L’ORÉAL · KIEHL’S SINCE 1851 · GLOBAL SOCIAL
How does one brand stay consistent across 60+ local markets?
Across five regions, local teams needed a shared way to determine and execute what Kiehl’s sounded and looked like — turnkey enough to use, flexible enough to localize.
THE PROBLEM
60+ local markets, one brand voice to hold — many markets with no social team at all.
THE MOVE
Kiehl’s first global social function: strategy, style guide, operating playbook, and an in-house video studio.
THE RECEIPT
+40% organic reach year over year across 60+ markets, two Webby wins — and a video strategy still running a decade later.
ROLE
Head of Global Social Marketing · In-house · L’Oréal / Kiehl’s Since 1851 Global
REMIT
Global integrated strategy · Content systems · Organizational design · Creative development · Global AOR oversight · 360 campaigns
DIRECT CONTRIBUTION
Built and ran Kiehl’s first global social marketing function for 60+ markets across 5 regions, including: · Global social-first strategy · Style guide and operating playbook · An in-house how-to video studio · The integrated engine behind two Webby-winning campaigns
THE OPERATING PROBLEM
A 160+ year-old brand built from word-of-mouth was practically made for social.
As Kiehl’s first-ever Head of Global Social Marketing, I was tasked with building a social-first team and global strategy… that could stand up to 60+ local realities.
My global team developed the strategy and content engine; local markets adapted and ran it. Many had little or no dedicated social headcount.
The system therefore had to carry judgment alongside direction: enough structure to make the brand recognizable and enough latitude to remain useful and relevant locally.
THE CONNECTION
Consistency had to become a decision tool.
60+ markets meant 60+ versions of every content decision. The integrated strategy and style guide gave every market a way to check its own work against one voice before anything shipped.
THE SYSTEM
The mature system joined a 57-page creative style guide with a 128-slide operating playbook.
It defined voice, visual territories, franchise-specific surfaces and props, content sources, frequency, and even caption length.
The goal was a useful how-to framework a local team could pick up and run.
Turn brand character into working rules… with range.
THE LEARNING LOOP
Make the guide capable of changing its mind.
Rules came from evidence, including semiotic analysis and normalized cross-market comparison of Kiehl’s top and bottom performing posts.
An 80/20 model protected the strongest core activity while reserving space for tests, so the global standard could keep learning instead of hardening into a template.
AN ENDURING GLOBAL HOW-TO VIDEO STRATEGY
Ongoing analysis of performance and best practices led to a streamlined creative process for briefing, concepting, capturing, and sharing educational video content for every product launch, ingredient story, and skincare concern — informed by global and local market Google and YouTube search trends.
As part of the strategy, my team also launched Kiehl’s first in-house global how-to video studio.
This video strategy, developed in 2016 — including the series, formats, and best practices — is still in effect at Kiehl’s today, over a decade later, and content captured by my team is still in global use across Kiehl’s e-comm, retailer.com, and social channels.
THE RECEIPTS
A system built for scale, with the evidence labeled honestly.
60+
Local markets across five regions
600+
Pieces of content developed annually
+40%
Organic reach, year over year across 60+ markets
+25%
Organic engagement
Plus a couple of Webby award-winning social campaigns.
Kiehl’s Act Any Age
An “anti-aging” campaign that was anything but.
Age is just a number. So Kiehl’s launched a social-first brand campaign to complement a global re-push of the legendary Super Multi-Corrective Cream, inviting people to embrace the age they feel.
The hero video was wildly popular — including going “viral” in China with hundreds of millions of Weibo views.
The campaign also won the Webby Award for Social in the Fashion & Beauty category.
View the Webby Awards campaign entry →
Read the Fast Company coverage →
The hero ingredient in Kiehl’s Oil Eliminator Moisturizer was Aerolite, a porous, lightweight material based on NASA’s aerogel technology originally designed for space applications. So we decided to celebrate the product’s launch on Earth by also launching it into space.
Using a weather balloon and GoPro, we sent Oil Eliminator 120,000 feet above the earth. An accompanying UGC contest gave fans the opportunity to have their faces printed on 3-D printed astronaut figurines, which were sent up on a subsequent space excursion.
The campaign garnered Kiehl’s another Webby Award for Social in the Fashion & Beauty category.
Kiehl’s Oil Eliminator: Put Space on Your Face
Men don’t love skincare. But they do love space.