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How The Body Shop Wrote a Self-love Anthem Using Employee Voices

Did you know that nearly 1 in 2 people feel more self-doubt than self-love?

Partnering with the market research leader Ipsos, the cosmetics company The Body Shop conducted a survey to find out how people around the world rate their self-worth, happiness, and wellbeing. The results they discovered were shocking and heart-breaking, revealing a self-love crisis that needed to be addressed.

In a podcast with the Managing Director of Woodreed Jo Moffatt, The Body Shop’s Global Internal Engagement, Campaigns and Communications Specialist Anaïs Nebel discussed the results of the Self Love Index and how the company set out to unify people.

Using music to promote self-love

According to Nebel, the survey’s findings reaffirmed how vital it is for businesses – especially those in the beauty industry – to talk about and promote self-love. With this in mind, The Body Shop decided to launch a self-love campaign and do something that had never been done before. Explaining how she came up with the idea to write and produce a self-love anthem, Nebel shared:

“I thought, what if we created a song that was designed to empower you through its lyrics and melody? What if you had a song that truly resonated with you, so that the more you listened to it, the more empowered you’d feel?”

Taking the first step to create its anthem, The Body Shop sent out a survey to employees, asking them three questions relating to self-love and empowerment. After receiving their responses, the team behind the campaign found the common themes and used them as inspiration for the song’s lyrics. Some of these themes included the feeling of not being enough, being proud of overcoming illnesses and wanting to move away from negative body images.

It is interesting to note that the self-love anthem featured people’s answers word-for-word and even included real voice messages sent by employees from around the world. Discussing people’s reactions to this, Nebel revealed that some employees had tears in their eyes as they recognised their words in the song’s lyrics and heard the voices of their colleagues.

When asked what advice The Body Shop could give to other businesses who wish to make a difference, Nebel responded: “It’s about understanding what your community needs and is looking for, genuinely listening to them and then taking a risk because good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.”
Anaïs Nebel

Anaïs Nebel

Lipsy London Group Culture & Communications Manager
Anaïs is a culture leader and brand strategy expert, passionate about people empowerment. She leads culture and communications for Lipsy, a fashion and beauty group made up of 7 brands including Victoria’s Secret UK and Gap UK. Anaïs is known for creating out-of-the box engagement campaigns that create vibrant connections and bring the soul of a company to life.

She started her career in consulting before working for global retailers such as Estée Lauder Companies and The Body Shop. She has a unique understanding of internal and external brand experience - and how to make it resonate - having worked in marketing and customer experience before going into leadership development and people experience. In her current role, she looks after Wellbeing, Charity, Internal Comms, Employee Listening and Employer Branding. 
Jo Moffatt

Jo Moffatt

Engage for Success Partnerships & Strategy Director

Jo has been a volunteer with the Engage for Success movement since its launch.  As Partnerships & Strategy Director she sits on the Advisory Board and co-hosts the weekly Engage for Success radio show, interviewing guests from across the engagement world. The EFS agenda is absolutely aligned with Jo’s vision ‘to make workplaces better places to be’. As passionate about brands and their power to move people as she is about employee engagement and its vital role in delivering a high performing organisation, Jo put the disciplines together as founder of a leading creative consultancy, leveraging the creative and insight led approach of the advertising world to engage employees inside organisations. Jo becomes almost evangelical about the power a well-positioned and consistently delivered brand has as a catalyst for employee engagement and business success - creating cultures that make workplaces work, for employees as well as shareholders and stakeholders.

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