Don’t Cry Wolf received the Chair’s Award at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose, with its work for Tangle Teezer. It additionally received ‘Best PR Campaign’ and ‘For Profit Campaign of the Year’ class. Realizing that younger youngsters with Black and Afro hair don’t see themselves represented in fairy tales, the crew obtained assist three acquainted tales to remind these youngsters of their very own magnificence. Here, the crew behind this profitable entry explains the way it was introduced to life.Until just lately, most hair and wonder manufacturers excluded individuals of coloration, particularly Black girls. The vary of basis shades was restricted, haircare merchandise ignored the wants of Black and afro hair, and the majority of trade promoting featured white fashions. Progress is being made, however when laws is required to prohibit race-based hair discrimination – as in the US with the Crown Act – there’s clearly nonetheless work to do.
Innovative haircare model Tangle Teezer was based by main hair colorist Shaun P in London in 2007, after years of him on the lookout for a fast and straightforward manner to detangle knots with out tugging and pulling. Tangle Teezer has since grown to grow to be a world enterprise which has offered over 50m detangling hairbrushes worldwide and has a military of followers who genuinely love the model and its merchandise.The model was by no means aimed particularly at individuals of coloration, however by means of social listening, the model realized that it was being talked about in glowing phrases as one among the greatest merchandise for detangling Black hair. This was clearly a chance for the model. But: Tangle Teezer was based and is run by a primarily white crew. It wouldn’t be cool (or genuine) for the model to abruptly announce that it had at all times supposed its merchandise as assembly the particular haircare wants of individuals of coloration.The model briefed its international company crew to develop a marketing campaign in the US and the UK that will give it an genuine motive to discuss to Black women and men and the pure hair community, have a good time Black and afro hair, and enhance illustration in the oh-so-white magnificence trade. In different phrases: be a powerful ally.Strategy and exerciseIt was essential that we obtained the tone and angle proper for this marketing campaign. We needed to higher perceive two issues: how Black girls actually really feel about their hair, and the greatest manner of constructing Tangle Teezer related to that dialogue.We discovered that the primary Google search question for longform content material on ‘afro hair’ is in relation to battle: Black girls really feel like they’ve to ‘handle’ or ‘tame’ their hair. And experiences of discrimination and adverse stereotypes are far too widespread.In additional evaluation of what Tangle Teezer’s followers on social media have been speaking about, we discovered a nugget of potential gold: in distinction to what followers of each different haircare model have been speaking about, they have been readers: books & literature was the fifth most talked about subject.Armed with these insights, we determined to discover a manner of enhancing illustration and celebrating pure hair – by means of the medium of books.Most of Tangle Teezer’s clients are girls aged between 18-40, however we knew that adverse experiences surrounding hair begin at an early age, particularly for Black ladies. To have an effect we wanted content material that might goal the complete household. This meant: storytime.We appeared into this additional: analysis revealed that 46% of Black youngsters in the UK and a 3rd in the US stated they don’t see anybody who appears like them in the books they learn. This isn’t stunning, when you think about that simply 5% of UK and 12% of US youngsters’s books printed in 2019 featured ethnic minority protagonists. And solely 2% characteristic Black heroes.So we gave fairytales a makeover, and got here up with #Hairytales: a bushy twist on traditional fairytales, rewriting three tales so that they have been led by Black characters. We insisted on solely working with Black creatives, writers, administrators and producers for the complete marketing campaign.We partnered with Kelly-Jade Nicholls, founding father of Black youngsters’s books subscription field Woke Babies and award-winning creator Trish Cooke to re-imagine conventional tales with new function fashions: ‘Jackson and the Hairstalk’; a Pinocchio remake, ‘The Boy Who Wanted Hair’; and a Black Rapunzel in ‘Zel: Let Out Your Hair’.We printed 6,000 books, and all proceeds went to charity associate Pretty Brown Girls, which empowers younger Black and brown ladies in the US. We additionally gifted books to inner-city faculties throughout the UK, so extra younger individuals can see themselves represented in books.‘Zel: Let Out Your Hair’ was was a shifting animation by Don’t Cry Wolf’s manufacturing crew, with rising Hollywood actor Lexi Underwood offering the voiceover. Lexi, the star of TV sequence ‘Little Fires Everywhere’, had her personal private story about the struggles of rising up with an absence of illustration in TV and movie.Alongside Lexi, we collaborated with almost 30 influencers throughout the UK and US to inform their private tales about rising up with out seeing themselves mirrored in media and literature. Content was created by the likes of YouTubers The Kabs Family, Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix, and four-year-old Instagram mini-influencer Milan Marie.OutcomesTangle Teezer’s first activist marketing campaign didn’t simply allow a white-founded model to credibly and elegantly be part of a Black dialog. The Hairytales marketing campaign resulted in a small company rewriting a model’s international range coverage and altering the firm from inside to be a greater ally of individuals of coloration. The firm printed its first range pledge and made a dedication to be sure that 60% of all influencer partnerships are with individuals of coloration. Tangle Teezer additionally signed up to the Halo Code, a pledge to sort out hair discrimination in the office.The marketing campaign wildly outperformed Tangle Teezer’s expectations of engagement:Over 1m impressions from influencer content material, with an engagement fee of 12.5% Celebrities similar to Reese Witherspoon and American make-up artist and Peloton biking teacher Tunde Oyeneyin, posted after being gifted the Hairytales books The animation was watched over 250,000 occasions, representing an ROI ten occasions higher than Tangle Teezer’s regular spend on YouTube 17% uplift in site visitors to Tangle Teezer’s web site throughout the marketing campaign Over 300 items of high quality press protection with 60 backlinks and a attain of 255 million, together with primetime broadcast appearances on Good Morning America and BBC information. $20,000 was donated to Pretty Brown Girl from gross sales of the books and restricted version hairbrushes.The marketing campaign’s look on Good Morning America broke the Woke Babies web site and enabled Woke Babies to break into the US market, securing a distribution cope with division retailer Nordstrom. In the UK the books have been so in style that they’re now out there in Waterstones. All future proceeds will go to the creator and Woke Babies.“Don’t Cry Wolf repeatedly outperforms on KPIs but in addition pushes us to be a greater enterprise and company citizen. As a results of this work we have been in a position to actually use the energy of our model to empower influencers and creatives underrepresented in our trade and provides them a platform. It’s a marketing campaign that our complete enterprise has celebrated and we will not wait to do extra collectively.” Amy Barber, Head of Marketing North America, Tangle TeezerThis marketing campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose. To discover out extra, together with which competitions are at present open for entry, go to The Drum Awards web site.
https://www.thedrum.com/information/2021/12/08/hairytale-ending-tangle-teezers-mission-support-the-afro-hair-community
