In Thailand schools, the practice of punishing students with forced haircuts has persisted for decades. Even though restrictive school hair rules were relaxed in recent years, our study uncovered that their enforcement is still widespread. A staggering 7 in 10 young women report that mandated haircuts have negatively impacted their confidence.
With Dove’s mission to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety, our ambition was to end confidence-cutting forced haircuts for good. We designed #LetHerGrow as a rallying cry to unite and inspire advocacy and change on students’ behalf. We injected Dove into culture through a multi-channel, guerrilla-style approach – taking over the front pages of Thailand’s two leading dailies, stopping passers-by with eye-catching OOH in an area flooded with youth and integrated into local TV programs to ignite conversation and assert our POV. We introduced a distinct QR-symbol (in the shape of the unmistakable bob haircut) that would connect people from offline and online worlds to pledge support, share their experiences and learn more about the actions the Dove is taking to advocate for change.
#LetHerGrow achieved widespread awareness, advocacy on behalf of girls by the government and influencers, and thousands of pledges to support students on LetHerGrow.com. It generated 200+ unique pieces of earned coverage with a reach of 195M+, including a front-page editorial in Thailand’s no. 1 daily newspaper, 26M views of the brand film across platforms. As a direct result of the campaign, Dove's brand power reached its highest in 5 years. Best of all, following our campaign, the Ministry of Education made a formal announcement calling for an end to forced haircuts, for good.
Agency: Edelman
Global Chief Creative Officer: Judy John
Chief Creative Officer, APAC: Tim Green
Global Creative Director: Andrew Simon
Creative Director(s): Mary Soroka, Shauna Roe
