Hair Has No Gender

Pantene wanted to gain awareness for its brand equity, incorporating Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, which is a key pillar for P&G.

Insights:

Brand DNA: Pantene believes that hair has power. Power to impact on a person’s identity, power to grant self-esteem, and power to build self-confidence.

Audience insight: “Being who you want to be” ranks very high on young people’s value scale today. However, acceptance of transgender and non-binary people is still a big challenge in Belgium.

Truth of the moment: Research by Ketchum within the community of transgender and non-binary people (in collaboration with a non-profit association), showed that Belgian society only receives a score of 5.7 out of 10 regarding acceptance of the LGBTQI+ community. When asked about the biggest challenge for the community in Belgium, lack of knowledge of gender diversity was the top priority, followed by existing stereotypes and lack of representation.

Strategic intent: 

This resulted in the strategy of acceptance through visibility and role modelling by leveraging an authentic role model from the LGTBQI+ community that fit with the Pantene brand. We looked for a specific brand ambassadorship with scale, preserving credibility by aligning brand and campaign mission with authentic and matching personalized storytelling.

Creative idea:

Recognizing the need for an impactful role model, Ketchum proactively identified and advised for a collaboration with Nora Monsecour to become the first-ever brand ambassador for Pantene in Belgium. Nora is a professional dancer and transgender woman who embodies the battle for acceptance and self-expression. She also transcends the LGBTQI+ community and reaches a broad audience, in part due to being the inspiration for a multi-awarded movie ‘Girl’.

Ketchum believed that Nora instinctively understood the campaign mission and had a deep appreciation of the power that hair can have on identity, societal acceptance, and self-confidence.

Preliminary results:

Pantene’s announcement was picked up by national media and by the biggest TV news broadcaster, proving that we touched upon a relevant societal topic, created visibility and engagement for Nora’s story – and by extension for the whole transgender and non-binary community –, and positioned Pantene as a truly inclusive brand in society.

Our campaign generated a media reach of 6.936.903 and an influencer reach of 439.472.