ELIMINATING
hair bias
Hair is about so much more than just hair: in Pantene’s landmark global Great Hair Days research study, people worldwide reported that a great hair day makes them feel happier, more joyful, and more competent— “ready to conquer my day” and “confident I can achieve what I want.”
People ranked hair as one of the most powerful ways to tell the world who they really are—more powerful than either clothing or makeup. Pantene understands the power of hair and supports everyone’s journey to achieve their hair dreams. Whether someone chooses to wear their hair long, short, curly or straight, Pantene supports great hair for all and believe that everyone should be able to express themselves through their hair.
OUR CAMPAIGNS
around the world
#Hairwego
JAPAN
Pantene challenged cultural pressure to conform to traditional straight black hair with a video, “Why Is My Hair Unacceptable?,” that’s been viewed 10 million times. A change.org petition challenging local schools’ policy of requiring students to have straight, black hair received so many signatures and the policy was successfully reversed.
When you look for a job in Japan, you are forced to follow the unspoken rule to look and act in the certain way to prove that you can follow the crowd and ‘fit to the social expectation. Pantene tackled this uniform-like look of Japanese job-hunters with a widely-viewed campaign celebrating the mold-breaking hairstyles of real, newly-hired employees. To act further, Pantene worked hand in hand with 139 companies, including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, to change hair rules for pre-hire’s ceremony (naiteishiki) as well as job hunting interviews. At a subsequent job fair, so many candidates arrived in individualized looks, local newspapers attributed it to Pantene’s campaign.
#LENGTHSOFSTRENGTH
EUROPE
Pantene understands the power of hair and supports everyone’s journey to achieve their hair dreams. Whether someone chooses to wear their hair long, short, curly or straight, Pantene supports great hair for all. Our latest film, “Lengths of Strength”, brings hair journeys into focus for different members of the LGBTQ+ community. As part of this, Pantene is proud to be partnering with The Dresscode Project – a global network of salons and barbers promoting positive hair journeys for all.
#BeautifuLGBTQ
North America
60% of LGBTQ people change their hair when they come out of the closet is why Pantene embraced a ‘queer all year’ as part of its new campaign. For Pride 2019, Pantene launched “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m #BeautifuLGBTQ+,” which took the brand’s ubiquitous line to redefine what ‘beautiful’ looks like today by featuring a range of people within the LGBTQ+ community and their own stories of transformation.
A few months later, Pantene launched its Home for the Holidays campaign based on a simple insight: 137 million Americans travel home for the holidays every year but 44% of LGBTQ+ people feel they can’t come home as their true selves, fearing tp—p-heir identity, including hair, makeup and wardrobe, won’t be accepted. To raise awareness and empathy around this issue, Pantene, GLAAD and the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles created “Going Home for the Holidays”, a video series sparking conversations around the tensions and challenges LGBTQ+ community members can face. Pantene also made a $100,000 donation to Family Equality, which envisions a world in which every LGBTQ+ person has the right and the opportunity to form and sustain a loving family.
#Freedomhair
India
Pantene found a generation of young women yearning to live on their own terms, yet bound by tradition. Our video, #FreedomHair, highlights young Indian women making their mark. With social impact organization Sattva, Pantene provides workshops and internships to inspire girls to follow their dreams.
#Limitlesshair
Indonesia
In a new social experiment film and a campaign launched in the graduation month, Pantene Indonesia uncovers hair stereotyping surrounding “berpenampilan menarik” or “looks attractive” as a job hiring requirement commonly found in job advertisements in Indonesia.
Those two words are not only vague in meaning but also surrounded with personal bias and society’s preconceptions about beauty. With half a million female graduates every year, “berpenampilan menarik” has a potential to affect them, particularly at this stage of life where independence, success and passions are suddenly more important than ever. So, does that really mean that young women have to look a certain way to achieve great things in life? With a focus on hair, Pantene conducted a social experiment to see how this problem manifests as part of its new campaign in Indonesia, #RambutTanpaBatas.
We continue to widen our range of products to address hair of every type, from fine to highly textured, and at every life stage.
We actively recruit employees of all identities, backgrounds, and beliefs, and has a strong record of promoting women in leadership.
We work with suppliers who hire inclusively & follow a zero-discrimination policy.
We seek to cast a diverse range of inspiring spokespeople who we encourage to be authentic, true to themselves, & inspired to raise their voices for the causes close to their hearts. Our aim is to create ad campaigns produced by diverse, including women-led, production teams.