Challenge

Facing a market share decline and growing competition from Korean brands and shifting preferences among Gen Z Malay women, Sunsilk needed a strategic push to reassert its market leadership.

In Malaysia, where the majority of Malay women wear the hijab, Sunsilk identified an emerging challenge: the combination of the country’s humid climate and the tightness of hair under the hijab often causes hair stress and damage. This leads many women to consider cutting their hair to restore its health—a cycle that’s both physically and emotionally taxing.

To address this unique hair care need, Sunsilk introduced its latest innovation, Sunsilk Strong & Long, designed to nourish and strengthen hair, helping women maintain long, healthy hair without compromise.

With this innovation, the brand saw an opportunity to reclaim its market leadership and build a memorable campaign surrounding this moment of contemplation, connecting with women, especially Gen Z Malays, during this pivotal moment in their hair care journey.

Solution

Recognising that music is a key passion point of Gen Z, we leveraged on the popularity of K-Pop culture and crafted a catchy, K-Pop inspired music video to connect with the demographic.

Centring around the core message of ‘STOP, KEEP, GROW’, the music video uses catchy, repetitive tunes and lyrics such as ‘Slay’ and ‘Don’t Cut, Don’t Cut’, paired with memorable visual cue such as measuring tape symbolising the beauty of having long hair.

We partnered with Athalia, a rising influencer with a significant following among Malay Gen Z females, capturing her pivotal decision to keep her hair ‘Strong and Long’ inspired by the empowering lyrics in the video. It’s an anthem encouraging Gen Z to STOP cutting their hair, KEEP their hair long, and GROW both their hair and their confidence.

With a mix of outdoor, traditional and digital media, we designed an integrated media campaign specifically tailored to resonate with Gen Z, maximising reach and engagement.

  • Astro Partnerships: To reach 88% of Gen Z Malay audiences, the music video received prime exposure on Astro’s major channels, including TV, radio, and social media, ensuring strong ad recall.
  • Social Challenge: An innovative AR TikTok filter and TikTok Dance challenge encourages participation through interactive dance moves, amplifying engagement and creating a viral effect.
  • K-Pop Association: Achieved 100% Share of Voice by launching on the BTS Official YouTube Channel (78.1M subscribers) via channel exclusivity (No. 1 Korean Boy Band), capturing the target audience’s attention during a key moment in the K-Pop genre.
  • Outdoor Displays: The “Strong & Long” concept was brought alive by creating the longest hair in Malaysia through dynamic DOOH installations and a themed train wrap. The central motif of the measuring tape symbolised long, healthy hair was consistently integrated across all visual key points, including POSM, billboards, influencer partnerships, and roadshows.

Results

The campaign’s effectiveness is clearly evident across various metrics, demonstrating its overall success.

Market Share and Penetration

  • The ‘Strong and Long’ variant led to an increase in Sunsilk’s market share within the launch month, confirming strong market demand and solidifying Sunsilk’s leadership in the hair care category.
  • The campaign successfully expanded its reach among the Malay Gen-Z demographic with a notable volume growth, solidifying its market leader status.

Digital & Social Media:

  • The music video amassed 11.4 million views, generating 95.14 million impressions on Facebook and Instagram, and securing 2.75 million views on YouTube.
  • The TikTok dance challenge emerged as a top performer, ranking in the top 5% with 1.4 million impressions, 9.9K filter captures, 57.5K filter opens, 112 public entries, and a total of 1,086,887 engagements across social media platforms.
  • YouTube advertising targeted 50% of females aged 18-34, resulting in a notable 2.7% increase in brand recall.

OOH & DOOH

  • For OOH billboards and train wraps, we served 5.9 million impressions at top 12 traffic areas centered in Kuala Lumpur.
  • The innovative ‘Longest Hair in Malaysia’ DOOH installation contributed an additional 5 million impressions.

Radio & Ground Activation

  • Radio spots reached approximately 6,220,000 listeners, who heard the campaign an average of 5.1 times each.
  • The ERA radio cruiser activations at local universities engaged hundreds of participants at each event, with 80% being young Malay females.