“We use artificial intelligence to make the most effective skincare routine possible.”

Skincare has been around since ancient Egypt - the concept of taking care of your skin isn’t anything new. Proven, however, takes a unique approach: a Stanford physicist won the 2018 MIT artificial intelligence award, and is using it to create perfectly personalized skincare routines. Every product is made with dozens of variables in mind. The formula is altered depending on where the customer lives (variables like the UV index, water harshness, humidity, even what season it is), as well as various customer traits (like age, ethnicity, gender).

The challenge: How do you convince people their current skincare routine isn’t as effective as it could be, and convince them to switch to something new and likely more expensive?

The solution: By using thorough, scientific research all throughout the script to back up all of our bold claims.

My responsibilities as Creative Director:

Research: I sat down with Proven’s founder to understand how exactly this AI works. On the backend, they’ve created a robust database after analyzing 4 thousand scientific publications, 20,000 ingredients, 100,000 products, and 20 million testimonials. Their problem wasn’t the efficacy of the product, but the price. They found that most people were not interested in paying $150 a month, because they could buy other products for a fraction of the price at their local drugstore. The average person didn’t know that quality could differ enough to warrant the price increase. (Imagine thinking McDonalds is healthy, and swearing to never buy a grass-fed-organic-burger from Whole Foods because it costs more.)

Next, I interviewed two dozen customers. I wanted to know what compelled them to stop using whatever they were using, and try something new. They were all dissatisfied by drugstore products and were so fed up with not seeing results, they were willing to give something premium a shot.

Writing: After digging into the data, I decided the best way to convince somebody to try a new skincare product was to make a bold statement about their current products. Data suggest most skincare companies aren’t completely honest in their marketing. I found countless reports citing false claims, words that imply something but actually mean nothing, and even carcinogens in products labeled as “natural”. To give as much credibility as possible while making these huge claims, I included as many studies and citations as humanly possible. I paired the bold script with a unique minimalist set, to communicate to the viewer that this is not your typical skincare company.

Visuals: This 2D black and white skincare store was so much fun to design. I didn’t realize just how many different shades of white are at the paint store until making this set. There are over 400 individual hand-painted props, including a cactus, a sink, and a couch! I love the effect it has on camera though - the 2D minimalism is interesting enough to capture people’s attention, while still leaving our actress as the focal point.

Post-production feedback: I gave detailed feedback to our editor to help ensure the cut reflected what was intended in the script. For this ad, it was really important that the research used in the script gave us credibility. Rather than just having the actress say those findings, we needed to fine tune beautiful motion graphics to actually show what we found. The idea here is basically “you don’t have to take MY word for it, this is what the studies say”.