PANTENE

Reimagining Haircare from in & out of shower to 24HR moments in her day.

Challenge

Pantene has long stood for strength. But in APAC, ~70% of sales still come from shampoo, even as women’s haircare needs evolve—more chemical treatments, more styling, more daily wear. Shampoo alone no longer meets the full spectrum of what women want: hair that looks and feels strong all day long. Without a broader approach, Pantene risked being seen as just another shampoo brand, rather than a brand that truly repairs, protects, and empowers women’s hair across the day.

Insight

Through in-home interviews in Thailand, we asked women to map how their hair felt from morning to night. The patterns revealed the real “hair day”: spikes of confidence post-shower, dips from humidity or stress, and reliance on quick fixes—water to tame frizz, leave-on products for pollution, or simply powering through.

A ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hair day is not constant, but filled with ups and downs throughout the day.

24HR Hair Mapping

The aha!

Women think about their hair all day. Not just in the shower, not just in the mirror—all day, every day. This is a potential touchpoint for care and confidence. This reframed our thinking: haircare isn’t just “in-shower vs out-of-shower,” it’s a 24-hour experience, with unique needs at every moment.

How do we convince her she can sustain her “hair high” throughout the day with the right solution at the right moment?

24HR GREAT HAIR

Because Great Hair Doesn’t Take a Break.

Action

We mapped her 24 hours into key moments for intervention, then designed a 5-year innovation roadmap to meet her haircare needs across the day with different jobs-to-be-done. The first launch included:

MORNING

protective oil to prep for heat styling

ON THE GO

pocket-sized leave-on serum to refresh and protect

Impact

EVENING

overnight miracle serum for repair

$68M growth opportunity pitched & approved by P&G AMA President & C-Suite

  • Positioned as a key driver of Pantene’s next five years of growth

  • Reframed Pantene as a 24-hour haircare brand, not just a shampoo brand

  • Strengthened brand equity as haircare brand that strengthens & repairs damage

Activation extended beyond products. In partnership with the Thailand team, we developed ideas for:

  • Contextual advertising: Triggered by time of day and weather, appeared on social and OOH channels she encountered in real life.

  • Sampling plan: Tied to life milestones and moments of confidence like first interviews, big presentations, or social events; where our products would help her achieve great hair

  • PR: Partnered with Vogue Thailand and Thailand A-list Actresses to ‘torture test’ their hair on a trip at popular tourist destinations in Vietnam

Learning

  • Ground strategy in lived consumer rituals
    By studying her actual daily routines, Pantene found opportunities to insert itself into gym, work, and night-out moments. The brand became a companion across multiple need states, rather than a one-off functional solution. Lesson: mapping consumer rituals across the day or week can reveal untapped points of connection for any brand.

  • Use positioning as a platform for portfolio stretch
    The 24HR idea didn’t just reframe communications — it provided a unifying ‘red thread’ for product innovation, retail activation, and category expansion. Lesson: a strong positioning can serve as a springboard for innovation pipelines and portfolio coherence across markets.