The Essence of Joy

The following is a case study on Astro’s winning partnership with Herbal Essences.

Overview

While famous for its heritage as a natural sensorial product range, Herbal Essences registered low awareness level amongst Millennials. Astro tapped onto Thinker Studios to craft a ‘Life at Thinker’ episode series, featuring a connected story that revolved around its members. Their focus: to recall their little joys in life when using Herbal Essences. To make the narrative real, pure, and relatable, it follows the creative process of ‘producing the project’. Notably, the product is always on display – either in physical form or as a source of inspiration.

Awareness of Herbal Essences among Millennials was at an all-time low, although the number of people surveyed for the brand’s audience category who revealed that they are willing to pay for premium products, was high. Both Herbal Essences and Astro learned that the challenge in capturing a wider audience is the highly fragmented marketplace. Through research, it was discovered that this is especially true among Malaynials as they are more prone to be resistant towards mass advertising because they crave genuine engagement. 

The objective of the partnership was to plan and execute a campaign that will improve brand equity and grow product demand by 10 percent. This also includes increasing consumer engagement and conversion by 20 percent at the end of this campaign. 

Strategy

Astro knew what the Millennials respond to – content that is not just engaging, but also relatable, real, and pure. They must be engaged with strong visuals, acknowledge the plot as relatable, and act on the call-to-action prompts.

Astro’s existing strong penetration within the Malaynials, both on-air and online platforms made it suitable for a partnership with Herbal Essences. Astro’s various platforms also contributed to the campaign’s expansion and tied in well with Herbal Essence’s need to educate audiences about the strong affinity the brand has with all-natural ingredients.

Using the approach of associating the shampoo product to a positive emotion (joy), was unique and deviated from the norm in shampoo marketing. The strategy for execution was to use a simple, straightforward storytelling with visual, application, and senses cues, which became a campaign featuring real conversations with authentic reactions and pure joy.

The campaign would also feature stories of personal reflections by celebrating the little things in life that are often taken for granted. Astro and Thinker Studios intertwined each episode with Herbal Essences natural and sensorial efficacy. The campaign was called Sharing the Essence of Little Joys in Life.

To read more on winning partnerships by Astro, click here to check out our MARKETING Digest.