After embracing body hair in its summer campaign last year, women’s shaving brand Billie has returned with another push designed to challenge traditional beauty standards. The new work, “Red, White and You Do You,” will debut Wednesday, in time for beach season. To that end, a 30-second anthem spot showcases unshaven women in swimsuits, with close-ups of their hair down there.
The new work is a continuation of the New York-based brand’s “goal to talk about female body hair,” says co-founder Georgina Gooley, noting that shaving is a choice. One year ago, the brand, which started selling in 2017, ran “Project Body Hair,” a similar endeavor to normalize hair everywhere. Billie makes a point of using real body hair in all its ads, Gooley says.
“The pressure [for swimsuit bodies] gets in the way of enjoying summer,” she says. “We focus on that idea and saying, ‘When you’re putting on a bathing suit whether you choose to remove your body hair or not is completely up to you.’”
Billie, which counts Serena Williams as an investor, is one of a host of direct-to-consumer brands disrupting beauty norms with tell-it-like-it is messaging. Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, recently wrote about the company as a brand disruptor.
“Unfettered by legacy messaging, and unburdened by the incumbency of customers, they go for relevance, especially among younger consumers,” wrote Chatterjee in an April piece for Ad Age. “They reject static, monochromatic standards—namely white, heterosexual and colonial.”
The strategy is proving successful. Billie was recently named to Ad Age’s America’s Hottest Brands list. The startup has also logged retail partnerships with Madewell and Kith.
The new digital campaign was created in-house by Billie’s seven-person marketing team, which includes four creatives.