The Thai beauty market is huge and highly competitive. Typical communication solutions rely on a combination of local celebrities and functional ingredients, with online conversation a powerful driver to connect with millennial girls.

To grow Sunsilk, we needed to do something different in how we went about targeting and how it tied into the global brand idea of celebrating self-discovery without jeopardizing the functional story to drive sales.

Research showed us that girls and trans share multiple common interests, such as beauty and fashion. The trans friends however are often trendsetters and have deeper information as they go about preparing themselves for their transformation journey. They long to complete their feminine look by wearing earrings, taking hormones and, most importantly, by having beautiful long hair - the latter often regarded as the epitome of feminine beauty.

Once we identified the importance of hair on their transformation to womanhood, we had an insight that could hold a strong product role (the functional benefit of healthy and long hair) while igniting a heart-tugging emotional story about being feminine and confident about it. To bring the idea to life and provoke societal conversation (especially within the family) to embrace transgenders, we needed a strong character who shared both the girls spirit and struggle to follow their dreams and explore the world.

Sunsilk chose to rise above the overused girl power approach to spark real conversation and inspire the acceptance of transgenders, who are themselves facing and conquering far harder challenges – with their hair playing an part in their battle.

Like thousands of girls in Thailand and across the world, Rock was born in a man’s body. Sunsilk told her life story from the point of view of the hair. Every inch being a milestone on her journey to womanhood. The longer it gets, the more feminine she is.

We first launched the 4min film on our Facebook page, and it captured 2.5 million organic views in its first 48 hours, with no paid media. Later on, various lengths of the webfilm were used and seeded via female and transgender influencers, eventually reaching 65 million views combined, making it Google + YouTube Thailand's #1 branded film in 2018 and sparking a nationwide conversation about stereotype and acceptance.

In this case, taking a more emotional approach, and one at an ignored target for whom beauty is also vitally important, transgenders, did wonders for the brand and sales.

All KPIs were blown away with significant increments in sales and penetration of the Healthier & Long variant (Green bottle), brand conviction and in all social media measures.

Word-of-mouth, free PR, shares, likes and comments multiplied the effects of the campaign beyond its own budget, with an overall ROI of 183%.

Our key challenge was to find both a strategic insight and communication opportunity for Thailand, by looking into its culture and on how our millennial girls interact with each other, their peer groups and the tensions points preventing them from exploring the world out there.

In Thai culture, trans women are very visible and often a vital part of the ‘girl-gang', bringing in both beauty inspiration and a strong reinforcement to the idea of going beyond boundaries in their journey of self-exploration. That welcoming embrace however doesn’t usually extend itself onto their families and the broader community, leading to highly stereotyped depictions, limited job prospects, frequent harassment and family rifts.

Sunsilk chose to rise above the overused girl power approach to spark real conversation and inspire the acceptance of transgenders, who are themselves facing and conquering far harder challenges – with their hair playing an integral part in their battle.