Aaina
One of the oldest South Asian salons in Scotland, built entirely on quality and warmth. The right answer was simpler.
The Brief
How it started
Aaina is one of the oldest South Asian salons in Scotland, it's built its reputation entirely on the quality of the work and the warmth of the space.
When the owner came to me asking how to invest in marketing, the first conversation wasn't about what to make, it was about where to focus.
The strategy
Pouring budget into paid digital to chase cold audiences would have been the wrong call and not just because of the cost. Without the infrastructure to manage incoming leads, chase enquiries or track digital performance, paid digital would have created noise rather than results.
The right answer was simpler. Show up brilliantly at the moments that already matter to the community. Cultural events, seasonal occasions, the celebrations Aaina has been part of for decades. Reinforce what existing customers already believe and give them something worth sharing with the people they know.
The design system
Before I could build anything worth sharing, I needed to sort out the foundations. Aaina had 25 years of patchwork branding, different fonts and colour choices from different eras with nothing tying it together.
I established a colour palette, typography, and a set of graphic patterns that now run consistently across everything. Price list, business cards, event materials, social graphics. The same brand wherever it shows up.
Showing up in the right places
With the brand system in place, I built the materials for the moments that matter. The Durga Pooja poster is the clearest example. Rather than a generic seasonal promotion, it's built around the concept of Shakti and what beauty means in that cultural context. It's the kind of thing that gets shared because it actually resonates with the community it's made for.
The summer event materials worked the same way, built for stalls and cultural markets where Aaina's customers were already going to be.
The website
The brief for the website was straightforward. Get Aaina online properly for the first time with something clean, warm and easy to navigate. Full price list, the salon's story, a contact page, a jewellery section. It does exactly that.
It's a foundation, not a finale. After seeing it live the owner wants to go further, and a more ambitious rebuild is already in the works.
The TikTok
At the end of a meeting we had the spur of the moment idea to film a quick TikTok for their channels. It got 15,000 views against an account average of around 1,000. One video became the brief for a more consistent content approach.
Results
Key outcomes
TikTok views (vs 1k avg)
Of patchwork branding unified
Tools used
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