After a streak of dull sales, hair care brand Olaplex is hoping an effort to go back to the roots—literally—will help revitalize it.
Olaplex was founded in 2014, starting in the professional channel at salons before expanding into retail. The company launched on DTC and into specialty retailers like Sephora in 2018, and went public and expanded into Ulta stores in 2021.
The brand has had its struggles since going public, including a since-denied class action lawsuit and slipping sales, particularly in the professional channel. Former Supergoop CEO Amanda Baldwin took over as chief exec in December 2023 to begin a turnaround. In its most recent earnings reported in March, net sales dropped 9.8%, with professional sales down 27.1%, though specialty retail rose 5.7%. On that earnings call, Baldwin introduced the brand’s new “Bonds and Beyond strategic vision,” comprising three pillars: shifting its products and messaging beyond treating damage to “foundational hair health,” fostering its professional business, and creating an “emotional connection” with consumers.
A multi-pronged brand refresh is a core part of this. While Olaplex’s products were designed and marketed to treat damage from hair coloring, CMO Katie Gohman told Retail Brew, lately the company has found that “the visual identity wasn’t really representing everything that the brand could do for both stylists as well as consumers.”
“A great brand has an emotional territory in a world that consumers aspire to be a part of,” Gohman said.
Split ends: This refresh has been in the works for about a year, Gohman said. She joined Olaplex last July, after serving as CMO at Marc Jacobs (her retail résumé also includes Ralph Lauren, Coach, and L’Oréal), and began building out its marketing team, focused on digital, media, and analytics, she said. The company brought on Andrew Reuben, another Ralph Lauren alum, as VP of global digital marketing and media in January, with other recent hires including a director of global digital marketing and media and a digital designer of global creative, per LinkedIn.
“How do you then bring the brand to life and to market? That was a muscle that hadn’t really been built here,” Gohman said.
With the refresh, Olaplex has changed “almost all consumer-facing communication touch points,” she said. That includes a new visual identity with an updated logo, a new website unveiled in February (with user experience and interface redone), and a relaunched social presence.
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It has also rolled out updated in-store merchandising with both retail and professional partners, as Gohman said Olaplex had received feedback that its product line was “extremely confusing and people didn’t understand how to shop it.” Now, at retail partners, the first shelf highlights the focus on foundational hair health including its latest product innovation N°0.5 Scalp Longevity Treatment. The next shelves zero in on the wash routine—shampoo, conditioner, and masks—followed by a shelf for styling products like hair oil.
“We worked on what we call internally a product architecture but really is, ‘How does the consumer navigate the line?’ she said. “It was all about really making that journey easier for the consumer.”
Framing the face: That all culminated in a brand campaign released last week featuring the tagline “Designed to Defy,” with a spot featuring actress Nicola Coughlan, fashion designer and former J. Crew president and creative director Jenna Lyons, and Olympic sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone alongside Olaplex pro stylists emphasizing the “confidence” and “endless possibilities” a good hair day presents. This represents a new effort to center stylists in its communications, Gohman said, noting they “help tell our story the best.”
It’s also extending this campaign into an IRL experience—an element younger generations of consumers “demands,” Gohman said—which has come in the form of the Olaplex Bond House in New York City on April 4, a series of events for consumers including a digital hair analysis scan.
With the campaign, beyond just sales, KPIs Gohman is zeroing in on include earned media value (how much people are talking about the brand in media), search interest, and—longer term—brand health (measuring perception and awareness), to ensure the brand is “making progress on our values and on the emotional territory in the spaces that we want to grow.”
The Designed to Defy campaign is a step in creating that emotional connection Baldwin had referenced, Gohman said. The company learned that connection was lacking through field research, asking consumers questions like “What does the brand make you feel?” and recognizing those scores came up short, though she said there was no negative feedback about the products’ efficacy.
“As a marketer and even just a consumer in general, I think you know the brands that you feel something when you see their work or you aspire to be a part of that world, and those that you don’t,” she said.