bareMinerals Launches Campaign for New Foundation Product That Doesn't Like the 'F Word'

Bare Escentuals’ bareMinerals, owned by Shiseido, is unveiling a conversation-starting campaign to champion its award-winning foundation franchise and the launch of its first-ever solid bareMinerals Ready SPF 20 Foundation. Rooted in the brand’s heritage of speaking to its foundations as a closer relative to skin care than makeup, this campaign introduces the idea that ‘foundation’ has become a dirty word thanks to cakey, pore-clogging formulas that have given the category a bad rap, instituting fear in women that are relentlessly seeking the solution to flawless skin.

The campaign helps posit that bareMinerals Ready SPF 20 Foundation doesn’t look or feel like a foundation, offering skin care benefits along with long-wearing coverage. The campaign, titled ‘We Don’t Like Using the F-Word,’ aligns with the brand’s desire to challenge the status quo while offering a unique perspective on what bareMinerals Ready SPF 20 Foundation can do for the skin.

“From the moment I launched bareMinerals, I’ve always struggled using the word ‘foundation,’—it never felt right,” explains Leslie Blodgett, creator of bareMinerals. “Our formulas do so much more—actually improving the appearance of skin over time and giving women their most beautiful skin ever without looking like they’re wearing makeup at all. So, while it’s technically a foundation, we knew we had to speak to it in a different way … so we did it on our terms. This campaign really sums up our philosophy on this product category—there’s no mistaking what we stand for.”

The first iteration of the ‘We Don’t Like Using the F-Word’ campaign will kick off in North America in mid-August to support the nationwide launch of bareMinerals Ready SPF 20 Foundation on September 1, 2012. The national campaign will be supported by print, digital and social marketing efforts. The campaign creative is designed to espouse the core product principles of the bareMinerals foundation category—natural-looking makeup with real skin care benefits—while underpinning the idea that bareMinerals foundations don’t behave like other foundations.

“With the launch of this groundbreaking new foundation, it was critical for the campaign to have a differentiated angle and a message that is synonymous with our underlying brand beliefs around this product category,” commented Simon Cowell, CEO of Bare Escentuals. “It also needed to speak to the product attributes in a novel way that really champions our entire foundation assortment which are undeniably in a category all their own.”

The brand is available in 31 countries, with over 6,500 points of distribution, including over 200 company-owned boutiques.

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