By approaching and changing Japan's bad practices related to outdated school regulations, this project created a bond between the brand and its target users, and has succeeded in restoring and increasing the sales of the PANTENE brand for the first time in over five years.

In Japan, schools have been going under fire for forcing students to have black hair. The problem lies in coercing students with naturally brown hair to dye it black. The public's concern grew as lawsuits involving students against schools ensued. However, the issue remained. The main causes are the outdated belief that "Japanese people should have black hair" and the educational environment that values school operations over reassessing the necessity of certain regulations. PANTENE believes in the importance of respecting individuality. Therefore, the brand decided to develop a project to not only let the students and teachers discuss the issue, but to involve the whole Japanese society in the conversation.

To encourage communication among everyone in society, and to turn this issue from a school-related concern to a societal concern, our messages targeted the entire society. The messages consisted of actual questions that the students had for the adults.

For the project, we conducted surveys and interviews with students and teachers who were actually dealing with the issue. We then developed our messages based on the responses from over 1,000 individuals. Research results revealed that approximately 93% of teachers believe that "school regulations need to change with the times" and school environments that encourage teachers to speak up are crucial. To shatter the situation of stubbornly outdated school regulations, we needed to stimulate conversations about "why regulations are necessary" on a societal level.

March 18, 2019:

Launch newspaper ad at the timing of orientations for new students enrolling in school. At the same time, distribute promotional tweets on Twitter to collect student opinions.

March 27, 2019:

On a radio program geared towards students, introduce a corner for sharing opinions about hair-related school regulations.

April 8, 2019:

Release OOH and documentary video at the timing of the new school year.

May 8, 2019:

Petition kick off.

July 30, 2019:

Submit signatures to The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education.

Active discussions on social media and various media coverage led to a petition and the submission of nearly 20,000 signatures to The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education. As a result, Minister of Education responded, “We need to endlessly and actively update school regulations to fit the times.” Schools across Japan also re-examined their regulations.

10 Million+ Views

180,000+ Tweets

Increased sales of PANTENE for the first time in 5+ years

Peer pressure to conform to collectivity is prevalent in Japan. This situation offers more negative effects than positive ones. In addition to the issue of schools forcing all students to have black hair, numerous other unreasonable school regulations exist for the sake of existing. We believe that it was pertinent to first invite people to reconsider "why these rules are necessary" and encourage the whole society to understand the necessity of updating such rules.