The global haircare market size was estimated to be $18,072.9 million in 2017 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6% between 2019 to 2026 to reach $26,242.7 million in 2026.
However, the haircare industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in widespread closures of retail and salon stores, leading to weakened sales of various beauty and personal care products.
Therefore, haircare brands need to come up with unique marketing ideas and strategies to survive during these testing times. Fortunately, the presence of various marketing channels makes it somewhat easy for haircare brands to reach different market segments. However, they would need to come up with quality content and leverage the potential of marketing platforms to the fullest, just like these three haircare brands did with their Instagram campaigns.
1. Kao
Kao is a chemical and cosmetics company based in Japan that ran an Instagram and Facebook campaign to promote its new Pyuan hair care product.
Their Objective
Kao wanted to reach young people and drive purchase intent among its primary audience of women who were in their 20s.
Approach & Solution
As Kao’s target audience of women in their 20s is more active on smartphones than TV, Kao decided to focus on digital media instead of using TV commercials. Due to the decreasing attention span of young people, Kao adopted an extremely visual approach. The haircare company used video ads in the carousel format, which rotated through several animated GIFs.
Kao also used ads in Stories to make an impression on the audience in a short space of time. Instead of creating standard ads to promote its product’s benefits, Kao depicted its “cleansing life” brand message through the daily life of an imaginary character called “Puyan of Green Gables” to motivate viewers to include Puyan in their daily lives.
The Result
The Instagram campaign turned out to be a major success for Kao and led to a 10-point lift in brand awareness for Puyan among people who watched these ads. Also, there was a 3-point lift in the purchase intent among people and the year-over-year in-store sales increased by 1.5X.
2. GrowUs
GrowUs is a Korean haircare brand that uses thalassotherapy to balance the body naturally and differentiates itself by highlighting the regenerative benefits of its products.
Their Objective
GrowUs sought to create a seamless shopping experience that would encourage brand engagement and drive sales.
Approach & Solution
GrowUs teamed up with Instagram to launch a campaign that tested whether its large library of video assets could capture the attention of potential customers while also encouraging them to add products to shopping carts, view content, and complete purchases on its website.
The haircare brand carried out A/B test of video ads with product tags- a feature that lets brands tag products that appear in posts and link directly to their product catalogs on Instagram. When GrowUs shoppers clicked on the tagged products, they were redirected to a product detail page on Instagram where they could learn more about the item before purchasing it.
Testing video ads with product ads helped GrowUs discover that it could pique people’s curiosity with its creatives and offer them an excellent online shopping experience using Instagram Shops.
The Result
The Instagram campaign was a massive success for GrowUs and resulted in 3X more purchases per website visit from people who viewed video ads with product tags compared to website visitors who didn’t view video ads with product tags. Similarly, there was a 3.7X increase in add-to-cart and 1.7X more content views from website visitors who shopped via video ads with product tags compared to website visitors who didn’t view video ads with product tags.
3. L’Oréal Indonesia
While L’Oréal has a well-established presence in Indonesia for its haircare products, it wanted to build traction around its new skincare product Revitalift Hyaluronic Acid Serum.
Their Objective
L’Oréal wanted to create engaging and relevant social content that would resonate with beauty enthusiasts to drive awareness, consideration, and online sales for its new Revitalift Hyaluronic Acid Serum.
Approach & Solution
L’Oréal teamed up with Facebook Marketing Partner Vamp to engage 15 beauty content creators in Indonesia for a campaign that included branded content ads. The creators posted their content featuring the new serum and messaging about how it hydrated their skin.
L’Oréal then promoted the posts as branded content ads in feed and Stories. These ads were marked as “paid partnership” and reflected the creators’ personal aesthetic and contained captions describing their unique experiences with the product. The ads also included a call to action encouraging people to try the serum for themselves.
The Result
L’Oréal’s Instagram campaign performed quite well for the haircare brand and led to a 48% lift in viewed content along with a 41% lift in add-to-cart actions. Also, purchases increased by 10%.
Wrapping Up
Instagram’s visual nature gives it an edge over many other marketing platforms. For businesses that have a service that can deliver a visibly noticeable result or benefit from the design of the product, Instagram can be a great platform to showcase their content. There’s no dearth to what can be achieved with the right mix of marketing strategy and impressive content through Instagram.