How Cetaphil rebuilt its brand for every skin and every screen

Sensitive skin, scaled differently

For Alicia Criner, marketing isn’t about choosing between generations. It’s about designing for nuance.

Speaking at Shoptalk 2025, the Galderma executive laid out how her team rebranded Cetaphil with a wide aperture. The campaign needed to speak to Gen Z, yes but also to legacy customers who had been using the product for decades.

The result? A sensitive skin message that wasn’t just about conditions. It was about moments. “Who here has had a sunburn? A mosquito bite? Been in dry wind?” she asked the audience. “That’s all sensitive skin.”

The brand’s new positioning—“For everyone’s sensitive skin”—was designed to feel inclusive, while still allowing for personalization across age, channel, and lifestyle.

Fashion Week, with a derm twist

Criner’s team launched the campaign with a moment designed to punch above its weight: New York Fashion Week. But unlike typical beauty brand activations, Cetaphil brought dermatologists to the runway.

Models and guests learned about the link between fabrics and skin sensitivity. Medical authority met social buzz. “We had to show up our way,” she said. “Science, skin, and fabric wrapped in glam.”

The event earned over 5 billion media impressions and created a strong enough signal to extend across Amazon, Walmart, and the brand’s full retail media ecosystem.

Game Time Glow: dad and daughter, Gen Z and legacy

One of the campaign’s smartest pivots came at the Super Bowl. Inspired by the viral impact of a certain celebrity attending NFL games, Criner’s team built a father-daughter ad called “Game Time Glow.”

The ad showed a dad trying to bond with his daughter only to break through when he playfully uses Cetaphil under his eyes like eye black. The spot was light-hearted, but the message was layered: skin care is a shared ritual, and Cetaphil belongs to every generation.

Criner explained, “That’s how we spoke to Gen Z and to their parents without losing either.”

Building a rebrand with proof, not just planning

The campaign rollout was staged intentionally. Fashion Week was a media moment. Amazon’s skincare category takeover was a commercial one. Super Bowl was emotional.

Each was a different kind of proof point. “You can’t walk into a boardroom and ask for three years,” Criner said. “You need to show traction, momentum, and adaptability.”

Retail partners began to update their content. Influencers signed on. Creative and media strategies became omnichannel but in staggered waves, not a single splash.

AI that works in practice and in principle

Criner also shared how Cetaphil layered AI into the rebrand with care. Their “Skin by Cetaphil” tool, built with Perfect Corp, uses a facial scan to deliver skin scores and product recommendations.

But to ensure trust, the campaign leaned on real human skin not AI avatars. In one standout moment, the team used a faux out-of-home image of a cloud-shaped Cetaphil bottle, followed by real human interaction with the product on screen. “We drew the line on what could be AI and what had to be human,” she said.

Criner also introduced a 3-part AI framework used across her global role:

• Capability – what tech unlocks

• Creativity – what can scale content

• Productivity – what makes internal teams faster

All three played a role in how Cetaphil moved faster and stayed real.

Brand and commercial must meet in the middle

As a final note, Criner emphasized a shift she believes is overdue: brand marketers must become more commercial, and commercial teams more creative. “You can’t coupon people to death,” she said. “And you can’t build a brand just on moodboards.”

The rebrand succeeded, she argued, because the team blended narrative with numbers. Emotional with functional. Skin care with real care.

The lesson? Don’t market at generations. Market with them.

Independently Created. Not affiliated with Shoptalk.

ClickZ is a Contentive publication in the Events division