Brand Campaign
Sector
Beauty
What We Did
Creative Strategy, Creative Ideation, Copywriting, Art Direction, Casting, Production, Post Production, Design & Artworking.
What We Delivered
One cohesive global campaign, translated into impactful brand experiences across OOH and in-store.
Results
50 YEARS OF ICONIC BEAUTY. STILL RELEVANT TODAY.
The campaign rethinks what it means to be beautiful, and created heated discussion in the comments section on social. The work sparked debate around humour, bodies and what belongs in public-facing advertising. Some people thought the provocation went too far. Others recognised precisely the opposite, a Body Shop they remembered back to it’s lovable, original self. Rooted in nature and built around individuality, Rebellious by Nature confidently celebrates The Body Shop’s legacy whilst carrying its attitude forward.
Background
Turn 50 years of beauty, activism and troublemaking into a reason to notice.
The Body Shop did not reach 50 by behaving like a normal beauty company.
Dame Anita Roddick opened her first shop in Brighton in 1976 with the belief that business could be a force for good. Early advertising mixed politics, nudity and satire in a way that no modern brand would ever. We knew we had to do something special.
Challenge
The challenge was bigger than simply shouting about an historic milestone.
We needed to bring the brand’s Rebellious by Nature platform to life in a way that felt authentic to The Body Shop’s past, culturally relevant today and worked as a quick attention grabber on social. But the anniversary needed to go deeper and show that The Body Shop wasn’t suddenly adopting rebellion as a fleeting idea.
Solution
50 years. Still unruly. For its 50th birthday, The Body Shop chose not to tidy up that history. It reclaimed it. Rebellious by Nature positions the anniversary not as nostalgia, but as proof that the brand has spent half a century speaking up, showing up and occasionally winding people up.
The anniversary campaign celebrates that spirit of unruliness. Not rebellion for rebellion’s sake, but a steadfast refusal to show bodies that conform to other people’s unnatural standards.
Using what nature gave us.
An homage to the original. To celebrate their 50th year, we brought an iconic advert from The Body Shop archives back to life. Our social film features a man comfortable in his own skin, surrounded by nature. Tight swimwear. Some aubergines. A strategically placed bottle. Playful and unapologetically real casting keeps things equally natural. Proper people, comfortable in their own skin as after all, nature comes in all shapes and sizes.
From archive to high street to the world. A global campaign, from Birmingham to Hong Kong that does its own thing. The Body Shop has been speaking up and showing up on the high street for five decades. So we took the anniversary beyond a single image, building a creative world that connects its iconic past with its bold next chapter.
On London’s iconic Oxford Street, the campaign came to life as a physical store experience. Gallery walls brought together iconic campaign imagery from across the decades. The campaign rolled out globally across in-store, social films, digital advertising and e-commerce creative, from window posters and behind-the-till screens to table feature signs and online organic content.
Victor Sabbe
Chief Marketing Officer
The Body Shop
Behind The Scenes
Our team worked closely with The Body Shop to bring its Rebellious by Nature platform to life for its 50th anniversary. From creative development and art direction to casting, set styling and campaign photography, every detail was designed to celebrate the brand’s rebellious heritage while making it feel culturally relevant today.
Drawing inspiration from an iconic piece of The Body Shop’s archive, the campaign playfully reimagined its unapologetic approach to beauty, celebrating individuality, nature and people being comfortable in their own skin. The resulting creative world rolled out across social, digital, e-commerce and in-store, connecting the brand’s iconic past with its next chapter and bringing the 50th anniversary to life from Birmingham to Hong Kong.
