Vatika is a household name when it comes to haircare and their latest #OilFirstThenShampoo campaign shows that the brand keeps a close watch on marketing trends and consumer behavior. The campaign pitches Vatika Hair Oil as a complementary yet essential product for hair care with a clear message – oiling is an essential pre-shampoo step on wash days and not just a sub-continental weekly self-care ritual.

The memorable chant-like jingle in the TVC further stresses on the message that oil is as important as your trusted shampoo. Furthermore, Vatika’s robust influencer marketing coupled with a contest that asks followers to tag the brand in shampoo ads brought massive organic reach and engagement for the brand.

Sleek strategy

The hashtag #OilFirstThenShampoo highlights the importance of oiling your hair for maximum hydration before exposing it to the cleansing ingredients in shampoos. The brand makes a smart choice by reaching out to the vast pool of shampoo users and pitching Vatika Oil as a complementary product that, when paired with your shampoo, can give you luscious locks.

“Convenience driven consumers seek quick fixes from their shampoos, forgetting that hair oiling is the only long-term solution to solving their hair problems. Shampoo can never give the hair nourishment to solve hair problems because of its inherent nature. The consumer is missing the first step (of applying oil in hair) for hair care and directly jumping to step two (shampoo),” Vatika’s brand representative explains.

By associating itself with an essential commodity, Vatika has ingeniously extended the life of this campaign and it will be no surprise if it leads to a sharp increase in the demand for their hair oil. Oiling can drop a few points on the modern woman’s priority list due to lack of time. However, with the #OilFirstThenShampoo campaign promoting oil and shampoo as the dynamic duo for cascading hair, we can expect a rise in the demand of Vatika Hair Oil in the long run.

Digital treatment

The brand upped the ante by adding effortlessly relatable influencer marketing tactics into their strategic mix for this campaign. Search #oilfirstthenshampoo on Instagram and you’d find curly haired style icons like Hajra Yamin to straight-haired beauties like Kubra Khan talking about the constant ‘oil kyun nai lagati?’ refrain we receive from our mothers till we give in. The video testimonials are quite relevant for Vatika’s target audience. The young stars talk about common hair woes, the modern woman’s quest for quick solutions and aversion to hair oils that refuse to come out in one wash – all relatable topics for the woman of today. By engaging stars with massive following like Kubra Khan, Urwa Hocane, Rubab Hashim, Hajra Yamin, Nimra Khan and Ramsha Khan, Vatika garnered as much reach as the next big budget, cross-channel campaign.

When asked about the performance of the campaign, a Vatika brand rep stated, “The campaign successfully hijacked shampoo conversations. Consumers started posting shampoo ads with #vatikafirst #oilfirst resulting in thousands of entries from across Pakistan, exceeding our expectations. The brilliance was in the unique idea where we smartly hijacked the ads of deep pocketed shampoo companies on digital.”

The mane incentive

It’s no secret that incentivising a campaign can accrue new levels of virality and success for a fraction of the marketing budgets. Vatika quite brilliantly tied in the campaign with a contest that looped in shampoo brands rather seamlessly.

All the contestants had to do was take a picture of any shampoo ad and upload it with #OilFirst and #VatikaFirst hashtag to enter a draw to win a Hair Styling Kit comprising Vatika Shampoo, Vatika Hair Cream, Vatika Hair Oil and a curling rod.

Even though Vatika has a shampoo line within their brand umbrella, the contest focused on Vatika Hair Oil and other mainstream shampoo brands – which is nothing less than a stroke of genius.

In a world where hashtag takeovers and brand wars are the new thing, Vatika shows us that you can catch more followers with honey than vinegar. Instead of locking horns with the big guns in the shampoo market, the brand presented its hair oil as a complementary product. By tying the campaign to shampoo ads online that have big digital budgets and get more eyeballs, Vatika widened the scope of the campaign organically without spending big money in ad targeting.

According to the brand rep, there are many more marketing treats in the pipeline. “Vatika is a ‘do good’ brand and will always continue to educate the consumer what is good for them. We want to continue to solve different hair problems with natural herbal solutions and give the Pakistani women the confidence to flaunt their hair with confidence. In doing so, Vatika wants to sustain its market leadership in the hair oil category in Pakistan.”

In a nutshell, the campaign is the perfect example of how small campaigns can create big waves and rake in the desired results with dynamic utilisation of strategic tools and smart thinking!

This content has been produced in paid partnership with Vatika Pakistan.