Pantene Global Campaign Encourages Women to Stay in the Game

Stay strong. Stay beautiful. Stay in sports. Pantene hopes to keep women in sports with these words and their campaigns featuring female athletes across the globe.

In Australia, they began their Ribbon of Strength campaign, where they found that 57% of women drop out of sports by the age of 24. Pantene teamed up with Australian pro athletes Charlotte Caslick, Ellie Cole, and Zoe Clarke to show women strength is all in your head. In their “Ribbon of Strength” ad, these athletes write their own words of encouragement on gold ribbon and braid it into their hair. The ribbon is meant to show the world their unbreakable strength.

Pantene then reworked this campaign for their Malaysian audience. There, they found by age 14 girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys. This prompted them to create the “WanitaBesi” or “Iron Woman” campaign. The campaign features Malaysian athletes Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi and Farah Ann, and promotes “Braids of Strength” (instead of ribbon) with the same “strength is all in your head” message.

Anggia Pulungan, Haircare Commercial Director of P&G Malaysia, explains: “Through Braids of Strength, Pantene wants to encourage more women to embrace the #WANITABESI spirit, pursue any sport of their choice and eliminate their worry of self-image.”

Pantene is using the wash, rinse, and repeat method with these campaigns in order to cater to women all over the world. Hopefully they can help shrink the number of women giving up the games they love, and girls everywhere will be inspired to play sports for as long as they can.