Company
Alberto VO5
Campaign
Beauty for All
Agency mix
360 Public Relations (PR); Colangelo (advertising); Brand Connections (social media); Matrixx (consumer promotion); WMI (media planning and buying)
In-house team
Nina Riley, VP of marketing; Mark Soloff, senior product manager; Milda Leonard, associate product manager
Budget
$12 million
Alberto VO5 has been on the market for more than 50 years, but for the last decade, the brand has been asleep in terms of engaging consumers.
When High Ridge Brands, owned by private equity fund Brynwood Partners, bought VO5 from Unilever in 2011, the company did research, which showed many consumers have personal and generational connections to the brand.
With that in mind, the company created Salon Series, a line of shampoos, conditioners, and styling and treatment products that offered consumers salon-quality hair for affordable prices.
"The goal of the line is to offer all consumers the opportunity to have salon-professional hair for a reasonable price," says Nina Riley, VP of marketing at VO5.
"Our Beauty for All campaign manifesto is the fact that beautiful hair should not just be for only those who can afford it. It's a right for consumers."
The ads, created by Colangelo, showcase all hair colors and textures to reflect the objective of the ongoing initiative. The brand kicked off the program with an event in New York in November 2012 with 21 beauty editors.
Rob Bratskeir, New York GM and EVP at 360 PR, which is handling communications, says the key to promoting the line is "old-school media relations."
Since January, VO5 has been featured in outlets such as Ladies Home Journal, Self, Glamour, and Allure.com. VO5's Salon Series Color Shield + Radiance Conditioner won Self's 2013 Healthy Beauty Award for best color-enhancing conditioner. Bratskeir says in the past the magazine "would not have paid attention to this brand."
VO5 is posting original content on its Facebook page and the brand attended BlogHer in March and had more than 200 bloggers get their hair done using VO5 products and tweeted pictures of finished looks. VO5's Facebook fans have increased from 150,000 to 300,000.
Going forward, VO5 will continue to leverage social channels and will launch sampling events to increase brand awareness.
