For our first perspective, we’re starting with a brand that has rewritten the rules of beauty from the inside out: The Ordinary. One of the few beauty brands leaning into - and even going all in on - changing the narrative on beauty and commerce. How has their brand ethos and look and feel translated into success for the brand?
At Corporate Narrative, we help brands understand the stories they tell, intentionally or not, across search, social and every point of discovery. Some brands craft narratives through design and messaging; others do it through behaviour, positioning or even how they show up during cultural moments.
In this newsletter, Brand Narratives, expect analysis on how standout companies translate their identity into influence, memorability, and commercial impact.For our first perspective this black Friday, we’re starting with a brand that has rewritten the rules of beauty from the inside out: The Ordinary. One of the few beauty brands leaning into - and even going all in on - changing the narrative on beauty and commerce. How has their brand ethos and look and feel translated into success for the brand?
The Ordinary's brand success, outlined:
📌 Launched in summer 2016 with a mission to democratise skincare.
📌 First physical store a year later in 2017, 35 stores by 2021
📌 Heavy on the science, but in a big sister way. No patronising or infantilising language in this brand tone guide.
📌 Packaging and in store experience honours the visual brand built in Instagram's infancy - lab meets lux, at a high street price tag
Since coming to market in 2016 as an entirely online challenger brand, The Ordinary has taken a fresh approach to skincare. Clean formations, a functional and scientific inspired look & feel across the brand - from packaging to imagery - it is a brand that delivered a relatively instant smash hit in their aim of democratising skin care. The timing was crucial. K Skincare was gaining popularity and Instagram was in its infancy, a perfect storm for the new and interesting, and all the better if you could be memorable. The Ordinary stood out with their clean aesthetic and uncompromising scientific sounding products. It spoke to an audience tired of being deceived on the effectiveness of their products or being charged over the odds for them.
There were few challengers to The Ordinary at launch because few were doing it like they were. Brand challengers were either established Boots concessions brands like Clinique and Estee Lauder where you paid for the brand label or converted on a freebee of miniature products, not necessarily because you believed in the brand. Benefit also had a place there in the cross-over audience, bringing fun to effective formulations. The only other challengers in the space were realistically French pharmacy brands - like La Roche-Posay, Bioderma, Avène, Vichy, and Caudalie - that each position themselves as effective but relatively affordable, with clean packaging often referencing a laboratory or a dermatologist recommendation and delivering easy aspirational buy-in on that basis along with the quiet exclusivity of being something not everyone knows about.
The brief for this article was to analyse the effectiveness of brand on the bottom line so let’s look at some of the brand elements, and how they define the brand values (and create value for the brand). If you care to search for The Ordinary’s brand values, you’ll find this quote on their about us page:
“Quality today means being authentic, being different, being functional, being beautiful and being sensibly priced, even to the wealthy. And we respect these principles.”
Without discovering this quote, you would also know this is the essence of the brand from just 4 words on most of their marketing - this strapline: “Clean formulations with integrity”. One short sentence that works very hard in scene setting and brand building for the customer. It says “we care about what you put on your skin”, by proxy “we care about you”.The almost austere white and black packaging each with a descriptive, specific, scientific product name like Azelaic Acid or BHA 2% says “here is the product, we don’t need to spoon feed you”, by proxy, “you’re smart, we trust that you get it”. The opaque bottles with often pipette distribution method, doubles down on the scientific lean, with a vintage high street pharmacy charm, plus it looks cute on your bathroom shelf while elevating the customer to their peers who assume they are up on their skin care science. As a brand package, The Ordinary delivers on grown up skincare at an accessible price.
I told you we’d get into how brand storytelling gets results. The Ordinary has sought to use their brand power for further good, challenging the plague of mass consumerism that has become Black Friday with Slowvember, an ostensibly month-long, inventory wide discount campaign to encourage more intentional shopping. Let’s be clear here, shopping for product is still the end goal but with the perception that they are doing it differently and not rushing you for a dollar. Innocently acknowledging the hollow value of the click bait style experience on offer at every other place, they endear the brand to the customer. They even close online sales and stores on black Friday itself. It’s deceptively simple this sacrificial approach, and it works.
The branding on this 2025 campaign pushes the message further with mom-and-pop shop style sticky labels detailing the offer, the timeline and the mantra ‘Shop Slowly’. This is not your wholesome ‘Shop Small’ campaign pushing grass roots retailers, this is a global brand asking you to spend with them - just over a longer period. Data is not publicly available on the bulky bottom line that Slowvember likely brings to the P&L, but it spreads out demand across their inventory, it fosters loyalty and crucially, it covers 2-3 pay periods, depending on your location. A sacrifice any brand would be willing to make to double down on end-of-year sales.
The impact of a good brand story should not be underestimated. The Ordinary tells an aspirational story of exciting scientific innovation, bringing the customer on the journey by offering them the option to effectively self-educate from a library of aesthetically pleasing, formula-led products. The experience elevates the audience, they feel an equal. The above the line messaging from campaigns is also smart and on brand. Slowvember and other previous creative executions like this one below, that takes a mercenary swipe at brands paying for influencers by displaying a pile of money, reduce the basic aesthetic further - its even a little grubby with the connotations of cold, hard cash. On brand and a conversation starter; it is perfect.
Today’s retail audience won’t tolerate hollow messaging or performative gestures. They expect brands to respect their intelligence, their time and their money and will reward those brands that show up with clarity and consistency.
But showing up is not the same as being seen, and discoverability is no longer a single search result or a neatly optimised homepage. It’s a multi-touch ecosystem of moments, signals and influences that shape how (and if) a brand is remembered.
If you want your brand to be found more easily, understood more clearly and chosen more often…for your message to be seen by audiences with relevant search intent and translate into measurable commercial impact...it starts with the story you tell and how you tell it. Ready to tell yours?
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