Pantene wants Japanese women to let their hair down when job hunting

By Taruka Srivastav, Reporter

October 15, 2019 | 2 min read

Pantene wants corporate HR professionals and job seekers in Japan to conform to the unspoken rules of job hunting for women when it comes to hairstyles.

Pantene urges Japanese corporate HR's to let job seekers have hair freedom

According to the Procter & Gamble-owned haircare brand, Japanese job seekers are pressured into pulling up their black hair into a tight ponytail which makes job-hunting an obvious display of the symbol of uniformity.

The campaign titled '#HairWeGo: My Hair Moves Me Forward' and created by Grey Tokyo highlights how hair is important for confidence and showcases individuality of a person and therefore, job seekers should wear whatever hairstyles they like.

The campaign is a continuation of P&G's last year '#More Freedom in Job Hunting Hair' campaign. The current campaign is born out of a survey on 300 human resource professionals, which found that 78% of the respondents voiced out their hope for more freedom in job hunting hairstyles. However, they are not quite sure how one could make this happen.

The project features actual employees from the (supporting) companies in out-of-home and newspaper ads, showing a wide variety of hairstyles, to encourage job seekers to be their authentic selves.

Yoshiaki Okura, associate brand director, P&G APAC Focus Market, Hair Care said: “Pantene has launched another movement with a wider framework in 2019, including not only job seekers but corporate HR professionals. Through this project, we sincerely hope that the individuality of each job seeker can be well-respected, bringing forward a positive engagement in job hunting.”