One Hard Question: How we re-established relevance to Pond’s
1HQ Singapore’s strategy director, Floydd Wood, discusses his agency’s efforts at rebranding beauty brand Pond’s, at the success it brought to the company.
Reimagining an iconic brand is no easy task. It demands rigour in briefing, strategy and creative, and there are few beauty brands as iconic as Pond’s.
Founded in 1846, the brand was a beacon for generations of women looking to achieve better, brighter and healthier skin through breakthrough innovations and technology.
But the beauty landscape had changed: consumers are now more informed, affluent and demanding, which meant that Pond’s brand expression needed to fundamentally change to shift perceptions and re-ignite engagement.
Pond’s needed to re-establish its own relevance, credibility and desirability in a saturated, fast-changing category, by revolutionising brand image and perceptions… so a bold initiative was established: ‘elevate POND’S from a mass brightening product to a masstige skincare brand, with a packaging relaunch to drive brand re-appraisal, to achieve “$1Billion Brand” status by 2026.’
To kick off the initiative, 1HQ challenged the brand to ask just ‘One Hard Question.’ Pond’s reply: “How do we re-establish relevance, credibility and desirability for our legacy brand?” This became our launchpad – establishing strategic and creative rigour for this daunting but stimulating challenge.
We knew, due to multiple repositionings and relaunches over almost two decades, that Pond’s and its products had struggled to maintain premium perceptions and to consistently communicate expert appeal and scientific credibility. In addition, the brand was unable to keep pace with modern skincare trends towards affluence, experience-rich offerings and scientific innovations, leading to a decline in both brand share and power. We also realised that Pond’s had spent decades straddling opposing sides of the NeedScope model, creating constantly-shifting identities that diluted equity, imagery and perceptions.
The aligned strategy: to fundamentally refresh by going back to our roots. Reigniting the brand’s essence by distilling, revealing and celebrating nearly two centuries of heritage in skincare in a new, bold and contemporary way.
This meant that masterful innovation, technological prowess and aspirational beauty needed to take centre-stage on the new pack: so, we adopted the creative mantra “Pond’s is where science meets desire”, a golden thread connecting brand purpose, skincare science and beauty desire.
On the drawing board, this meant reimagining Pond’s iconic assets: the pink colour, the tulip and “science seasoned with simplicity”.
It was a relentless, rigorous rediscovery: across more than 400 designs, over 50 shades of pink were considered before isolating the brand’s heartbeat. The iconic tulip was reimagined: now a symbol of elegance that spoke to Pond’s proud heritage in beauty and grace. Trademarked ingredients Niasorcinol™ and Hexyl-Retinol ™ were celebrated as transformative glowing droplets, while rebranding “Pond’s” as “Pond’s Skin Institute” reasserted the brand’s position as a leader in premium skincare science.
The pack revolution fundamentally shifted brand perceptions and drove engagement as the winning design rolled out to over 21 markets globally: exceeding business targets by 164% in H1’24.
Mexico achieved a record-breaking highest share with a +200bps gain vs PP, while Indonesia boasted a brand power turnaround at +80bps. Thailand also showed significant turnaround with USG +103%, and UVG +66%, and in both Thailand and The Philippines, January 2024’s brand turnover rose 2.6x. Explosive e-commerce growth within the first month of launch showed +50% conversion rate and +40% in overall brand sales, with a 22.59% rise in average basket size.
This initiative was not simply a packaging refresh, but a holistic brand revolution that has undoubtedly sent ripples through the skincare category – an ever-expanding category where new brands constantly target ever-more-specific beauty needs, and where creating, refining a visual language for global icons like Pond’s requires dedicated strategic and creative partnership.
Does your brand have a One Hard Question? Let us know, by contacting singapore@1hqglobal.com
