Humanaut and Haircare Brand Not Your Mother’s Reenact Women’s Hair Dreams... and Nightmares

Not Your Mother’s, a clean, cruelty-free haircare brand that provides award-winning, salon-quality products at affordable prices for all generations and hair types, launched its first national brand and media campaign Oct. 4. Created by advertising agency Humanaut and implemented by media agency Exverus, components include video, audio, social, digital and retail media.

In 'Live Your Hair’s Best Life', real women confess their real-life hair stories, their hair dreams and worst nightmares. Their tales are then reenacted in stylish, funny fantasy scenarios to highlight the reality all women face when it comes to their hair care. The ads highlight top-performing collections Curl Talk and Blonde Moment and stress the realness of hair culture and how good it feels to live your hair’s best life. The brand celebrates diversity, individuality, and positivity.

Curl Talk and Blonde Moment debuted on Oct. 4. For each product collection, Humanaut created a 30, 15, and 06-second spot, along with a unique 15-second cut for TikTok, and static assets. Humanaut won the business in April 2021 after an RFI process.

Humanaut shot interviews with 24 women over two days in a considered, art-directed environment and heard countless stories about the brand, its products, and modern-day truths about hair. Among them:

Your hair has a mind of its own. Your hair can wake up some days making you look like a different person. It takes hours to dry and style, but only minutes to frizz up when you walk outside. Going to sleep with it wet is like playing with fire. A day when your hair is not happy can make your day just… bad. These insights determined the scenes the agency recreated for final production.

“We knew there was something really special about bringing to life the real, honest and often wild and complex stories that women have about hair,” said Bethany Maxfield, Humanaut’s creative director. “We really wanted to create a sense that there is community in sharing your hair frustrations as well as celebrating your amazing hair-day triumphs.”

The bottom line: You’re happy when your hair is happy. And when your hair lives its best life, so do you. Not Your Mother’s is here to help with affordable products designed with your hair’s own mind in mind.

“We wanted to stay true to our Not Your Mother’s heritage, which is focused on bringing affordable innovation to the hair needs that evoke the most passion and interest,” said Nelson Miranda, CEO for parent company DeMert Brands.

Exverus, which began its partnership with Not Your Mother’s in June 2021, drove brand awareness and trial at shelf with key retailers through an innovative media plan that reached Not Your Mother’s targets based on specific haircare needs. The campaign elements are running on Hulu, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok, and Spotify. Custom content was developed for Bustle.com, video and programmatic display, and mobile rich media.