The Ordinary Called Bullshit on Skincare With a Fake Periodic Table.
49 Meaningless Buzzwords Became the Brand's Sharpest Marketing Tool.
Skincare Loves A Buzzword; The Ordinary Wasn't Having It
Superfood-infused. Wrinkle-erasing. Medical-grade. Miracle formula. The skincare industry runs on language designed to sound scientific without meaning anything specific. Consumers have absorbed decades of marketing claims that promise transformation through proprietary complexes and breakthrough technologies, most of which lack regulatory definition or clinical validation.
The Ordinary, the Canadian skincare brand built on radical transparency and no-frills formulations, decided to call it out directly. Working with Uncommon Creative Studio London, the brand launched The Periodic Fable, a fake periodic table replacing chemical elements with 49 meaningless skincare buzzwords. The campaign turned pseudoscience into satire and gave consumers a tool to recognize the empty language the industry uses to justify premium pricing.
The Periodic Fable didn't sell a product. It sold clarity. And in a category drowning in puffed-up claims, clarity became The Ordinary's sharpest competitive weapon.
The Periodic Table: The Industry Critique
The real periodic table organizes 118 chemical elements by atomic structure, a foundational document of actual science. The Ordinary's version mimics the format exactly but swaps hydrogen, helium, and lithium for "Green Ingredients," "Medical Grade," "Miracle," and "Celebrity Skincare."
Each square in The Periodic Fable includes the buzzword, an abbreviation styled like an element symbol, and a brief explanation of why the term lacks meaning. "Green Ingredients," for example, is flagged because the word "green" tells consumers nothing about a product's composition or environmental impact. "Medical Grade" gets called out because no regulatory body defines what the term means when applied to skincare.
The format works because it borrows the visual authority of actual science to expose fake science. Consumers recognize the periodic table as legitimate scientific infrastructure. Seeing skincare marketing language slotted into that structure immediately highlights the gap between how the industry talks and what its words actually mean.
The campaign included a microsite where consumers could explore all 49 terms with full explanations. The educational component transformed the satire into a practical tool, something shoppers could reference when evaluating product claims from any brand, not just The Ordinary's competitors.
A Dystopian Film Extended the Critique
The Periodic Fable launched alongside a short film showing people performing viral skincare rituals, elaborate multi-step routines, trendy application techniques, influencer-endorsed methods, like hypnotized lab rats following programming rather than making informed choices.
The dystopian tone positioned excessive skincare consumption as a form of cultural conformity. People in the film don't look empowered by their routines. They look controlled by them. The visual language suggested that the industry's constant innovation and trend cycles serve brand interests rather than consumer needs.
The film didn't mention The Ordinary's products. It didn't feature the brand's packaging or formulations. The critique stood alone as cultural commentary, trusting viewers to connect the satire back to a brand known for rejecting the behaviors being mocked.
This approach carries risk. Brands typically want every piece of content to drive product consideration directly. The Ordinary bet that strengthening its positioning as the anti-bullshit skincare brand would generate more long-term value than another product-focused campaign. The Periodic Fable built brand meaning rather than chasing immediate conversion.
Why Transparency Became The Ordinary's Market Position
The Ordinary launched in 2016 with a proposition that violated every skincare marketing convention. Products featured clinical ingredient names, Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%, Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5, rather than evocative brand names. Packaging was minimal, almost pharmaceutical. Prices sat dramatically below competitors offering similar active ingredients.
The strategy worked because it addressed a consumer frustration the industry had created. Decades of premium skincare marketing had conditioned shoppers to expect transformation from expensive products with proprietary formulations. When results didn't match promises, consumers felt deceived but lacked the knowledge to understand why.
The Ordinary offered an alternative framework. Instead of trusting brand claims, consumers could learn what specific ingredients do, at what concentrations they become effective, and how much those ingredients actually cost to formulate. The brand treated shoppers as capable of understanding skincare science—and rewarded that capability with dramatically lower prices.
The Periodic Fable extends this positioning into explicit industry critique. Where The Ordinary's product naming quietly rejected marketing conventions, the campaign loudly calls out the conventions it rejected. The brand graduated from doing things differently to explaining why the different approach matters.
Calling Bullshit as Brand Strategy
The Ordinary occupies a specific brand archetype: the truth-teller. These brands build identity by pointing out what competitors won't say, exposing industry practices that disadvantage consumers, and positioning themselves as the honest alternative to a dishonest category.
Truth-teller positioning requires genuine commitment. Consumers extend trust based on the brand's willingness to sacrifice short-term advantage for long-term credibility. The Ordinary's low prices, clinical naming, and minimal packaging all reinforce the same message: this brand prioritizes transparency over margin.
The Periodic Fable works because it's consistent with everything The Ordinary has done since launch. A brand that suddenly adopted truth-teller positioning after years of conventional marketing would face skepticism. The Ordinary earned the right to call bullshit by spending years demonstrating an alternative approach.
Other brands at Contagious IQ have deployed similar strategies. Back Market, the tech refurbisher, hijacked Microsoft's Windows 10 retirement announcement to position planned obsolescence as a choice rather than a necessity. The campaign offered consumers £99 laptops running ChromeOS Flex while Microsoft told millions their hardware was suddenly worthless. Like The Ordinary, Back Market built brand identity by exposing industry practices that harm consumers.
The pattern suggests an emerging category of challenger brand strategy: competitive positioning through industry critique rather than direct product comparison. Instead of claiming "our product is better than theirs," these brands argue "our entire approach serves you better than their entire approach." The competitive frame expands from product features to business model ethics.
The Risk of Critique Without Product Connection
The Periodic Fable deliberately avoided product promotion. No featured SKUs, no ingredient explanations, no calls to purchase. The campaign bet everything on brand positioning, strengthening The Ordinary's identity as the transparency-first skincare company.
This approach works for The Ordinary because the brand already has high awareness and a clear market position. Consumers who encounter The Periodic Fable likely already know what The Ordinary sells and how its products differ from competitors. The campaign reinforces existing perceptions rather than building new ones.
Brands without established positioning would struggle to replicate this strategy. A satirical campaign requires audience understanding of what the satirizing brand stands for. Without that context, critique becomes noise, clever content that doesn't connect to commercial outcomes.
The Ordinary also benefits from a product line that directly embodies the values The Periodic Fable promotes. After watching the campaign, consumers can visit The Ordinary's website and find products named with clinical precision, priced affordably, and described without buzzwords. The critique and the product experience align completely. Brands with that alignment can afford pure positioning campaigns. Brands without it need content that builds both awareness and understanding simultaneously.
What the Periodic Fable Teaches About Design Identity
Brand identity isn't just visual, it's behavioral. The Ordinary's design system includes minimalist packaging and clinical typography, but the brand's identity extends into how it communicates, what it chooses to criticize, and what values it consistently demonstrates.
The Periodic Fable is a brand identity artifact as much as a marketing campaign. It visualizes The Ordinary's worldview: the skincare industry lies to consumers, those lies have a specific vocabulary, and educated consumers can protect themselves by learning to recognize that vocabulary. Every design choice, the periodic table format, the element-style abbreviations, the explanatory copy, serves that worldview.
Brands building identity should consider what artifacts would express their values in standalone form. Not advertisements that promote products, but cultural objects that embody positioning. The Periodic Fable works as a poster, a teaching tool, a social media reference, and a brand statement simultaneously. That versatility comes from expressing genuine values rather than manufactured messaging.
Recommendations
Map your category's bullshit vocabulary. Every industry has language that sounds meaningful but lacks definition. Identify the terms your competitors use that consumers can't actually evaluate. Those terms represent opportunities for differentiation through clarity.
Earn the right to critique before you critique. The Ordinary spent years demonstrating transparency through product naming, pricing, and packaging before launching an explicit industry critique. Truth-teller positioning requires proof of truth-telling behavior. Build the track record first.
Design brand artifacts, not just advertisements. The Periodic Fable works as a cultural object independent of any media buy. Consider what formats would let your brand values travel without promotional context. Educational tools, reference materials, and satirical content can build positioning that traditional advertising cannot.
Trust audiences to connect critique to brand. The Periodic Fable doesn't mention The Ordinary's products. It trusts viewers to understand what brand would create this content and why. That trust respects audience intelligence, and earns attention that hard-sell content would forfeit.
Align critique with product experience. Satirizing industry buzzwords only works if your own products avoid those buzzwords. Audit your communications for the behaviors you want to criticize. Inconsistency between critique and practice destroys credibility instantly.
Use familiar formats to expose unfamiliar truths. The periodic table carries scientific authority. Borrowing that format to expose pseudoscience creates immediate cognitive contrast. Look for respected structures in your category that could be subverted to highlight what competitors won't admit.
Bottom Line: Transparency Becomes Competitive Advantage When Categories Rely On Confusion.
The Ordinary built a skincare brand by rejecting the marketing conventions its competitors depended on. The Periodic Fable escalated that rejection into explicit cultural critique, naming 49 meaningless buzzwords and trusting consumers to recognize the industry's empty language.
The campaign worked because it extended positioning The Ordinary had already established through years of product and pricing decisions.
Brands considering similar strategies should ensure their own behavior justifies the critique they want to make. Calling bullshit only works when you're not full of it yourself.
