MUMBAI: Having done a number of short term assignments already with Pantene, Bollywood hopeful Katrina Kaif has now been signed on as the official brand ambassador of the shampoo major.

 
Katrina will appear in a new advertising blitz featuring a new finding: '80 per cent of India's most beautiful women prefer Pantene', it was announced today. The data has been culled form a recent study on 'Hair Care Practices of India's Most Beautiful Women' conducted by market research major ACNielsen in association with magazine "Cosmopolitan". Katrina joins Pantene's league of past celebrity endorses which includes Sonali Bendre, Bipasha Basu, Shilpa Shetty, Amrita Rao, Anupama Verma and Tara Deshpande.

 
 
Chester Twigg, Director – Sales and Marketing, (P&G India) said, "...we have signed her (Katrina) on as Pantene's official brand ambassador. She will appear in an ad campaign featuring the finding '80 per cent of India's Most Beautiful Women prefer Pantene' - a re-affirmation of Pantene being a shampoo of choice."

ACNielsen was commissioned to carry out a study on "Hair Care Practices of India's Most Beautiful Women" during the period September – December 2004. The first phase of the study entailed a house-to-house quantitative study among 1,000 respondents across ten metro towns to identify the 100 most beautiful women in India from the field of performing arts.

In the second phase Cosmopolitan magazine helped ACNielsen contact a sample of 100 most beautiful women identified in phase one for telephonic interviews conducted by ACNielsen on aspects such as: importance of hair in one's personality; their personal hair tips; opinions and preference among leading premium* beauty shampoos (priced at Rs.50/- & above for 100 ml). To avoid any bias ACNielsen did not interview women with existing endorsement contracts for any beauty brands, including those of P&G. Subsequent to the interviews, one of the findings that emerged was "80 per cent of India's Most Beautiful Women prefer Pantene."