Undnyable, an out-sourced in-house marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon, partners with byte, a Los Angeles based at-home invisible aligner start up, to create their first brand campaign, “Don’t tell me to smile more,” was launched July 15th, 2019.
The campaign, starting in social and digital and then moving to broadcast, shifts focus from the hundreds of smiling faces that blanket the cosmetic dentistry category and gives back ownership of a woman’s smile to her. Tapping into the cultural misstep of women consistently being harassed by the statement “You should smile more,” the campaign features eight women from different walks of life refusing to abide, proclaiming, “Don’t tell me to smile more.”
In the social campaign we see the same cross section of women; a mother, a student, a business owner, a trainer, a musician, an artist, in portrait form, emblazoned with the bold graphic, “Don’t tell me to smile more.”
In the :30 and :60 digital and broadcast films, the same women speak directly to camera opening with “You should know I’m not here to smile for you.” They go on to describe that they are not “an object to be admired” and that they “don’t need to smile to be better at their job.” As the films progress, the women reveal that when they do feel like smiling it will be “powerful,” “beautiful,” and “have its own meaning.” But ultimately their smile “won’t be for you, it’s for me.” Finally wrapping up in a series of portraits mimicking the social campaign, paired with the campaign line “Don’t tell me to smile more” and byte’s new tagline, “Straighter, whiter teeth for a smile that’s all your own.”
Justin Hooper, founder of Undnyable and co-author of the campaign describes how their team came upon the strategy and executions, “When you look at the category, it’s flooded with imagery of women smiling, with little regard as to why they’re all being asked to smile-other than vanity. Visually it’s a sea of same, and strategically the competition broadly and universally identifies confidence as their mission, but none are living up to it. So, as we partnered with byte to hone in on their brand mission, we knew we had to stand out by standing up for something.”
“byte believes that everyone deserves to feel good about their smile, but they by no means need to share it with anyone if they don’t want to. We’ve been seeing society and other brands telling and implying that women should smile more, when the reality is that your smile is yours to own and do with as you please,” says Sarah McDonald, Head of Brand Marketing at byte.
“It’s a bold stance, and a bit of a risk, for an at-home invisible aligner company in the health and beauty category to not feature their models smiling. But the more people who we shared our initial social concepts with, the bigger, more passionate and abundantly positive the responses became,” says Melissa Hooper, Executive Producer on the campaign.
The campaign launched in July and can been seen at www.DontTellMeToSmileMore.com
