Unfound goes beyond superficial stereotypes for collagen brand Ingenious

Like most naturally occurring supplements, collagen has been around for a long time. However, it has seen a surge in popularity in recent years that shows no signs of slowing.

In the UK alone, the collagen market size is expected to grow from just over £21 million in 2023 to £29.7 million by 2028. Despite the supplement being known for bringing a glow back to your skin, most of the brands in this category are, well, a little lacklustre.

Think superficial beauty, white models in their 50s, and – in some cases – even baseless claims of what the product can do. But UK collagen brand Ingenious is trying to do things differently with a new brand designed by Unfound Studio to match its exceptional supplement offering.

With 14 years of trading under its belt, its approach to science has resulted in one of the best products on the market. In fact, it is the first clinically proven collagen and has a patented capsule that can only be digested at the exact point in your body where the ingredients are needed.

Unfound client director Tebo Mpanza says: "The beauty of the Ingenious brief is that the product really works, so the brand just had to communicate that product truth directly to the right people."

Understanding the daily rituals of the Ingenious people was key to getting this project right, as the product needed to fit seamlessly into their lives so they could finish the course and see the benefits. Mpanza also notes that they intentionally moved away from visual cues of the beauty industry, "rejecting some of the superficial conventions of the sector in exchange for a focus on wellness, vitality, recovery".

While this did help Ingenious stand out in its category, it was essentially a happy coincidence, according to Mpanza, as the main aim was to do justice to the product innovation and its broader impact on people's wellness.

Unfound worked on everything from building on the brand's positioning and in-depth landscape analysis to developing a comprehensive visual and verbal identity, executing CGIs, designing their site and packaging, and creating a hero campaign.

Research revealed that it's not just age that reduces the body's ability to produce collagen, though this is the overwhelming message in the collagen space. Pollution, processed foods, stress and alcohol can all contribute to the depletion of collagen in the body.

When Unfound learnt that Ingenious's unique capsule protects a consistent and repeatable dose of ingredients delivered at exactly the right point in the body, creative director Jay Topham said, "It felt like a simple, scientifically smart anti-dote to stressors of modern living". As a result, the new internal positioning is based on a purer idea of wellness and communicates Ingenious as a supplement that protects people's modern lifestyles, targeting city dwellers and diverse go-getters.

Topham explains how this influenced "the image style, model selection, the materiality of the brand", and more. "We created a blur device for lifestyle imagery to highlight the areas the product protects, blurring out the background to suggest a targeted approach, much like the capsule itself," he adds.

Ingenious's new wordmark was designed to reference city signage and is supported by a brand stamp, serving as a mark of approval that acknowledges its status as the first clinically proven collagen.

If the brand really wanted to stand out in the sector, its verbal identity had to be spot on. Topham describes it as "a confident tone of voice that shows it's 'in-tune' to enrich people's unique lives, 'in-the-know' with a research-led and integrity-driven approach, and 'in opposition' to the inaccuracies of competitors and collagen claims that can't be backed up".

Lifestyle imagery was also key since Ingenious wanted to solidify its reputation as a benefit-driven brand. Topham says: "We depict their customers in their busy, diverse, modern environments, highlighting Ingenious as the protection you need.

"We led with the fact that the product keeps users at their best in everyday life, so we showed them actually living it."

To reinforce the innovation and spotlight the scientific product imagery, Unfound also created dynamic 3D CGIs of the product.

In-person retail offers a huge opportunity to attract new consumers, so Unfound conducted detailed store audits to gain insights into the packaging design concepts. The team opted for a pouch to signal the brand's on-the-go nature and gave the logo a prominent space to improve the memorability of the name.

Speaking on the challenges they encountered, Topham says, "It's a supplement brand, so trading standards always like to get involved. Brands with deeply proven science must be careful about what they claim, a concept we are really getting to grips with as a studio.

"This drives packaging decisions, dictates timelines, and adapts how the brand sounds at the product level."

Unfound also wanted to retain Ingenious's loyal customers who had already been using the product for a while, so it was important not to isolate them while bringing in new people.