Highlighting Texture on the Runway

SITUATION

For New York Fashion Week, leading natural haircare brand Cantu Beauty partnered with luxury fashion designer LaQuan Smith to bring textured and creative hair looks to the runway. As the official hair sponsor, the brand sought to change the perception of textured hair within fashion through their partnership while highlighting their products during NYFW season.

ACTION

With this being Cantu’s first presence at NYFW, it was important to not only raise awareness of the partnership but also introduce the brand to a sector of both consumers and media (e.g. fashion journalists) that were not familiar with the brand. I invited top-tier media spanning both beauty and fashion back of house to personally connect with Cantu executives while meeting key stylist/celebrity hairstylist Kim Kimble to learn more about her vision of the hair looks. Additionally, I identified a beauty and fashion macro-influencer, The Notorious Kia, to serve as our “Curly Girl Correspondent.” With a reach more than 100K followers, Kia shared details of NYFW through interviews with the designer, stylists, brand team and models to give her community an up close look at fashion’s biggest week by way of an introduction to Cantu. With support from micro influencers to sit front of house, the experience and strategy came full circle in driving reach, changing perception and establishing Cantu as a brand to include in day-to-day hairstyling as a result of this cultural moment.

RESULTS

Fifteen beauty and fashion editors with a reach of more than 100 million showed up back of house for the LaQuan Smith fashion show to connect with Cantu Beauty inclusive of Bustle, ESSENCE, Marie Claire, Stylecaster, Vogue, Who What Wear and The Zoe Report.

Coverage of the hair looks and the partnership garnered more than 25 million media impressions with stories in culture outlet Hypebae in addition to Stylecaster and The Zoe Report.

Supporting social media content creators detailing their Cantu experiences during NYFW reached an additional half million consumers across Instagram.

Not only was I successful in ensuring Cantu and their textured hair looks were part of the NYFW conversation and coverage but also driving consideration among customers with textured hair as the brand saw an increase in followers across social and website traffic (including retailers’ sites) as a result of the strategy.