• Ad Age, Wednesday, December 13, 2006 11:15 AM

A decade ago, Herbal Essences shampoo was listless. "What this brand needs is an orgasm," Linda Kaplan Thaler, then at Wells Rich Greene, recalls saying in a meeting. A resulting campaign rescued the brand and lasted until 2004, when P&G scrapped it. Now Herbal Essence has scrapped Kaplan Thaler Group and reassigned creative duties for the brand to its Publicis Group sibling, Leo Burnett Co.

Since P&G bought Herbal Essences from Bristol-Myers as part of the 2001 Clairol deal, the brand has been doing far better overseas--thanks to rollouts into new markets--than in the U.S., where it has been steadily losing market share.

Herbal Essences has been threatened in the U.S. by two relatively new flankers with similar market positions: L'Oreal's Garnier Fructis and Unilever's Sunsilk. Its sales are down 10% so far this year in shampoo and conditioner, even though category sales are up 8%, according to Information Resources Inc. P&G spent $28.5 million on measured media for the brand last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, but is on pace to more than double that sum this year.

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