Hair Care Brands Styled Different Retail Media Strategies

Hair Care's Retail Media Landscape Is Highly Fragmented

No single brand dominated Hair Care retail media in 1H 2026. Category leader Moroccanoil led with just a 12% share of category impressions, while 248 brands from 155 parent companies competed across the category, creating one of retail media's most fragmented competitive landscapes.

The same pattern extended to parent companies, where L'Oréal led with just a 16% share of voice (SOV), driven primarily by Redken, Kérastase, and L'Oréal Paris, followed by Unilever at 13%.

Retailer Partnerships Reflected Different Hair Care Strategies

Retailer choice varied widely among the leading Hair Care advertisers in 1H 2026. The category generally fell into three groups:

• Premium brands such as Moroccanoil, Redken, and Kérastase prioritized beauty retailers.

• Mass-market brands including Pantene and SheaMoisture focused on Walmart and Target.

• More specialized brands like Bio Ionic, Pattern Beauty, and iRESTORE ran almost exclusively at Amazon.

Moroccanoil stood out with 3x more impressions than any other brand in 1H 2026. Their lead was driven by a multichannel Sephora campaign for their Luminous Hairspray, featuring a father's quest to create the "perfect ballet bun" for his daughter. The same creative was adapted across OTT, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

Hair Care Brands Adapted to Different Retail Media Environments

Amazon (1.9B), Sephora (745M), and Ulta (408M) generated the largest volume of Hair Care retail media impressions in 1H 2026, but they reached shoppers in very different ways.

Amazon was primarily a conversion-focused environment built around OnSite Display, while Sephora and Ulta maintained diverse channel mixes spanning social, video, and OTT. Walmart blended the two approaches, pairing strong OnSite Display activity with sizable investments in social platforms like TikTok, where SheaMoisture promoted their "Silk Press in a Bottle" through influencer-style creative.

Best Buy's Hair Care activity was led by Dyson, highlighting that Hair Care retail media spans everything from everyday shampoo to premium styling technology.

Hair Care Is Gaining Momentum at Walmart

At Walmart, Hair Care impressions have steadily trended upward since 2024, making it the category's second fastest-growing RMN in 1H 2026, trailing only Sephora. During the first half of the year, SheaMoisture, Pantene, and Dove led the category at Walmart, largely with a focus on OnSite Display.

Walmart's investment also extended beyond individual brand activations. A multi-brand "Try Viral Hair Care" display campaign highlighted trending products across the category, while a Back-to-College OTT campaign incorporated Hair Care into a broader seasonal shopping message, signaling Walmart's strong commitment to the category.

Are you ready to see how your competitors are investing in retail media networks? Retail Media Insights provides marketers with complete visibility into the co-branded digital advertising ecosystem and retail media networks. This monthly highlight provides only a small sample of the potential insights and use cases. Learn more by requesting a demo below.