HAIR-RAISING fundraising has led to Wella scooping one of the top honours at a national awards ceremony.

The Basingstoke-headquartered company's Comic Relief fund-raiser was judged Best Corporate Communications Campaign for 2003 in this year's prestigious PRWeek Awards.

A glittering awards night at Le Meridien Grosvenor House Hotel, in London's Park Lane, recognised ground-breaking PR campaigns, judged by a panel of experts in the industry.

The Wella campaign beat more than 100 top-calibre entries for its creativity, inspiration and high profile with the media.

Comic Relief's 2003 Red Nose Day was themed as "The Big Hair Do", with red noses sporting shocks of hair.

This provided the perfect platform for Wella to become "official hair partners" and devise an original and humorous media exploitation programme with its PR agency.

Raising more than £400,000 for the charity, the campaign ensured active hairdressing salon participation at hundreds of outlets across the UK, with exciting fund-raising taking place on Red Nose Day itself.

There was also highly-visible in-salon marketing material and "Scratch and Match" posters.

Wella ShockWaves, Silvikrin and Vosene carried stickers which pledged money from every purchase to Comic Relief, while point-of-sale material also focused attention on displays and encouraged customers to join in the fun of The Big Hair Do.

Around 5.5 million red noses were sold with a sachet of Wella gel, and nationwide billboard sites featured Kelly Osbourne and Graham Norton.

Other activities included a celebrity hair auction and a humorous media relations programme showing the hairy red nose with different hairstyles.

Kevin Arkell, corporate communications manager for Wella UK, said: "We are absolutely delighted with this award. It reinforces our belief that sponsoring The Big Hair Do was one of the best exercises in the history of Wella for ourselves and, of course, for the charities which benefited.

"Not only did it give salons, retailers and consumers all over the UK a chance to really get involved, but it resulted in some terrific fundraising for one of Britain's most popular and well-known charities."

Independent research showed that more than half of all targeted 15 to 24-year-olds were aware of the Wella partnership with Comic Relief.