amika, the Brooklyn-based haircare brand, announced the debut of its latest campaign launching on October 27, 2020, entitled “All Hair Is Welcome,” which celebrates the brand’s mission of amplifying inclusivity, diversity, and friendship. The campaign is set to underscore these values that propel the brand to be “a friend to hair, hairstylists, to her, him, them and you.” In addition to the visual campaign, amika will also reveal updated brand messaging. The fine-tuned messaging will additionally highlight amika’s cruelty-free ethos and cleaner ingredient philosophy that the brand has maintained from its inception as well as its commitment to the environment.
The All Hair Is Welcome campaign will launch with bold images and a series of videos that will be shared across social media and used in digital advertising initiatives. The hair in the campaign images was styled by amika’s Global Artistic Director, Naeemah LaFond, as well as Mischa G and Jamie Brice. The All Hair Is Welcome video features an array of actors, influencers and everyday people—including parents of employees—and was entirely self-filmed in the subjects’ own homes during the quarantine.
The video was initially scheduled to be created in early Spring 2020, however, plans came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced amika to pivot its strategy for both the location and messaging. The original video concept articulated amika as a brand for everybody and showcased complex, individual hair journeys, and now also voices how the current state of the world impacts the way people care for their hair and highlights the importance of friendship and community.
“From its inception, we felt that our brand is our community, and we have always included our community in everything that we do. The concept of the All Hair Is Welcome campaign is to have our community speak to what the brand stands for in their own voice,” shares Vita Raykhman, amika’s co-founder and creative director. “We are continuously inspired by individuality and we wanted to bring that to the forefront of this campaign rather than conceal it behind a shoot that was overly styled. We worked with an amazingly unique group of people to represent the brand’s real commitment to diversity. While we did have to pivot from the original concept for the video shoot, we loved getting into the worlds of those featured, and in a way, the campaign turned out even better than we expected as it added to the authenticity.”
The new campaign coincides with the brand’s updated and fully articulated messaging that will be featured across all platforms. amika worked with GoodQues, a branding consultancy based in New York, to leverage their proprietary research tools to craft a tone of voice, persona, and brand statement that was true to amika’s DNA and reflective of its community. The full brand statement can be viewed on its website, loveamika.com. Additionally, the updated brand messaging coincides with a website redesign to reflect the new positioning and evoke the brand’s friendly and approachable spirit.
“amika is known for our fun, approachable packaging, and high-performance products, but we felt our existing messaging wasn’t clearly articulating our purpose or mission. Now more than ever, people want to support brands who share their values while still meeting their requirements for product efficacy, customer experience and accessibility,” states Chelsea Riggs, amika’s brand president. “Although amika has evolved immensely since its inception in 2007, our DNA hasn’t changed.
In the early days of building the brand, we were very much industry ‘outsiders’ and saw the beauty industry through a different lens. The viewpoint of what was considered beautiful was depicted on a limited spectrum—whether that meant excluding flaws, ages, or even skin colors and hair type. That did not sit well with us, and so we built a company of like-minded people to bring this vision to life. By clarifying who we are, we will continue to attract like-minded people, whether that’s customers, employees, or business partners, and will give everyone that interacts with the brand a renewed sense of purpose to ensure that all are welcome, always.”
amika recognizes and takes responsibility for the crucial need for diversity not only internally as a company but also externally—whether that is in the creative assets the brand shares, analyzing their decision-making process, partnering with black-owned businesses or codifying its commitment to diversity. In 2020, amika will donate $25,000 to organizations that uplift the BIPOC community.
Its first donation went towards the Know Your Rights Camp. This organization’s mission is to “advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders.” In 2021 and beyond, the brand has committed to working internally and making consistent donations to organizations dedicated to supporting the BIPOC community.
They built a company of like-minded people to bring this vision to life.