After nearly 200-years in business, Thayers Natural Remedies is finally jumping into TV advertising.
Founded in 1847 by Dr. Henry Thayer, the mass skin-care brand is best known for its witch hazel toners. Today, Thayers debuts a 15-second animated commercial showcasing its toner ingredients, Dr. Thayer himself, and a “Book of Remedies” that he created and is still used by the brand today. A voiceover speaks to the history and innovation of the brand, as well as the skin benefits of using Thayers toner. The campaign is designed to support sales within the brand’s retail partners, which includes Target and Amazon. Notably, Thayers is coming up on the 1-year anniversary of its acquisition by L’Oreal in August 2020. The conglomerate acquired the brand on the tailwind of the growing natural and clean beauty movement. According to PE Hub, the deal was valued at $400 million.
“This approach is completely different from anything we’ve done before,” said Erica Culpepper, Thayers Natural Remedies general manager. “[It] is very artistic and is an illustration. In addition to the content that we distribute, [influencers] will also help us to amplify the message. [We’re hoping] this is something that had a lot of organic buzz because it is so new, different and unexpected.”
The TV campaign runs for an initial three weeks and is accompanied by a digital campaign that will continue until the end of 2021. The linear TV commercial will be across ABC, NBC and other major networks and cable channels, but is not attached to any particular programming. Thayers also invested in programmatic ads across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. The brand has also hired 10 influencers to create their own version of the commercial for Instagram and TikTok. Both TV and digital will target Gen Zers and young millennials. The ad budget was evenly split between linear TV and digital ad buys, said Culpepper.
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According to Piper Sandler’s 2020 annual teen survey, published Feb. 2021, Gen Zers are more invested in the clean beauty category compared to 2019. Nearly 78% of teens are willing to spend more for “clean” or natural beauty products compared to 75% in 2019. According to 2020 NPD data, skin-care companies that positioned themselves as natural grew 14% year-over-year in 2019, while clean brands jumped 39%. But Thayers, alongside St. Ives and Mario Badescu, have been called out by Gen Z on platforms like TikTok for their ingredients. Thayers has since invested in educational content on TikTok.
“Skin care is a fast-growing yet highly competitive and fragmented category; [we] worked together to leverage the incredibly rich history of the Thayers brand,” said Austen Watts McCann NY account director, which worked with Thayers to develop the commercial. “This visual campaign blends the rich past and growing future of the brand and perfectly encompasses the campaign’s tagline: ‘Skincare Ahead Of Its Time.’”
