Break the Rules begins with a discussion consumers are already having online: how to get the effects of retinol without irritation. Don’t smile too much. Don’t sleep on your side. If you want retinol to work, accept the stinging. Skincare advice has long come from places other than dermatologists’ offices, and the amount of it on social media is growing much faster than the clarity it provides.
Neutrogena is now using this advice as material for its new brand platform, Break the Rules. Instead of offering another guide to the correct routine, the brand begins with rules that have been repeated so often that part of the audience has stopped questioning them. The first campaign is dedicated to retinol and the message that visible results do not have to involve an unpleasant experience.
The central video features familiar warnings about ageing, such as not smiling too broadly or sleeping on your side. The sequence is interrupted by the message that people do not have to age according to someone else’s rules, after which a dermatologist takes the skincare routine from the level of an internet myth back to the level of a product developed on a scientific foundation.
Retinol was not chosen only because it is one of the best-known ingredients in the category. According to data cited by the brand, it generates approximately 60,000 searches per month. An analysis by Pulsar identified almost 17,000 posts by U.S. consumers about retinol on TikTok and Instagram between January and May 2026. Across different routines, experiences and warnings, the same question kept appearing: can people get results without redness, dryness and irritation?
The campaign’s answer is tied to Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Retinol Regenerating Cream, a cream with retinol and hyaluronic acid intended to reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, dark spots and dull-looking skin. Neutrogena is also drawing on its own history in the category. In 1997, the brand became the first to introduce a retinol face cream to the U.S. mass market and has continued developing products with the ingredient ever since.
Although Break the Rules challenges advice produced by feeds and AI tools, the campaign is not moving away from those spaces. Online searches and conversations were used to identify the problem the creative work would address, while social media remains among its main channels. In the coming months, it will also include partnerships with content creators.
The platform will also receive a festival version at the end of July. Neutrogena is the official skincare and suncare sponsor of Lollapalooza, which takes place in Chicago from July 30 to August 2. Across the festival grounds, it will install sunscreen and hydrating skincare stations for visitors between performances.
Publicis led the strategy, creative development, design, commerce, influencer, social and media activities for the launch. In this way, Break the Rules is attempting to translate scientific authority into the language through which beauty trends now spread. The campaign is not asking the audience to stop scrolling. It wants to become the answer at the moment when scrolling produces more rules than useful information.
