2015 Gold FMCG

Scott Bradley - Executive Creative Director, Sarah Baumann - Managing Director, Eleni Chalmers - Director of Strategy, Hollie Belton - Art Director, Gemma Leutton - Group Account Director, Hania Flannery - Global Director of Brand & Communications, Caroline Rolfe - Global Director of Digital, Natasha Sumner - Global Brand Development Executive, Rob Pye - ghdhair.com General Manager

Campaign overview

Once dominant, ghd had lost its lustre as the must-have hair straightener and needed to halt a steady decline in all-important sales of its Christmas gift sets.

Its #getthehintdarling campaign managed to create new cultural resonance, engage a new generation of women with the brand and drive record global sales of Christmas 2014 gift sets.

Strategy

Four aspects drove the campaign strategy. First, the team identified a particularly assertive attitude among ghd-receptive women: “ghd girls know that if you don’t ask, you don’t get what you want for Christmas”.

Second, the campaign let women drop these hints in a fun way, with ghd positioned as a desirable gift to hint for.

Third, different layers of messaging took the gifter and their loved one on a ghd hinting journey, telling a story about what ghd girls definitely didn’t want in order to reveal what they did.

Fourth, the activity ran across all key social platforms, on ghdhair.com and in hair salons and premium retailers with a ghd presence, allowing women to act on the idea in their preferred environment.

A choice of seven gift sets ensured everyone would be happy on Christmas morning.

Creativity

Women were encouraged to hint across multiple channels. Some hints were subtle, some were bold, but all were signed with ‘get the hint darling’. In-store this became ‘get it here darling’ to convert sales.

The hashtag #getthehintdarling, a creative expansion of the ghd acronym, enabled women to send hints through social media. The ghdhair.com wishlist was turned into a hint function to send ghd gift requests to a loved one: personal emails that proved impossible to ignore. These emails also included bad gift ideas the sender definitely didn’t want to reinforce, and ghd product superiority.

Social activity and a ‘Send a hint’ button expanded the online experience, while hint cards in salons and stickers produced with Elle magazine took hinting offline.

#getthehintdarling clearly signalled to both gifters and giftees exactly what action was expected of them – with a witty wink.

Results