T3’s New Campaign Encourages People To Express Their Many Dimensions Using Hair Tools

Luxury hair tools brand T3 is encouraging consumers to express themselves through their hair in a new advertising campaign.

The “Switch It Up, Anything Goes” campaign will run for six weeks on social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and be integrated into T3’s website and email communications. It spotlights T3’s top-selling styling wand Whirl Trio and curling iron Twirl Trio, which have been updated after a decade on the market with a new interchangeable system called the Switch Kit Wave Trio and Switch Kit Curl Trio allowing users to shape their hair into a variety of different curls and waves. 

To embody the message of the campaign that people—and their hairdos—are multidimensional, T3 has tapped hairstylist and nonbinary activist David Lopez, blogger and mental health advocate Ashley Lovelace, digital creator and slow fashion advocate Chelsea Barley-McEwen, and artist and roller skater Kelsey Guy as its faces. For the duration of the campaign, Lopez, Lovelace, Barley-McEwen and Guy will tell stories about who they are, share how they change up their beauty and fashion choices, and explore what’s important to their lives.

“People love to self-express at any age and have fun with beauty at any age, and I think we are living through an era where social media really enables that and amplifies that—and I think it’s beautiful to watch,” says Karolina Bakalarova, EVP of marketing at T3. “So, I’d say for anybody who is looking for joy and unapologetic self-expression in the realm of beauty, we just want to give them the best haircare product.”

She explains it was crucial for T3 to recruit talented influencers and experts comfortable in their identities that have unique personal styles to be the stars of the campaign. She says the aim for the campaign is to capitalize on consumers’ growing interest in haircare as a form of self-care in the same way that skincare has been associated with self-care and to drive awareness for tools that can be vehicles for a “joyful, confident expression of oneself.” T3 declined to disclose the amount it’s spending on the effort. 

T3 handled the campaign from conception to execution in-house. Bakalarova emphasizes the brand afforded the influencers control over their image in it. “We gave them a lot of leeway to select their wardrobe or how they want to be represented in this campaign,” she says. “I think it was one of the most impactful shoots that we have done in terms of working with creators and how the production has come together.”

The influencer and advertising landscape in beauty has shifted tremendously in recent years and T3’s advertising approach has morphed along with it. In 2017, the brand conducted its first influencer campaign dubbed “#PowerWithin” that tapped influencers, notably Arielle Vandenberg and Brittany Xavier, with much larger followings than the influencers in its “Switch It Up, Anything Goes” campaign. At the time of the “#PowerWithin” campaign, Vandenberg and Xavier had 1 million and 652,000 Instagram followers, respectively. The faces of the “Switch It Up, Anything Goes” have Instagram followings ranging from 38,000 (Lovelace) to 130,000 (Lopez).

Today, micro-influencers with distinct, authentic voices that resonate with their communities, often niche communities, have risen in importance. Their rise is linked to the rise of TikTok, where content is served up by an algorithm that responds to what people are watching. At a moment when trust in influencers has frayed as a result of scandals (e.g., Mikayla Nogueira’s falsie fracas) and a suspicion that content creators are largely on the take, pinning down influencers to partner with and focus on in campaigns that have fans with faith in them and missions beyond making money can help a brand strike a meaningful relationship with consumers.

Bakalarova identifies the target consumers for T3’s “Switch It Up, Anything Goes” campaign as in their 20s to 40s. A report by consulting firm SkyQuest Technology finds that the majority of hair tools users globally are aged 18 to 34 years old, and 43% of millennials around the world say they’re willing to spend more on hair products and services, fueling demand for higher priced hair tools. 

Known for its Airluxe blow dryer, the “Switch It Up, Anything Goes” campaign reinforces that T3 has a diversity of hair tools. The brand offers an extensive selection of roughly 40 tools like the $199.99 Airluxe, $249 flat iron Smooth ID and $189.99 air blow-dry brush AireBrush Duo. Its Convertible Collection encompassing Whirl Trio and Twirl Trio ranges in price from $75 to $480. Bakalarova says, “T3 really has been at the forefront of how that innovation has unfolded in this category.” The brand’s products are available at Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Costco.

In a hair tools category where, per SkyQuest Technology, Dyson, Revlon and Philips are the most-adored brands, privately owned T3 is trying to raise its profile. SkyQuest Technology projects that the hair tools market will advance at a compound annual growth rate of about 3.4% from 2022 to 2028 to reach $40.5 billion in sales. Hair straighteners lead the market, accounting for 35% of total sales. Curling irons account for 27% of sales, and blow dryers account for 15% of sales.