Late to the party but I'll just paste this from a paper I wrote a couple years ago about Herbal Essences on sex in advertising. At-home hair coloring products are also covered.
Herbal Essences is a shampoo manufactured by Clairol, a trusted name in all things hair and personal-care. Historically, Clairol’s success in maximizing profit margins by utilizing strategic advertising methods has been rather impressive. Few commercial products have managed to swale public opinion and squash cultural taboos the way Clairol has been able to. In the 1950s, Clairol introduced the first at-home hair-coloring product America had ever seen. Through a clever ad campaign, the corporation was able to change the idea of hair-colorization amongst America’s women from one reserved only for inelegant ham-fisted bimbos, to a popular practice, albeit still a secret one at first. The sales figures observable six years after the release of Clairol’s at-home hair color kit are proof enough that by the time, most women in the US had managed to color their hair at least once. In the 1990s, Clairol was able to do it again. Herbal Essences was a relatively successful “high-end” hair-care product in the 1970s and 1980s, but advances in technology meant its formula would become a much more typical one, removing its “high end” status. For years the brand’s sales waned, so in 1995 Clairol decided to give it a unique revamp.
Between 1995 and 2001, as a result of its orgasmic ad campaign, and targeting a younger demographic, Herbal essences was able to grab a pretty significant share of the shampoo market and helped increase Clairol’s annual gross by more than one billion dollars. Did the sex sell for Herbal Essences? Big time.
It sold so well, in-fact, that Proctor & Gamble, who held the largest share of the market at the time, made the decision to purchase Clairol entirely. Crisis averted. While P&G were able to drive Herbal essences sales margins even further, the brand has never been able to supersede the likes of Pantene or the undisputed best-selling shampoo in the world, Head and Shoulders. I’m sure P&G doesn’t mind though, because they own both. P&G owns the hair soap gambit in this country. Market cannibalism at its finest.