Wella Shockwaves

Job title: Marketing Director Wella Consumer Products, UK with EU responsibilities

ShockWaves Euro-Branding Case

The first teen styling brand in the UK, launched in punk era, then followed by Studio Line from L’Oreal which becomes market leader. Shockwaves was known as New Wave in some countries, Design in others and had different packaging, graphics and formulas in each country.

As Lead country for Wella Consumer Products in Europe, our job was to find the ‘commonalities’ and differences within the brand across the ‘Wella World’ and to reposition the brand into one single Euro-Brand concept.

Shockwaves was finally relaunched in two stages to become a Euro-Brand using new start-out  models Kate Moss and Mario Sorrenti (who meet on shoot and go on to do Calvin Klein with Mario as photographer) and regained market leadership from L’Oreal Studio Line – a position it held for more than 10 years…….


…..until P&G decide to relaunch it again. Here’s what they did! I think that the brand has been executed! read this explanation.

The moral of the story is that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” Brand managers often do more damage to their brands than their competitors can. I hope that Shockwaves Belgium and other countries stick to the funky design.


Wella is a Proctor & Gamble company