Sunsilk Hairapy vs. Dove Real Beauty
On July 13, 2006, Unilever launched their Sunsilk hair care brand in the U.S. with a twist – it’s using three gay men to sell the idea of “Hairapy” (three hair products that act as therapy) to women in a $200 million marketing campaign. According to AdWeek, as much as 15 percent or $30 million of the ad budget is going to non-traditional media, such as mall displays with audio, a MySpace profile and 3-D displays in bars.
Unilever is no stranger to out-of-the-box thinking, its Dove brand “Real Beauty” campaign generated buzz in June 2006 with ads featuring “real” women instead of traditional models. What’s interesting is that the Real Beauty campaign is getting more media attention today, a year later, than the Sunsilk launch.
7/1/2006-8/23/2006
NOTE: This chart shows media coverage for Dove’s Real Beauty campaign (total = 48), Sunsilk (total = 42) and specific mentions of “Hairapy” (total = 10) from July 1, 2006 through August 23, 2006. The coverage is shown as a percentage of overall coverage for Dove, Pantene and Sunsilk combined and does not include mentions of the Sunsilk launch in recent Unilever earnings coverage.
Is the implication here that using real women to sell products to women gets a bigger reaction than using gay men? Not necessarily. The Dove press release is much more explicit about its approach than the Hairapy press release, which doesn’t outright say the spokesmen are gay (it uses phrases like “coming out party” to make the suggestion). In fact, words like “gay,” “queer” and “homosexual” appear in less than 20 percent of Sunsilk’s launch coverage, which suggests an equal amount of reluctance on the part of the media to state the obvious.
Sunsilk’s messaging was slightly different on its MySpace profile created for the launch – “Three gay guy girlfriends who give it to you straight.” Did Sunsilk lack the conviction to give it to the media “straight”? Maybe, but leaving the message open to interpretation for the broader media on a potentially hot-button issue, some of whom might disagree with the tactic, and delivering the overt message directly to your target audience through MySpace might just be smart marketing.
The MySpace crowd seems to agree. GetHairapy had 5,569 friends when I checked today. There’s also a higher percentage of discussion about Sunsilk among bloggers.
7/1/2006-8/23/2006
NOTE: This chart shows blog posts for Sunsilk (total = 781), Dove’s Real Beauty campaign (total = 160) and specific mentions of “Hairapy” (total = 57) from July 1, 2006 through August 23, 2006. The posts are shown as a percentage of overall posts for Dove, Pantene and Sunsilk combined and does not include mentions of the Sunsilk launch in Unilever earnings discussions.
The branding of “Hairapy” on the other hand still needs a little work, but the message is clear - tailor your message to your audience. And then take that message directly to them.