Refreshing Slick Hair's Branding | Willow & Blake

Imitation and flattery.

Slick’s hero product is routinely copied, all the way down to its packaging (one Amazon copycat even stole images of Mia’s head shown on the original packaging). Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery—but it’s also IP theft. And seriously annoying. Slick’s new strategy and visuals needed to claim the title of first Slick Stick, while also encapsulating their expanded range of wax sticks, accessories and styling tools.

For the overall brand positioning and personality, we proposed that the brand brings “a touch of slick to everyday life”. This holds true through effortless styling, on-the-go tools, elevated packaging and gorgeous social content.  We recommended that they pitch the Slick Stick as a handbag essential, just as necessary as a lip balm or a tampon. This could be reinforced with flat lays, what’s in my bag videos, or the creation of everyday-but-aspirational content of the Slick Stick used on a night out or before a meeting. This positioning would help reclaim its iconic status.

The pink problem.

On top of dealing with copycats, Slick had a pink problem. Their once identifiable colour has now bled all across their competitors, as the pink craze of 2023 leaves its lingering mark on shelves. Their use of pink was also inconsistent, with different shades across their vessels, boxes, and web presence. Even if it were consistent, pink reads as young, and Slick’s demographic was sliding below their target age range.

Their new colour palette needed to claim their brand equity in pink but update it to create consistency, to age up, and to distinguish it from competitors. Aligning with their overall strategy to ‘bring a touch of slick to everyday life’, we refined their pink to one, strong shade and introduced a more mature red, beige, and charcoal to elevate it.

Slick-ifying Slick.

Slick’s sales channels are varied; they sell online, in Australian FMCG, and at prestige beauty retailers globally. That means their new visuals needed to hold up against the high-end shelf landscape of Sephora and stand out in the shouty aisles of Coles. 

Slick’s previous logo was easily replicable on Canva, so we gave it some touch ups to make it more ownable and mature. We tweaked each individual letter to enhance its roundness, countering this by condensing points in the font for added impact. The S and full stop from this logo were transformed into a powerful, bespoke logomark.

Our design team’s visual guidelines introduced a primary serif and secondary sans serif font, aiming for a sense of balance and space. We created guidelines for talent-centred imagery which still featured clean, colour-filled photography, but with emphasis on slightly more sophisticated expressions. Examples of out of home designs encouraged the use of negative space, foregrounding talent-centred imagery and copy written in their new personality. Pops of their new brand red, charcoal, and beige punctuate the pink for a grown-up sense of vibrancy.

This new strategy and visual identity will support Slick Hair as it expands into the prestige beauty market, while maintaining its stronghold in Australian FMCG and D2C. It’s a distinct step in a refreshed and grown-up direction. The product ingenuity remains, it just needed a comb through and a touch up.