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E45 Different Days Reframes Skincare for Real British Life
E45's Different Days is a 2018 UK film campaign, created by Havas London, that repositions the brand away from clinical utility toward the emotional texture of everyday skin and everyday life, using documentary-style storytelling to connect a heritage skincare product with a contemporary British audience.
E45 carries considerable weight as a British skincare institution. According to e45.com, the cream was first formulated in 1952 by a Boots chemist responding to a customer's need to soothe and protect skin, and by 1963 physicians were actively directing patients toward the product for dry-skin conditions, as documented by e45.com. Decades of pharmacy shelving and clinical association had given E45 authority, but also a certain functional coldness — a reputation for treating problems rather than speaking to people. Different Days set out to change that register entirely.
Published in August 2018 in the United Kingdom, the campaign takes the form of a single film asset, placing it firmly in the long-form storytelling tradition that British advertising has long championed. The film is directed by Raine Allen-Miller, with cinematography by Rina Yang and narration delivered by Nicola Adams OBE — a combination of creative voices that signals an intention to move beyond the generic beauty industry aesthetic. Executive creative director Elliot Harris and creative director Dave Mygind led the work at Havas London, with copywriting and art direction by Joe Williams. Production was handled by Somesuch and Co, with media planned and placed by Zenith.
The campaign's central idea is structured around the premise that skin, like life, changes from one day to the next — that the same body carries different burdens, different joys, and different textures depending on what a day demands. In the United Kingdom, where consumers have grown increasingly sceptical of the aspirational perfection promoted by mainstream beauty advertising, this framing offered something more grounded and credible. Different Days earns a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100, reflecting a campaign with clear creative ambition and purposeful casting that stops short of full cultural breakthrough.
E45 entered 2018 facing a familiar tension for heritage brands. Its clinical credibility was a genuine asset, yet that same clinical character risked positioning it as a last resort rather than a first choice in a UK beauty market moving rapidly toward brands that communicated self-expression, inclusivity, and emotional resonance. Different Days was the strategic answer to that tension.
The broader market context made the timing deliberate. The global cosmetics market grew approximately five and a half percent in 2018, as reported by L'Oréal, while the skincare segment specifically outpaced that figure with growth of approximately nine percent, according to cosmeticsbusiness.com. In the United Kingdom, skincare was accelerating as a consumer priority, with shoppers willing to invest in products that spoke to their identity as well as their skin. Brands such as Nivea and Neutrogena — both well-established in the UK pharmacy and grocery channel where E45 has long competed — were investing in emotional and lifestyle-driven communications, raising the stakes for any challenger or heritage player seeking to retain relevance.
E45's strategic insight was that its honesty about skin — its willingness to acknowledge dryness, sensitivity, and imperfection — could be a differentiator rather than a liability. Where premium beauty brands in the United Kingdom were still trading on aspiration and idealised imagery, E45 had permission to go the other way. The decision to anchor the film in real, varied human experience, narrated by Nicola Adams OBE — an Olympic gold medallist and openly gay public figure with broad recognition across British culture — demonstrated that the brand understood its audience as whole people rather than skin types. Havas London's strategic framing turned a functional skincare brief into a values-led brand statement suited to the shifting priorities of the UK beauty industry in 2018.
Raine Allen-Miller directed Different Days. That single credit carries significant weight: Allen-Miller would go on to become one of the most distinctive voices in British commercial and dramatic filmmaking, and Different Days stands as an early demonstration of the observational sensitivity and rhythmic patience that would define her later work.
The film is shot by director of photography Rina Yang, whose framing brings a documentary warmth to the material. Rather than the controlled perfection of conventional beauty industry cinematography — smoothed skin under controlled light — Yang and Allen-Miller work with texture, with movement, and with the kind of unguarded moments that signal authenticity to a UK audience trained to detect artifice. The result is a visual language that feels closer to a short film than a product advertisement, which is precisely the intention behind the Different Days concept.
Narration by Nicola Adams OBE anchors the film's emotional register in a recognisable British voice. Adams brings authority without distance — her public profile as a sporting pioneer and her willingness to speak candidly about identity gave the campaign a narrator who could carry the central idea that skin, and life, are not uniform. The casting was not decorative; it was structural to the argument the film was making.
Creative director Dave Mygind and copywriter and art director Joe Williams constructed the script around the simple, expandable premise that days differ — and therefore skin differs. The writing avoids the inflated claims common to beauty industry advertising in the United Kingdom, trading efficacy language for emotional observation. Somesuch and Co, the production company, brought the organisational infrastructure to realise Allen-Miller's vision at a level of craft consistent with the film's ambitions. The single film asset is tightly concentrated — a deliberate choice that forces the creative to carry the full weight of the campaign without the diffusion of a multi-asset rollout.
No verified performance data for the E45 Different Days campaign is publicly available. No trade press reviews were documented in Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious, and no verifiable social media reaction data has been identified through Clapboard's research. That absence of measurable record does not diminish the campaign's analytical interest — it relocates it.
Structurally, Different Days made several choices that align with what evidence consistently shows works in British advertising. According to research from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, emotionally led campaigns in the United Kingdom tend to generate stronger long-term brand effects than rational or product-feature-led executions. E45's decision to invest in a single, well-crafted film — directed by Raine Allen-Miller, shot by Rina Yang, narrated by Nicola Adams OBE — reflects a confidence in emotional concentration over media saturation.
The campaign also made a structural bet on representation. In 2018, the UK beauty industry was beginning to face sustained public scrutiny over the range of bodies, skin types, and identities it chose to show. E45, with its pharmacy heritage and its formulation history rooted in treating real skin conditions, had genuine category permission to lead on this. Whether Different Days translated that structural permission into measurable commercial outcomes is not known from available public record.
What can be assessed is the quality of intent and creative alignment. The Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its brief with care and assembles a team capable of genuine craft, while falling short of the cultural impact that would have driven broader industry conversation and documented audience response. Different Days is a serious piece of work that deserved a louder reception than the public record shows it received.
E45 Different Days is a UK film campaign created by Havas London and published in August 2018. Directed by Raine Allen-Miller and narrated by Nicola Adams OBE, it repositions E45 from a clinical skincare product toward emotionally resonant, everyday storytelling for a contemporary British audience.
Raine Allen-Miller directed the Different Days film for E45. Allen-Miller worked alongside director of photography Rina Yang, with creative leadership from executive creative director Elliot Harris and creative director Dave Mygind at Havas London, and production delivered by Somesuch and Co.
Nicola Adams OBE narrates Different Days because her public profile as a pioneering British athlete carries authority and authenticity. Her presence signals that E45 is addressing whole people rather than skin conditions, aligning the brand with the values-led direction the UK beauty industry was moving toward in 2018.
E45 cream was launched in 1952 by a Boots chemist, according to e45.com. Physicians recognised its benefits for dry-skin conditions by 1963, and the brand expanded into pharmacies and retail in 1980. E45 was owned by Reckitt before being acquired by Karo Healthcare around 2022, as documented by Little Black Book.
E45 Different Days received a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100. The score reflects a campaign with genuine creative ambition, a strong directorial voice in Raine Allen-Miller, and purposeful casting, while stopping short of the cultural breakthrough that would have driven broader documented industry and audience response.
In 2018, the global skincare segment grew approximately nine percent, outpacing the broader cosmetics market, according to cosmeticsbusiness.com. In the United Kingdom, consumers were shifting toward brands expressing identity and authenticity. Different Days positioned E45 to compete on emotional honesty rather than clinical claims, directly addressing that market shift.
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