Pantene, as a brand, traditionally talks mostly to women, but has always advocated for strength as a source of beauty. A value that is not necessarily limited to women.

In the Philippines, the brand team decided to call this out in a big way as part of their ongoing social campaign, #Strongernow, which involved new brand ambassadors, sharing their struggles-to-strength stories. One of these influencers, was international transgender beauty queen and transgender rights advocate Kevin Balot, whose story resonated the most. His struggle to find acceptance, even in his own family as a child, is a situation not uncommon to this day in the largely Catholic community that is the Philippines.

On the week of Transgender Remembrance Day, Pantene Philippines for the first time cast a transgender woman in the lead --- giving words of strength, wisdom and support to real transgender youths. In so doing, she reminds all that strength, and everything else that is beautiful about a person --- has nothing to do with gender.

Transgender beauty queen Kevin Balot’s story created the most outstanding buzz for Pantene when they launched the hashtag #strongernow. Leveraging on their first transgender Philippine ambassador in a social film, aimed to drive relevance for Pantene not only among current users, but among younger, and newer markets who are growingly supportive of brands that exhibit social good.

The key message of strength and beauty being genderless, aligned not just with Pantene’s brand values but with evolving opinions on LGBT issues.

In the Philippines, a survey conducted saw that 70% of transgender respondents were the main financial decision makers in their families. They purchase personal care items nearly twice as often as their straight counterpart, making the Pink Peso a viable source of future Pantene business.

Transgender beauty queen Kevin Balot’s story created the most outstanding buzz for Pantene when they launched the hashtag #strongernow. Leveraging on their first transgender Philippine ambassador in a social film, aimed to drive relevance for Pantene not only among current users, but among younger, and newer markets who are growingly supportive of brands that exhibit social good.

The key message of strength and beauty being genderless, aligned not just with Pantene’s brand values but with evolving opinions on LGBT issues.

In the Philippines, a survey conducted saw that 70% of transgender respondents were the main financial decision makers in their families. They purchase personal care items nearly twice as often as their straight counterpart, making the Pink Peso a viable source of future Pantene business.

Limited time and money resources pointed to engaging our audience on Facebook, where 98% of Filipinos 13 years and above were (that’s the 2nd highest in the world). Filipinos engage with Facebook at a daily average of 4 hours --- the highest in the world.

Video provided the best storytelling platform for our cause.

Timeliness of the message was key so as not to overly upset the conservative Catholic audience of Pantene Philippines. Transgender Remembrance celebrations therefore provided the best context.

The campaign was cascaded into Twitter and local PR platforms.

• 85 million impressions on FB & TWITTER

• 5.7 million views (over 4.3 million organic views on Twitter) in just 3 days

• Shared in 12 countries all over the world, including major Twitter influencers (Justin Bitcoin, Manny Guttierrez, Rich Chigga and Ellen Pompeo), key LGBT online media (PinkNews, Pride, ChicagoPride, LGBTLife), and others (Mumbrella Asia, Campaign Brief Asia, Daily Tribune).

Reading through the comments reflected an outpour of positive and emotional support for the inclusive and progressive message of Pantene.