Our starting point was the fact that Pantene understands the power of hair and its impact on personal identity, self-esteem, self-realization, and confidence. Therefore, it strongly believes that everyone should have great hair days! And when it says everyone, it means everyone, no matter type, sex, gender, race, age…

The brief was to create an emotionally engaging campaign, rooted in hair, based on a true insight that would connect with the Greek consumer and would break the clutter.

The objective was to stop Pantene’s sales decline. Greek haircare category is a very competitive one with 10+ brands investing heavily, new brands being launched (Tresseme, Natural Box) and consumers returning to hair salons after the Covid19 quarantine. In this environment, Pantene, although still the No1 brand in Greece, was constantly losing market shares for the past 6 consecutive years, mainly due to its lack of emotional connection to the Greek audience.

We created the first 360o campaign with real LGBTQI+ people in Greek history, heroing their unique stories about how hair gave them the strength to address their difficulties in everyday life. Our protagonists’ stories touched upon everyday problems such as school bullying, work discrimination, hardships about coming out to family members, and freedom of expressing their identity in public. Problems that ultimately touch, a broader audience, each and every one of us. In all situations, hair plays an integral part, giving strength to our heroes to be their real selves. Different stories and different queer people were placed in different media to attract interest and attention.

Furthermore, by introducing the #HairHasNoGender, we aimed at creating a movement that would reflect the campaign’s success through its virality.

Starting with the insight that hair has the power to affect not only one’s looks but also their psychology, we studied the LGBTQI+ community to find that hair is one of the first things changed when coming out, as a statement of personality and self-realization. That is why no matter who you are or what hair you dream of, Pantene is on a mission to give everyone great hair days. Aiming to move further than just voicing support, we chose to tangibly support 11528 next to you, the only psychological helpline for LGBTQI+ persons.

The key message: Hair has no gender. Whatever hair you dream of, we are next to you!

Assets created:

Press communication material and kit send out to media & KOL’s

Q&As to address any issues risen

TV interviews of protagonists

Online & offline interviews

Tik tok native assets from tik tok creators

Native content from KOL’s

This was a 360o campaign using TV, digital, POS and PR.

Publicity about Pantene’s support of the 11528 helpline and the LGBTQI+ community started well before the campaign launch. The strategy was unfolded in 2 main phases: pre -seeding and main launch in a two-month period.

The pre-seeding phase PR led with press communication around the support of Pantene to LGBTQI+ community through the 11528 helpline (on December 2021).

The main phase (Jan 17 onwards) started with the kick-off of the TVC and Social Media assets accompanied by PR with celebrities KOL’s posting the campaign in their platforms, as well as unprecedented retailers’ support in POS. We have also shared a creative tailor-made press kit endorsing our key message #HairHasNoGender to an extensive media and celebrities list. Finally, the campaign’s protagonists were invited to several media including TV morning/evening shows to share their personal stories and talk about the campaign.

#HairHasNoGender became the no1 trend on Greek Twitter immediately after the TVC airing and #2 in Google Daily trending searches. In print we had achieved 39 mentions and 1MMtotal impressions. Online publicity: 554 mentions & 360MM total impressions. Social Media: 15,870 mentions. The campaign earned an enormous amount of unpaid organic publicity (worth 116$M) with major Greek influencers reposting it and mentioning it in their SoMe accounts on various platforms

Media Outputs:

press: 593 articles, 361MM total impressions, 93$M Earned Media Value

48’ free TV publicity, 23$M Earned Media Value

No.1 Twitter Trending for 2days and ??.2 daily google search

SOCIAL MEDIA

17K mentions

355K Film Views on IG

90K Film Views on FB

788K Film Views on YT

Target Audience:

Politicians in public addresses

Teachers devoted time in classrooms

Free organic coverage from mega influencers through reposts, mentions

Hero film gained 1.233? organic views

# reached 17? mentions

Business Outcomes vs previous month

TOMA +5pts

UBA +7pts

Pantene Shampoo Value Share: 15.1% +0.7pts vs YA; Conditioners Value Share: 29.1%; +2.4 vs YA

Claimed usage +3points, highest scores 25-44 ?/U.

Intention to buy +4points.

#HairHasNoGender Ad Recall the first month reached 73% (+2pts vs benchmark) and Brand Linkage 91% (+2pts vs benchmark).

LGBTQI+ community “11528 helpline”

Doubled its incoming calls for help

Gained Awareness throughout Greece