On March 16, creator Rebecca Pousma (46,000 TikTok followers) posted a TikTok with the headline “SLOMW needs a dry shampoo collab,” referring to the Hulu show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” In the post she said, “I am so mean for saying this, and like, I feel really bad, but it’s, it’s season four. How does Jen [Affleck] still have greasy hair on camera?” That post has over 3 million views and over 212,000 likes.
On March 17, the dry shampoo brand Batiste commented, “Sending this to my boss rn 
.” And on March 26, Batiste brought such a collab to life.
“Within 24 hours, that comment had almost 30,000 likes. It went from nothing to a lot very quickly, and then other brands also started inserting themselves into the conversation,” said Remy Klein, avp of skin care and specialty hair care at Church & Dwight, Batiste’s parent company. Other examples included Amika writing, “you’re onto something…. 
” (7,000 likes) and Living Proof saying, “Knock knock ” (2,000 likes).
Klein said that Batiste’s social media manager left the comment with no idea it would become so popular. But when it gained so much traction, so quickly, she recognized an opportunity.
“When anybody’s talking about anything category-related, it’s important to engage. And as a small creator, [Pousma] was just doing this for fun — so it was a great way to build brand love,” Klein said. Klein moved to have her team overnight products to Pousma and invested in a paid partnership, too. It was, by far, the fastest the brand had ever moved to bring a campaign to life. “That’s something the team is trying to do more of: How do we organically insert ourselves in the conversation?”
For Pousma’s part, “I was more in shock that a dry shampoo company hasn’t already done this, because Jen’s greasy hair has been talked about for years now,” the creator, who is attending graduate school for counseling, told Glossy. As such, she wasn’t all that surprised when her post went viral.
The campaign went from comment to content in five days. Batiste reached out to Affleck’s team the same day the brand left the comment, on a Tuesday, Klein said. “We had signed a contract with Jen by Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning, we were filming content with her in L.A. … It was so fast that she didn’t have wardrobe. Our team in L.A. went to the Gap and bought some clothes just to have as backup.”
The resulting videos — one is live, another is forthcoming — will be promoted across TikTok, Meta and Reddit, Klein said, noting that, “There are a number of conversations across multiple Subreddits all about Jen’s greasy hair.” The brand is also optimizing search for the campaign. “People are searching about it, so we’re just trying to figure out: How do we amplify this across as many channels as possible?”
In the video, Affleck (2.7 million TikTok followers, 1.6 million Instagram followers) addresses her critics head-on in a script written by an influencer manager on Batiste’s team who also loves the show and could, therefore, lean into its motifs.
She is shown saying, “OK, I’ve been seeing the comments, and there’s something we need to address. [Comments pop up on screen]. And honestly, fair, my hair has been looking a little rough. That’s why I’ve teamed up with the OG dry shampoo Batiste to help get my hair right.”After applying her dry shampoo, she continues, “Oh my gosh, wow. … Because my hair needed its own redemption arc. Thanks, Batiste!” On TikTok, the video has 10.6 million views and over 161,000 likes.
Before Affleck’s content went live, Batiste had Pousma tease that it was coming. In one post, Pousma says, “I might be insane for saying this, but I think I got Jen Affleck a brand deal.”
Klein, a veteran of E.l.f. Beauty, works across Batiste and Hero (also owned by Church & Dwight), and both brands, she said, are amid “recharges.” “I’m trying to create a culture where — if we see moments we think are relevant for the brand and we have the opportunity to jump on them — we avoid getting in the team’s way, so that we can make things happen really fast,” Klein said, adding, “Batiste is a brand that’s been around for a while, but our goal is to show up more like an indie brand.”
“Batiste worked as fast as they could, which makes me feel like, ‘OK, give their marketing team a raise,’” Pousma said. “I think that speaks to their brilliant marketing and care for everyone involved. Like, I didn’t feel like [I was] ripped off. I felt like Batiste cared about me, as well, and acknowledged my role in this whole thing, as well.”
