By mid/late 2018 Pantene was a well-established, well-known, mainstream haircare brand synonymous with beautiful, strong, flawless, healthy hair.

But Pantene wasn’t growing and had little social currency.

While Pantene had lost buyers, newer brands, like OGX were gaining, and broader beauty brands like Glossier, Fenty and Olaplex were all successfully hitting the cultural nerve.

In 2018, Pantene commanded a much smaller share of search vs its key competitors such as Garnier or Tresemme, or beauty brands such as Glossier or Aveda.

Into this scenario, planned for 2019 launch, arrived a new Pantene range called Hair Biology - designed to address the hair issues caused by life-stage hormonal changes.

Positioned at a premium to core Pantene, this range was never expected to hit the scale that the core range reaches. And yet, hidden within this range was a product that touched on a cultural taboo that had yet to be exposed.

Having decided to make grey hair a symbol of this sassy and defiant stage of life, defying the stereotype, our creative idea became:

The Power of Grey. Pantene invites women to rebel against society’s pressures and wear their grey hair with pride and sass, making them not just visible, but unmissable.

Starting with a digital content series, featuring influencers and real women we told brave stories about how they had grown out their grey hair. Having been shamed for their grey hair, they had hit back, showcasing their silver crowns with pride. These brave women became leaders of our ‘Greybellion’.

We then uncovered the cultural bias around grey hair, making it more visible, more normal.

We held a 2-day takeover at one of London’s largest, busiest DOOH sites, Westfield Shepherd's Bush.

Throughout, Pantene challenged commonly held negative perceptions, breaking down the beauty paradigm, one grey hair insult at a time.