Schwarzkopf Taft | Hijack Merkel

SCHWARZKOPF TAFT | HIJACK MERKEL

TBWA\DÜSSELDORF

Taft, part of Schwarzkopf hair cosmetic brands, stands for strong women and for strong moments. So when Angela Merkel – one of the most powerful women of all – stepped down from her role as Chancellor of Germany, we needed to do something big. Using a lookalike and 25 different color blazers, we hijacked her farewell speech with a fictional scene: her touching up her hair with Taft moments before going on stage.

The campaign leveraged the moment by rethinking and redefining the use of media and digital advertising. Together with Google and YouTube, we developed the perfect master plan through targeted media bookings, to give Ms. Merkel a proper goodbye, and to thank her for 16 years strong hold.

We knew her speech would be getting mountains of clicks and views online in the days following it, so it was important that we act fast and do it in real time. But for us, doing something just after her speech wasn’t quite fast enough…we needed to do it right before.

IMPACT:

Angela’s lookalike pre-roll may have tricked the viewers, but it didn’t cheat in numbers, generating an estimated reach of 23 million. On YouTube alone, it made 11 million impressions. Moreover, Schwarzkopf Taft didn’t just become the talk of the (online) town, but we also managed to get featured on diverse relevant TV channels, including Guten Morgen Deutschland, RTL Punkt 12, RTL Aktuell and ZDF Heute Show.

The PR response was big in numbers and saw the campaign featured in renowned newspapers such as Horizont, WUV, Dailyadvent and Meedia.de.