DIME BEAUTY
DIME Beauty had already built a loyal following through its effective, clean skincare and strong digital presence, but the brand identity hadn’t caught up yet to the ambition of the business. Our challenge was to create a unified, elevated strategy that repositioned DIME as a modern masstige wellness brand rooted in its mission: clean beauty that works, without the markup.
I led strategic research alongside the creative director, providing valuable insights and valuable action items to the client team. We presented in person during an all day strategy workshop and left with fully aligned stakeholders ahead of the design phases of the project.
Brand + Audience Analysis
Competitive Audit
Pricing Audit
SWOT Analysis
We began with a comprehensive brand strategy sprint, using research and analysis to define what DIME stood for, where it could grow, and how it could show up with greater confidence in a noisy market.
Strategic foundation:
1. Brand Audit
The brand audit revealed strong brand equity and community loyalty, but also a system relying heavily on generic clean beauty cues: soft minimalism, inconsistent product naming, and limited emotional expression. We saw clear opportunity to build a more distinctive brand world through editorial storytelling, cohesive packaging hierarchy, and visual expression that aligned skincare, fragrance, body, and makeup under one cohesive umbrella.
Audience research further illuminated DIME’s appeal to smart, value-driven consumers — people who wanted clean products with clarity, routine support, and trust. This insight laid the groundwork for repositioning DIME as a wellness brand with real credibility and everyday resonance.
2. Competitive Audit
In order to understand where DIME had the capacity to grow, we conducted analyses of brands to understand their positioning, core audience segments, visual expression, messaging + awareness, and core equities across packaging and brand touchpoints. The goal was to understand key players across all the different categories to understand how each segment of DIME’s offerings could evolve. Some insights we gained were:
Your coolness will come from being coveted, not from a celebrity founder, playful copy or bright packaging. Consumers will be drawn to you because you're effortlessly chic, approachable and refined.
Use off-pack expressions to bring more personality and flair to the brand while allowing packaging to remain minimal for a prestigious feel
3. Pricing Audit
DIME exists in the masstige space: elevated enough to feel premium, yet accessible enough to build routine with. Our pricing audit confirmed they didn’t need to compete on price or prestige, but instead lead with a clear value story: skincare and wellness that doesn’t compromise on quality, experience, or safety. This positioning informed our recommendation to shift away from promotion-heavy storytelling and toward a more aspirational, benefit-led narrative.
4. SWOT Analysis
Our SWOT synthesis showed strong internal assets, a growing customer base, founder credibility, and clean formulation rigor, paired with external opportunities to unify the brand, build more emotional resonance, and lead with education over fear. The strategy became clear: evolve DIME from a fast-growing clean skincare brand into a confident, editorially led wellness brand that could scale across categories without losing its soul.
Overall, these insights led to a focused creative brief rooted in five core principles: confident over cautious, editorial over engineered, transparent over trendy, clean without compromise, and wellness-wide rather than skincare-small. The identity system that followed would bring these ideas to life, positioning DIME as a brand that doesn’t just participate in clean beauty, but reshapes what it can be.
The new DIME brand launched in May 2025, marking a bold new chapter for the business. I helped shape the strategic foundation that informed the refreshed identity across positioning, packaging, digital voice, and expression. Since launch, DIME has expanded its product line across skincare, body, and fragrance, now unified under a cohesive brand system. The brand shows up with renewed clarity and confidence across social, retail, and campaign touchpoints. It’s been exciting to see the work come to life and to help define the next era of DIME Beauty.
Following the strategy phase, I continued working on the DIME account to help implement the new brand system across key touchpoints. I served as the primary designer for Instagram, creating feed posts and story content that brought the refreshed identity to life on social. I also supported photoshoot production by contributing to art direction and styling guidance, and helped design retail assets to ensure consistency between in-store and digital brand expression. This work helped translate strategy into a cohesive and elevated presence across channels.
Team Kudos:
Tether: Strategy: Kat Rooney (ACD), Account: Madeline Waite, Creative: Bronson Folz-Edwards (ACD), Olivia Lane (Creative), Steve Barrett (CD), James Halada (CD)
DIME: Andreina Gutmann (Head of Marketing), Cyndi Isgrig (CEO), Tatym Anderson (Director of Brand)