Donating hair is a big commitment, hair needs to be a minimum of eight inches long and have no styling or chemical treatments. It takes two years to grow that much hair.

We identified two powerful insights:

Firstly, more donors would participate if they knew who received their hair and how it helped them.

Secondly, one cancer sufferer told us – “Without a wig, I feel like a walking billboard for cancer. People only see my illness and I can’t just be myself”.

This comment stopped us in our tracks – and we realised it would stop others in their tracks too, if we could bring it to life.

Our answer? If sufferers feel like billboards, let’s ensure more people can relate to them by making their suffering personal – with billboards.

Our star patient was Noa Azoulay. She contracted bone cancer aged 17 and lost her hair after radiotherapy.

NOA’S CONTENT BECAME PART OF OUR AUDIENCE’S LIVES

She reminded them of the desperate need for hair donations. As well as the highly visible billboards, our campaign included:

• A nationwide network of 500 hair salons who amplified our rally-cry, helping Noa reach hundreds of thousands of women.

• An exclusive partnership with Israel’s most popular TV channel. The network was so overwhelmed by our campaign that they produced and promoted 51 TV spots for free, worth 170,000 Shekels (US $49,000)

• An unique partnership with Waze – Israel’s number 1 navigation app. Every time someone passed our billboards or participating hair salons, Noa took over their screens to ask for help.

• Online videos and social media posts amplified our message.

We invited the press to celebrate the removal of Noa from billboards. She was free of cancer and starting rehabilitation, armed with a wig generated by the public.

30% MORE CANCER SUFFERERS RECEIVED WIGS, SMASHING OUR 5% TARGET

Pantene has invested 20% of its annual media budget in this initiative. Reaching millions of Israelis and changing behaviour:

• We reached 80% of women in Israel

• More than 1m Israelis saw our Waze message in just three days

• Within three days of launch, 350,000 unique users had watched our social media videos

• Awareness of Beautiful Lengths soared to 73%, 21% up on 2016.

Most importantly, 30% more Israeli women have donated hair year-on-year, smashing our target by 500%.

An additional 13% bought a bottle of “Beautiful Lengths” Pantene to support the campaign, helping us boost support for ZM by nearly 20% year-on-year.

Pantene sales have hit record levels, up 15% year-on-year.