The Rebrand of SheaMoisture

Author

Anna LeChard, Western Michigan UniversityFollow

Date of Defense

4-21-2022

Date of Graduation

4-2022

Department

Art

First Advisor

Ryan Lewis

Second Advisor

Nicholas Kuder

Abstract

I would like to start with why I chose the company SheaMoisture to rebrand. SheaMoisture was introduced to me by a hairstylist. I was looking for a product that was affordable and healthy for my hair. Before knowing of this company I would not have picked it off the shelf for myself. Not many hair care companies are affordable, hair type specific, and ethically sounded meaning they have good company values, an interesting origin story, and contain clean ingredients. However, with all these good things said, I did not understand that with the current branding in place which is why I chose SheaMoisture to rebrand. To explain SheaMoisture further, the backstory starts with the founder Sofi Tucker, a pioneering mother of four and entrepreneur, who sold Shea Butter, African Black Soap, and homemade beauty products in Sierra Leone in 1912. I then went on to research the company’s values and ingredients to learn more about what they really meant to us as consumers. After researching the company, I then began to think what I wanted the brand identity to look like. By asking the question, how can I take what SheaMoisture is already doing and showcase the backstory and teach the consumer? For my audience, I am targeting Gen Z and Millennials between the ages of 20 to 35. The consumer is socially responsible by caring where their products come from and people who want to be conscious consumers by being concerned about what they are consuming. Also, different types of hair require different needs, so my audience are also people who are interested in their own ­­­­­­hair health. The goals for my project were to teach the consumer about ingredient safety and allow the consumer to learn about their individual hair type while also honoring SheaMoisture’s backstory and foundation. I began looking at Kente cloth traditional to Ghana and colors inspired by Sierra Leone. Kente cloth by nature contains meanings such as political messages and are made up of bright abstract structured shapes confined in reoccurring tiles. I then began investigating what the Kente cloth could look like. I made a company tile to represent the company’s logo and I made a hair type tile to represent the individual products hair type as geometric forms. With this all said, I then designed eight hair care bottles for type 1, type 2, type 3, and type 4 hair that encompass the simplistic vision I started with, with a touch of heritage from the Kente cloth inspired pattern. The colors are inspired by Sierra Leone. However, the colors have been desaturated for a lighter feeling. On the back of the packaging is a QR code that takes you to an app I created. The app teaches the consumer about their individual hair type and allows them to educate themselves on becoming a more conscious consumer. Lastly, I designed an in-store display of the product to show the audience what the product would behave like in a store setting.

Recommended Citation

LeChard, Anna, "The Rebrand of SheaMoisture" (2022). Honors Theses. 3556.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/3556

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access