Simmons, known to many as the former head of the Manchester office of Euro RSCG KLP, joined the Gatley-headquartered group as a consultant in February, before being rapidly promoted to a permanent board level position on 1 May.

In that “whirlwind” few weeks of activity she has steered through a brand overhaul as daring and ambitious as anything the group’s 40 resident surgeons have ever attempted, emerging with a new look for the Transform brand that’s anything but skin deep.

“Cosmetic surgery has changed,” states the focused, yet warmly engaging Simmons, “it’s far more socially acceptable now, for a far greater range of the public, and I think we need to reflect that.

“We’re the market leaders in the sector, performing twice as many procedures every month as our nearest competitor (some 860, she claims).

Simmons

Transform launched its fresh marketing drive on 6 May, “seriously up-weighting’ (in Simmons’ words) its activity across all media channels, with an enhanced creative approach provided by Manchester’s Pravda.

This has led to a burst of activity that aims to, for the sake of a better word, ‘transform’ the image of cosmetic surgery, pulling it away from what Simmons sees as its slightly downmarket associations and re-establishing it as a central, unabashed part of “the beauty business… because that’s exactly what we’re in.”

“With the consumer press for example,” she explains, “historically in magazines that hit our core market – like Red, Eve, You, Marie Claire etc –they’ve only been willing to accept advertising from cosmetic surgery groups in the classified sections.

“Put simply, the creative wasn’t appropriate to take it ‘front of book’ and have it sat next to an ad for Estee Lauder or Gucci.

Pravda's press work...

The media assault is taking place on a myriad of fronts, with outdoor, online (“that’s vital to the brand”), constant PR (in-house and through Brazen) and TV (again from Pravda) scheduled to break within the next month.

Simmons acknowledges that its been a step by step strategy, rather than an all out blitz, but says that, due to her short time in the hot seat, that’s simply been a matter of prioritising.

“There’s been a lot of late nights,” she confides, in a voice that sounds like there’s going to be a lot more, “but I’m really enjoying it so far.”

Other than the ‘we’re number one for a good reason’ stance that Transform and Simmons have adopted, there’s also a new approach of using five core models to appeal to different age ranges (again illustrating the widening acceptance of cosmetic surgery) and shifting the focus of the advertising to different procedures.

Although still acknowledging that breast augmentation (that’s boob jobs to you and me) is at the core of the business, Simmons sees facial surgery and general body sculpting as the “biggest thing going forward” for the firm.

... is looking good

In addition to the changes on the public face of the firm, there’s also a little bit of augmentation going on behind the scenes, with two new recruits – a campaign manager and customer contact manager – being brought on board at the end of this month.

It all stems from Simmons assertation that she isn’t simply a caretaker for the firm, but rather a developer – keen to drive the category forward rather than rest on the firm’s laurels of being the historical market leader.

And it’s the marketing, she ascertains, that will make all the difference.

“I can’t talk about figures I’m afraid, but I can say, as you’ll be able to tell from all the activity we have planned, that we have seriously up-weighted our creative and our spend.

“No one in the sector can match our size and pedigree,” she concludes, “ and I think this demonstrates our ambitions to keep it that way.”

Transform – nice figures

22 clinics nationwide
40 surgeons
350 other members of staff
850-860 operations a month
Surgical procedures up 9 per cent year on year
Non-surgical up 20 per cent

www.transform-medical.co.uk

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