Over its 40+ year history, The Body Shop has earned its reputation for being the first genuine activist brand. Their battle for a fairer and more beautiful world has seen them fight against animal testing, drive fair trade farming and help preserve the Amazon rainforest. Now, that fight is at our front door - in the self esteem crisis of our young people.
At the start of 2021, The Body Shop commissioned a Self-Love Index - a global study seeking to understand how people felt about themselves around the world. The results were bleak. The UK’s Self-Love Index score was significantly below the global average. Frequent feelings of anxiety and signs of depression are at a much higher level in the UK than globally. Those under 35 are most likely to feel like this with 50% often feeling anxious, 48% worrying excessively, 46% lacking interest and 46% feeling down or depressed. In addition, a third of women said that they felt more negatively about themselves since the pandemic. See details of the full research at the bottom of the page*.
This is compounded by the images we see on social, in the media and the words we hear from others and ourselves. All too often, the world tells us that we are not enough and self doubt creeps in.
So The Body Shop is starting a new fight. They are fighting for self-love. Their Self Love Uprising is a commitment to help young people challenge self-doubt through acts of self-love. With a goal to inspire 1 million acts of self-love, a movement was born to change how Gen Z talk to themselves, talk about themselves and how they treat themselves.
In April we launched this campaign with “Be Right Back World” - the ultimate clap-back which gave girls the opportunity to defy negativity and take some time out for self love. Through TikTok challenges, Snapchat filters and more, we got just shy of 6million Gen Z people to take a stance and recruit into the activist mindset of The Body Shop, taking time out by telling the world they will be right back, as they are too busy loving themselves.
This time we had a new self doubt trigger in our sight: Love Island. Whilst a form of entertainment and joy for many, for others, the infamous reality show has become synonymous with fuelling self-doubt with unrealistic representations of beauty, love and lifestyle. So we wanted to inject some Self Love into Love Island - and remind viewers to love themselves.
Designed to intentionally juxtapose with the glossy content, we will ‘target Love Island with linear TV spots, BVOD, social channels and contextual display. Across these channels, we will be flooding the digital conversation around Love Island sharing a galvanising message of self-love and self-care. The activity is focused on the week of Casa Amor - handpicked for its notorious drama, self doubt and ruthless recoupling with a teaser trailer for the week prior.
Creative developed by WaxOn nods to reality shows but with a The Body Shop twist. Introducing Fran, Olivia and Leila, ‘Self Love Street’ will show a group of housemates struggle with the challenges of modern life. But in a moment of defiance, each chose to act against self-doubt, as we see them transition to powerful expressions of self-love…
Let’s fight self-doubt together,
Join the self-love uprising.
* The Body Shop global research was conducted between November 22 and December 8, 2020, staggered across 21 countries. 22,619 respondents including adults aged 18 and older.
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