How Legacy Skincare Brand StriVectin Propelled to New Heights in Q4 2023

Industry Description

StriVectin is a line of science-powered, award-winning skincare products with serious clinical credentials that deliver real, visible results. The products are formulated with integrity for every skin type, tone and age, and solve the most frustrating skincare concerns as skin ages and changes. StriVectin products are sold online and through department stores and the brand has been a leader in skincare for 20 years because the products really work.

Challenges

Legacy brand, StriVectin, set out to implement a cohesive media strategy that would support efficient growth for brand awareness and e-commerce revenue in Q4 2023. To stay on track with their Q4 goals, planning was conducted in Q2 2023.

January Digital, the media agency of record, was challenged to position StriVectin for success in Q4 and launched renewed full-funnel digital media e-commerce campaigns for the brand, capitalizing on automation to drive efficiency, historical learnings for channel and creative direction, and customer data integration to inform campaign development.

Building new and improved strategies, media campaigns, audiences and creatives with limited time was only possible through collaboration with different teams and stakeholders across the organization. To maximize performance and efficiency for Q4 2023, January Digital and StriVectin needed to rethink planning and processes from the past to evolve for the future. Most importantly, a refined measurement structure was implemented to track awareness success that kept all parties informed and aligned on decision-making/optimization. Creative was another challenge entirely, as the evolving media strategy was rapidly impacting the need for different assets across a multi-channel strategy. Knowing that creative is one of the greatest influencers of performance, January Digital placed significant emphasis on the need to constantly develop and improve this area of the business to drive growth above the category.

January Digital launched full-funnel media campaigns with diverse audiences and creatives leveraging tactics such as:

• Prioritized social awareness media within top-funnel to consolidate dollars on a limited budget to make the largest impact for StriVectin.
  • Social media platforms like Meta and TikTok are key channels of brand discovery especially within skincare. 
• Uncovered pockets of opportunity with new unique audience testing such as “Reality TV Lovers” which proved successful in connecting with the brand.
  • The team leveraged customer data to inform new audience tests. RealiFu
• Expanded CTV partnerships with top-performing publishers, such as Disney, to reach an untapped audience on premium placements and with new content.
  • The large-screen format was essential in reaching the household demographic with tailored creative.
• To optimize creative, the team leveraged influencer content in top-funnel social campaigns for the first time which contributed to the unprecedented lift in full-funnel performance.
  • The team’s process ensured that the influencers and their audiences were authentic to StriVectin products and benefits, which contributed to the strong results seen from influencer campaigns
  • The main focus of this campaign was TL Neck, one of StriVectin’s core products, which experienced a +100% increase in sales YoY and was the brand’s best-seller in Q4 2023.

Results

Focused on innovative media strategies, customer-data-driven learnings, and increased testing of creative and usage of organic content, January Digital’s 2023 2H full-funnel media e-commerce campaign exceeded client expectations and goals.

The results included:

• Record-breaking Q4 holiday season with e-commerce exceeding revenue goals by 18% and growing +21% YoY.
• Drove +17% YoY traffic growth to StriVectin.com through Q4.
• Q4 New customer growth up 13% YoY
• Awareness and consideration lift as a result of improved creative and marketing efficacy, with StriVectin brand search volume +31% YoY in Q4.