K18 Hair
Capitalizing on user engagement to promote K18's flagship product
The objective
Connecting with the #HairTok community to drive demand
K18 is a haircare brand with a mission: empowering consumers and instilling confidence through healthy hair. Until recently, K18's products were available exclusively in salons. This changed in December 2021 as they prepared to make their debut launch at Sephora. To coincide with this opportunity, K18 wanted to drive awareness of its brand and generate demand for its hero product, the Leave-in Molecular Repair Hair Mask.
To meet this objective, K18 wanted to create a TikTok Hashtag Challenge to catapult the brand into the #HairTok community. The team sought out an agency with expertise in TikTok, beauty, and music. They found that agency in Song Candy Media (SCM), a badged TikTok Sound Partner. K18 was inspired by the work of SCM co-founders Gabbie Bradford (an early adopter of digital campaigns on TikTok) and Christine Hunt (a Sephora and e.l.f Beauty alumni who was the driving force behind the award-winning viral campaign #eyeslipsface in 2019). Backed by music, hair science, and marketing science, the two teams set out to create an activation that would embody the confidence that comes with fabulously healthy hair.
The solution
Engaging users through catchy tunes and an innovative Hashtag Challenge
K18 and Song Candy wanted to tap into the emotional feeling that comes with strong and beautiful hair. One of the simplest ways to convey this feeling is a fierce hair flip, and the SCM team decided to lean into that. For their Hashtag Challenge (HTC), K18 invited TikTokers to use their original song to show off and share their best hair flips, and the #K18HairFlip challenge was born. TikTokers who participated in the challenge earned the chance to win a $1,000 Sephora gift card and a K18 salon service.
A campaign like this begged for a strong piece of music to set the stage for content generation. Sound is a critical storytelling tool and powerful differentiator on TikTok. 68% of users say they remember a brand better if a video features a song that's popular on the platform, and 62% say they're more curious to learn about the brand.
To create a custom track that would encourage user participation, Song Candy Media used internal tools to identify music trends within K18 Hair’s target demographic. They identified key genres such as Retro Funk Pop and Hip Hop, found in recent releases by Lizzo, Dua Lipa, and Doja Cat, who were also trending on TikTok and Billboard charts. The result was a sonic brand asset that told K18’s message in a relatable way and inspired content creation with beat drops and lyrical cues.
Song Candy Media brought in powerhouse vocalist Tamara Jade, a Top 9 finalist from Season 19 of NBC’s "The Voice," to bring the vocals to life. Speaking about her experience, Jade shared that “recording the K18 song was so much fun and didn’t feel like work at all because I related to the message. There’s a certain super power in flipping your hair right after it’s freshly done: it’s like you're telling your problems, ‘not right now, I look too good to be stressed!’” The song became a brand asset that told K18’s message with TikTok flair.
Lastly, Song Candy Media advised K18 on creator selection, go-to-market strategy across paid, earned and owned media, and how to make the most of its new sonic asset. For example, K18 teased the campaign launch with a collaborative TikTok with Mikayla Nogueira and Brad Mondo- playing the new song in the background while Mikayla’s hair was repaired and transformed.
The results
Increasing product awareness through TikTok's creator culture
The campaign generated over 11.2 billion views on TikTok over its one month run (Jan-Feb 2022). The #K18HairFlip hashtag has over 1,600 UGC videos associated with it. K18 also took the number 1 spot in Earned Media Value (EMV) for US Hair Care Brands according to Tribe Dynamics the first month the campaign ran. K18’s EMV was $16M for the month, and the #K18HairFlip challenge was responsible for over 80% ($13.1M). K18 has since partnered with SCM on subsequent TikTok campaigns.
Our #K18HairFlip challenge put K18 on the map in terms of brand awareness and virality. Song Candy helped with creating a platform native song and a killer strategy for our first big TikTok campaign. It was such a success that we did another challenge campaign together. We didn’t think we could live up to the hype, but #K18results exceeded our expectations. The campaign went viral and the brand has become the most buzzed about in the space.
