After acquiring women's shaving preparation brand Skintimate from S.C. Johnson & Sons last year, Energizer Holdings looked to cement the company's consumer relationships with a program that targeted girls ages 13 to 18. Dubbed Skintimate Studios, the concept involved a national competition to find 18 teens who would learn firsthand how to produce a 12-minute film.
The contest kicked off in March, garnering nearly 6,000 entries—which Skintimate brand manager Joanna DiDomenico described as "an amazing response." Winning candidates were then divided into two groups of nine and flown to California in July to produce two different films. Following three weeks of online voting, the girls were flown to New York to watch the premiere of the winning movie on September 14 at Skylight West.
"It was an extremely successful program, and it really went from beginning to end. Not only did the girls learn how to produce their films, but they also learned a little bit about marketing and getting people to vote for their film," explained DiDomenico. "We had over 220,000 people vote on the films in just three weeks, and it was a very close call between the two movies, with only about 500 votes separating the two. They drove a ton of traffic on Facebook pages and the Skintimate Studios Web site, allowing people to see what they'd created and spur a lot of excitement around the program."
The market segment of 13- to 18-year-olds is not a new target for Skintimate, but just one of the many demographic groups it hopes to solidify its presence with. "We focus a lot on the signature scents line with the younger age group because it has such high appeal," said DiDomenico. "The younger age group absolutely loves the variety of scents—we hear such wonderful things from all of our consumers about how it affects their mood, how they like to have all the different fragrances, and that they try something different every time. So there's a real relationship there and a real love for the product."
As for continued consumer marketing efforts and events, DiDomenico explains that Skintimate is "not planning on the same program, but we will be announcing another very exciting program very soon. There will definitely be additional things that you'll be seeing."
