Kao Corporation has launched a widespread promotional campaign for Asience, the premium hair care brand that embodies “Asian beauty,” starting in Japan. The campaign will be sequentially developed in six additional Asian markets. Yuu Kashii will appear as the face of the campaign.

Kao says it aims to contribute to people’s lives and culture globally through providing innovative products and proposing new lifestyles, always from the perspective of the consumer. Among those products, Asience, which the company says illuminates the innate beauty of Asian women’s hair, is one of the core brands that also include Attack, Laurier and Bioré.

The Kao Asience “Asian Beauty 2010 Project” was planned as one of the activities based on the global strategy Asia Harmonization. Through the project, Kao will promote Asian beauty, while supporting Asian women with such activities as proposing new products by taking advantages of Kao’s accumulated knowledge and expertise in long-term hair care research on Asian women; emphasizing the importance of hair care by conducting hair diagnosis; and making donations to the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO.

Since its 2003 launch in Japan, Asience was released in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2005, Singapore in 2006, China and Thailand in 2008, and Malaysia in 2009. Currently marketed in seven countries and regions in Asia, the brand has won strong support from highly beauty-conscious young women. The Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO is a non-profit organization established in 1971 in line with UNESCO’s basic principles through the cooperation of private and government sectors in Japan in order to contribute to mutual understanding and cultural cooperation in Asia and the Pacific.