Kaya Skin Bar

BACKGROUND

There are over 100 Kaya Skin Clinics across the country and in the Middle East.The service in the clinics are rendered through a combination of dermatologist consultations, therapies and proprietary product formulations. For over 10 years, the Kaya brand was known for its dermatological expertise and clinical consultation experience. Kaya Skin Clinic saw an opportunity to extend its brand to a new context - moving from a dermatologist led chain of 'clinics' with a doctor at every store, to standalone spaces selling only products - without consultation of a dermatologist. This new format, called The Kaya Skin Bar, would be situated in malls and high streets.

CHALLENGE

This new proposition to make the dermatological expertise of KAYA Skin Clinic easily accessible through a product-only store threw us several challenges from the perspective of orchestrating the service to work together to feel like the Kaya experience that customers had grown to trust.

• The new stores would seek to address a far younger audience with motivations quite different from the older audience of the Kaya Skin Clinic.
• Malls and the shop- in shop format create an altogether new context for Kaya.
• How would the service work without the dermatologist? The products on shelf not only needed to be independently browsable, but also the approach to selling had to be consultative and customised.
• Small format stores (around 500 sqft) with the possibility of product ranges which could be added in the future

RESEARCH

Our research work focussed on understanding key customer types, their journeys and motivations and the experience gaps in the new Kaya Skin Bar format that customers were used to in the Clinics. Mapping the service experience allowed us to spot, evaluate and fix critical gaps in experience through design interventions.

RESPONSE

This meant orchestrating touch points around brand, space, technology and human interactions to create the new Skin Bar experience. 

The Brand strategy focussed on "beauty prescriptions" and from this, stemmed all aspects of brand work, which we executed completely in house. Kaya's new identity, store signage, product range architecture, colour systems, nomenclature and descriptors for every product, including packaging design were synched up to reinforce each other. 

We worked closely with space designers to bring to life modular shelving units, lighting and shelf categorization that would allow the customer to make an effective choice. Every time detail like mirrors, bins and sizes of display units were planned and executed. A script for staff, in the absence of a dermatologist was a key touch-point as the typical Kaya customer was very well informed about their own skin issues. 

Technology had a key role to play is allowing the customer to make an informed choice but was also identified as a key pain point in the journey, the digital app had left customers feeling overwhelmed and confused. The app was redesigned in a way that a person could choose their 'easily identifiable issue'. The app would then relate that to a basic set of products suitable for them - making the decision making easier for a customer.