Birchbox, the UK’s number 1 beauty subscription box, has launched its first national TV campaign. The advertisements, created by PPC Creative, will air on a range of entertainment, movie, music and lifestyle channels, including Sky Atlantic and Sky Living.

Birchbox has built its brand through social media and word-of-mouth. The UK is the company’s fastest growing market globally and saw a 63% increase of subscribers in 2017 compared to the previous year.  Last year the company shipped 1.5 million boxes to over 150,000 subscribers across the UK. 

Despite strong growth in the UK over the past five years, research carried out in 2017 identified awareness as a major barrier to customers subscribing, leading Birchbox to make the decision to expand offline in order to reach a new audience through television advertising.

"Once women know about Birchbox, they love it, so our next stage of growth will come from reaching and educating more of our potential target customers. We have had great deal of success online and found it a powerful tool," commented Janis Thomas, marketing director, Birchbox UK.

"Now that it is time to for us reach new audiences and test new communication channels, we chose television advertising as it is becoming increasingly sophisticated in its targeting abilities. We’re a disruptive force in the beauty ecommerce space providing customers with a tailored service to suit their needs.”

Demonstrating the strength of its relationship with its customers, Birchbox ran a competition on Facebook and Instagram to pick genuine subscribers to feature in the adverts. Subscribers were asked to submit a short video of themselves explaining why they should be picked, with two winners featuring in the TV advert.

This is not the beauty company’s first move offline to a more traditional approach. Last November Birchbox opened its first UK pop-up store on Carnaby Street in London. The store mirrored its online approach to beauty, where customers shop by category rather than by brand.