October has become a month saturated with pink. In order to cut through the clutter and open eyes to what this disease really is, it was time to show the ugly side of breast cancer. With a unique opportunity to tell the story of a beauty-related insight, Ulta Beauty and Mullen Lowe revealed just how important breast cancer research really is by documenting something most people take for granted: a haircut.
With a social strategy that aimed to foster goodwill and engagement, and to support breast cancer research, a two-minute video was created and promoted on Ulta Beauty's social channels. With her very own photos and in her own words, Tracy DeSoto, a breast cancer survivor, shares her journey from the first day of diagnosis to the depths of despair. Using a palindromic poem, she reverses her state of despair with words of strength. Together we reach that triumphant first haircut as Tracy reclaims her personal sense of beauty. The dramatic one-eighty proved to be especially powerful, mirroring how a patient's outlook can change over the course of time and treatment.
Tracy's story and positive outlook inspired many others to continue their fight. This could be seen with 202K social interactions and an overwhelming amount of positive sentiment. With an increase in ad recall and the highest click-through rate seen to date on YouTube, we were overwhelmed by the results. Across channels, goals were met and exceeded with over 4M video views, 771M media impressions and, most importantly, thousands pledged to breast cancer research.
