There are around one billion Google searches relating to hair care every month, but the hair care sector was missing a trick: no brand had invested in YouTube tutorials to help women with their hair. Unilever grabbed the opportunity and brought all its hair care brands together for the first time to create All Things Hair. The YouTube channel of video styling tips from leading vloggers uses Big Data analysis of search terms and trend prediction to ensure content is relevant, useful and authentic. The bold move paid off: Unilever now unequivocally owns haircare on YouTube. All Things Hair has become the most-subscribed hair brand channel globally, with 300,0000 subscribers. It's the most liked/shared channel globally after celebrity-endorsed channels, with 64 million channel views since launch.
From how to style your hair for a party, to caring for split ends, there are around one billion Google searches related to hair every month. But only 15% of YouTube's hair and beauty content is made up of hair care videos – and 97% of those are posted by individual video bloggers, or vloggers.
Around 60% of beauty brands have now invested in video tutorials, but hair care brands were missing a trick. Unilever, whose leading hair care brands include Dove, Suave, TRESemmé and CLEAR, grabbed the opportunity.
Unilever had never before run a global digital program, and had never brought its hair care brands together in one marketing program, but its bold plan was to create a credible YouTube channel with relevant hair care content and tips for consumers.
The ambition was huge: own hair care on YouTube.
Strategy
The strategy was to build a trusted YouTube channel where women could get relevant answers to their hair-care queries through high-quality video content. The creative solution was All Things Hair: a cross-agency activation bringing Unilever's hair care brands together in one place, working with trusted, popular YouTube hair care vloggers and up-and-coming talent to produce video tutorials. All Things Hair would become the go-to hair care portal, providing women with advice, styling tips and inspiration from the world's most-followed beauty vloggers, using Unilever products.
All Things Hair launched its first market, Canada and Quebec, in December 2013 and rolled out four other markets in 2014: UK (January 2014), Philippines (April 2014), US (September 2014) and Brazil (October 2014). Weber Shandwick was responsible for signing the vlogging superstars to create how-to content, including international beauty stars Zoe Sugg (Zoella), Tanya Burr, Ingrid Nilsen (missglamorazzi) and Andrea Brooks (AndreasChoice).
To make the All Things Hair channel a credible resource, Weber Shandwick engaged international beauty vloggers to produce authentic and organic content.
How do we know we're responding to what women want to know, in real-time? That's where clever use of Big Data comes in as an overarching strategy. The vloggers are nimble enough to respond quickly to rising search terms, as well as trending topics, such as celebs' hair at awards ceremonies or holiday seasons.
Results
As the first Unilever digital program operating on a global scale, the project has been resounding success across the board and across the world. Citing one example, All Things Hair YouTube channels in the UK and Canada are the most subscribed-to hair channels in their respective countries. And the top performing videos are achieving more than 1 million views each.
We've created more than 400 videos to date, viewed by nearly 64 million people. And we're just getting started. Next year, we'll expand into Japan, India, China, Mexico, Argentina, Columbia, Australia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Client Support
All Things Hair Global Brand Director Renato Rossi said: 'All Things Hair has been a great success since launching in December 2013. It is now the most-subscribed hair brand channel globally, with 300,0000 subscribers amassing over 64 million channel views across the UK, Canada, US, Philippines and Brazil. Weber Shandwick, together with our other global agency partners Google and Razorfish, have been integral to the success of the channel, working to secure and manage key talent team and identify top hair care search terms in each country in order to develop video topics responding to those terms in a culturally specific and relevant way. We look forward to working with our agency team next year.'
