Unilever tasks Golin Harris to enrich Dove Hair’s PR in China

Golin Harris’ Shanghai office was awarded the Dove Hair account after a competitive nine-way pitch involving undisclosed international and local agencies, which started late last year and ended in January.

Sarah Chin, general manager, and Fiona Jing, account director, of GolinHarris Shanghai helped to win the pitch and closed the contract in early May.

Unilever works with Ogilvy & Mather and PHD as creative and media agency partners, and used a number of PR agencies on a project basis in the past.

The Dove Hair brand is a relative latecomer to the competitive China market. Dove Hair “Damage Therapy” was launched in China in 2010 and offers a complete line of customized hair care solutions for different levels of damage. It rides on the successful worldwide Dove marketing campaign for ‘Real beauty’, which was launched in 2004.

“Hair care is a rapidly growing business category in China," said Maxwell Xu, director of hair care division, Unilever China. "We are glad to work with Golin Harris with its extensive beauty and fashion sector experience." 

Globally, Golin Harris also works with Dove Hair in the US and European markets, in addition to several other Unilever brands in personal care, home care and food categories. 

In China, Golin Harris has served as a long-term partner of Unilever Food Solutions since 2009 and also worked on multiple major collaborations with OMO. Golin Harris also helped American premium comestic and skin care brand Kiehl's for its China launch and acted as its retainer PR agency for a few years.

“Dove Hair has many opportunities for growth in China. We are happy to extend our work with Unilever to support Dove Hair’s business,” Chin said.

Last year, Dove launched social media initiative 'You're a beauty story' to capture the individual beauty stories of millions of women across China.