Head & Shoulders is the world's number one anti dandruff shampoo, but here in Indonesia it’s a challenger brand that still hasn’t been able to reach top awareness to Indonesian audiences even after 9 years since it’s launched. This is one American brand that is so hard to pronounce, and we are talking about a country with more than 700 languages, and none of it is english. And it makes it harder since most stores that sell shampoo are traditional stores where you need to ask verbally for the brand to the store owner (We call it “Warung”), while the leading anti dandruff shampoo’s name (Clear) is so easy to pronounce. Indonesian people worry when they say something wrong, they tend to just be quiet. So, how can Head & Shoulders can take over the category if people feel worried just to say our brand name?

As a brand that has always been about building confidence, we want to eliminate the worry of pronouncing our brand name wrong by launching a campaign that encourages Indonesian people to speak the brand name in any way they like, proudly. We called it “Say it Proud!” campaign. By acknowledging that it’s not Indonesian's fault that they can’t say our brand name right, it’s actually the brands fault! This is the campaign that gives freedom to every Indonesian to say our brand name however they want it.

We are talking to mostly male Indonesian, 18-35, SES BC who live in the rural area and go to this traditional store called “warung” frequently to buy a small sachet shampoo. They have daily dandruff problem, but always using the same product over and over again.

When they search for other anti-dandruff shampoo in “warung” (the traditional shop), they have to literally ask for the brand names. So instead of teaching them how to say our brand name right, we did the other way around. Encouraging them to say our brand name any way they like, with their own dialects, in their own way of miss pronouncing, proudly! This empowered Indonesian to be proud of their own language and dialect, celebrating diversity that makes Indonesia unique.

Our idea start by partnering with the international movie star that logically shouldn’t have any problem with english pronunciation: Joe Taslim (starred in Fast & Furious and Star Trek Beyond). With him, we kick off the campaign on Youtube by creating a bloopers video of his brand new commercial with Head & Shoulders, where he keeps on saying the brand name wrong over and over again. It got reshared thousands of times and became viral instantly. People create parody of it, even other brands jump in creating their own parody.

Then we launched the real video. Followed by 3 other digital video series, TVC and radio showing people of Indonesian with different dialects say it “wrongly”. And this makes the conversation even bigger. We took it even further by creating the 1st ever special edition bottle exactly the way people say/ mispronounce the brand name.

Our “Say It Proud” campaign is the first time ever in P&G history that the company acknowledged and approved the mispronunciation and misspelling of one of it’s most iconic brand names. And impact speaks even prouder with 10,4% in share (+1,2% vs YA), +9% penetration, +120 NOS, +30 BPS SKU in Minimarket, +70 BPS Display in Super/Hypermart and adding 1,9 Million Household to make Head & Shoulders the only shampoo brand with growing penetration among P&G and Unilever Indonesia. For the first time, finally we overtake the anti dandruff leadership in the modern market, from our giant rival.