their products make a difference in three key areas:

Change for You: Showcasing the proven skin benefits of The Body Shop’s products.
Change for Communities: Highlighting how their products empower local communities economically, particularly women.
Change for the Planet: Demonstrating how their products reduce waste and combat climate change.

Creating an Ecosystem of ‘Partners with a Cause’

The Body Shop partnered with Grazia, Junkee, Punkee, and Primer to create a diverse range of content that resonated with different sub-segments of the YEEP audience.

This multi-publisher approach ensured the message was amplified across various platforms, each bringing its unique voice and audience to the campaign, whilst providing an opportunity for scale via reach on owned platforms and Avid’s amplification. Articles with Junkee and Primer focused on the ethical lens whilst Punkee and Grazia articles leant more into product review and recommendation.

Junkee: 5 Ways You Could Make Lasting Impact With Your Skincare

Since its launch in 2013, Junkee has been a trusted source of news and entertainment for young Australians with their original storytelling and compelling content. Junkee and The Body Shop share a commitment to social justice and progressive values.

The article with Junkee leveraged their authentic tone of voice to educate and advocate for The Body Shop as a brand that makes you feel good while doing good. The article amassed over 12,000 article views and maintained a higher-than-benchmark dwell time, underscoring its appeal to Junkee’s young and ethically engaged audience. The focus on the brand’s ethical stance resonated well with sustainability enthusiasts and ethical shoppers aged 18-24.

Grazia: Get Set To Glow With Grazia’s Ultimate Summer Edit

Grazia is a style publication for original fashion, beauty, culture and entertainment news. Grazia’s aim is to be the most authentic representation of fashion and beauty in the Australian media landscape, it’s an aspirational publication with a premium feel that skews towards female audiences interested in culture.

The Grazia article featured a shoppable listing of summer must-haves, highlighting The Body Shop’s Vitamin C Glow Revealing Serum which was a suitable product fit for the Grazia audience. The article engaged fashion, beauty, and culture enthusiasts, resulting in over 129 hours of content consumption. The synergy between the publication’s content themes and the target audience’s interest led to strong engagement and demonstrates how finding the right publishers can lead to impactful results.

Primer: The Little-Known Skincare Ingredient Offering More Resilient Skin

Primer was launched to elevate women’s voices and deliver fun, zeitgeisty fashion, beauty and trend stories. They have an educated, purpose-led audience and operate as a social enterprise delivering 50 per cent of profits to women’s NGOs, making them an ideal publisher for this campaign.

The primer article was an editorial focusing on natural beauty, spotlighting The Body Shop’s Edelweiss Daily Serum Concentrate. The direct messaging and focus on product efficacy were key factors in its success, achieving the highest click-through rate and average session duration of the campaign, sprawling to fashion, beauty, and trend enthusiasts.

Punkee: Punkee Tries The Body Butter You’re Definitely Getting For Christmas

Punkee talks to women in their 20s and 30s about what they love to talk about, including the must-have beauty products. It’s a destination for Gen Z and Millennial women who fearlessly embrace their passions.

Punkee took the approach of a first-person product review written in Punkee’s playful tone of voice. This article resonated widely with Punkee’s young, highly engaged female audience who look to Punkee for recommendations that align with their interests. The attention-grabbing angle and focus on the product’s rapid sell-out contributed to its success by creating a real sense of urgency, or ‘FOMO’ for Punkee readers.

The Campaign Results

Featuring a total of 7 Articles from 4 publishers, the campaign produced exceptional results, including an over delivery of article views by 85.9%, and above benchmark dwell times; led by Primer at over 2min.

The results equate to over 129 hours of content consumption, illustrating the necessary role native content plays for brands in creating meaningful connections with audiences.

Client Testimonials

Sarah Cook, Senior Account Director for The Body Shop at Havas said, “The partnership with Avid allowed us to connect deeply with our audience through trusted voices. This campaign successfully highlighted our changemaking initiatives and product efficacy, reinforcing The Body Shop’s position as a leader in ethical beauty.”