Category Archives: Case Studies

“family is sacred”! Eram Gives New Faces to Mothers


With its advertising campaign “family is sacred”, Eram counts on irony to twist advertising clichés about the family unit.

By showing families with gay parents or a “cougar” mother in a relationship with a younger man, the brand has distinguished itself.

It has been an original and provocative initiative which has disturbed the most conservative people in France.

 

A campaign which reflects social mutations

“As my two mums say, family is sacred,” announces a mixed-race little girl surrounded by two women with clear skin. “As my mum and her boyfriend, who could be my older brother say, family is sacred,” claims another little girl who is fair-haired. With stepfamilies, lesbian couples, “cougar” mums in relationships with younger men, or adopted children, identities are multiplying. The figure of the mother may be heterosexual or homosexual, family can be “reconstituted”, but the spirit of family remains. This idea surprises and calls out to people in an advertising world which doesn’t always echo social changes. But more than merely being surprising, this ad provokes. It plays on the wavelengths between the expression “family is sacred”, which refers to traditional and religious values, and images reflecting the new family structures. Especially by making the kids be the ones talking, Eram insists on the fact that their lives are not destabilised by these social mutations.


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Female sportswear brand Roxy launches a female surf contest


Roxy, the sportswear line for women, introduced by the Quiksilver brand, has always been a pioneer in women’s sports by designing clothing that’s both practical and feminine. But Roxy is also intent on promoting female sport by organising events. The latest one? An international surf contest… for women only.

From the 11th to the 17th of July 2011, the Roxy Pro surf contest took place in Biarritz, in partnership with Orange.

Gathering together the best female surfers on the planet, including reigning world champion Stephanie Gilmore, the event created a sensation on surfing websites… all the more so as the contest was broadcast live on the brand’s website. Novices were also catered for, as Roxy organised introductory surf lessons and sports demonstrations alongside the main contest. A nice way of showing that board sports aren’t reserved for men…

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Christian Louboutin, the man with the red soles


A recent aufeminin.com survey revealed that a pair of Louboutins are one of the 5 fashion items women dream of owning. The iconic red soles seem to hold a special spot for women, just as much, or more so, than men…

“The man with the red soles” has never stopped breaking pre-established codes. It was his impertinence that launched his career in fact: having seen a sign at the entrance to a museum that banned stiletto heels in order to preserve the wooden floor, he decided to set about creating such sensual shoes. Aged 16 and armed with his sketches, he knocked on the door of music halls, but without success. Instead of giving up, he decided to get some training at the professionals: Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurent then Roger Vivier… before finally launching his own brand in 1992.
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Cosmetics brands defend the idea of multi-faceted beauty


Doctors often warn against the images of beauty that are represented in magazines, which lead young girls and women to want to change their appearance at any cost in order to correspond to beauty “standards”. It’s against this unhealthy trend that the planet’s main brands are rising up by putting content online that defends the idea that each woman can be beautiful in her own way.

Leading the way is Chanel that has put a video on its Chanel Make Up Confidential site entitled “Fiction or reality? The timeless face of beauty“. In this video, we see a young woman adopting 5 very different looks successively… and encouraging viewers to also play with their palette to reinvent themselves as much as they want. This cheerful video reminds women that they can also change their style at the whim of their desires and mood, that they can try new combinations of colours, and beautify themselves every day without always being exactly the same.

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Milk capsules for babies. What else ?


Nestlé brings together two of its most successful marketing campaigns and addresses mums: after baby formula milk and coffee capsules, a bottle-feeding kit has now been launched in the Swiss and Liechtenstein markets. While mum and dad make a cup of coffee (or even tea, with the Special-T machine), their baby can also be drawn in by the sounds of the food giant through its BabyNes bottle.

According to Nestlé’s marketing team, it appears that there’s no set age for becoming addicted to a marketing concept: “When she hears the sound of the machine, she knows that the bottle’s ready. She associates the sound of the machine with the bottle.” (testimony from Aïcha, head of the Finance department at Nestlé and mother to an 8-month-old girl). Nestlé therefore wins over all the family.

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To encourage men to accompany their partners, IKEA launches a crèche for men


In its Australian store in Homebush Bay, the famous Swedish chain has decided to create a “Mänland” for 4 days in September 2011, in other words a space dedicated to men who can wait in comfort while their parnters browse through the store. It’s an amusing idea that rightly takes into account gender differences when it comes to purchasing behaviour.

Source : INfluencia.

Having noticed that men often moan about accompanying their partners on lengthy shopping trips, the IKEA furniture brand has set up a space dedicated to men at the entrance of the store. On offer are free video consoles, pinball machines, hot dogs and alcoholic drinks, as well as TVs tuned into sports channels, placed in front of soft IKEA sofas. In short, everything has been done so that the men aren’t clock-watching while the women are pacing up and down the aisles. And when she’s finished? It’s simple: the store issues a buzzer to both partners so they can mutually let each other know when it’s time to meet at the checkout!

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Erès, flattering swimwear for women


Created in 1968, the swimwear brand Erès has always been proud of being different to other swimwear manufacturers: the brand produces luxury, elegant, perennially stylish and impeccably cut swimming costumes and bikinis, which enhance the shape of women’s bodies and are seen as a feminine rite of passage.

The brand’s founder, Irène Leroux, invented a concept that a lot of people believed was doomed to failure: a swimwear shop open all year round. Back then, the majority of women purchased their swimwear while on holiday, without really thinking about whether the cut of the garment was appropriate for their body shape. “At the time, when people were wrapped up in their winter coats and they passed in front of the shop window and saw my swimming costumes with red and white Tahitian prints, they thought I was crazy. I had the idea as a result of the Brazilian jet set passing through Paris: the women bought their swimwear in September because summer in South America only began in October,” explains the designer to Les Echos newspaper. With Erès, wealthy Parisians finally had a place where they could choose a swimming costume to flatter their body before heading off to exotic destinations.

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Children’s clothing chain Petit Bateau accused of sexism


In June 2011, the French children¹s label Petit Bateau unveiled its new range of bodies. And in doing so, it sparked a scandal: the clothes were printed with a list of adjectives characterising the two sexes, with girls being “cute and funny” and boys being “strong and determined”… The use of such sexist clichés angered many Internet users, who invaded the brand’s Facebook page.

In Petit Bateau’s universe, little girls should be “pretty, headstrong, funny, sweet, eager, flirty, loving, cute, elegant, beautiful” whilst little boys should be “courageous, strong, proud, robust, valiant, cunning, smart, determined, mischievous, cool”. It’s a rather chauvinist description of the two sexes, according to Elise Fimbel, the first Internet user who took to the brand’s Facebook wall to convey her outrage: “I’ve just seen the photo of your sexist bodies which spell out the worst of stereotypes. It’s pathetic. If retro is the fashion, it doesn’t make sense to me to take a big step backwards.

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Women and Sonia Rykiel


A stylist, a writer, a Commander in France’s Legion of Honour – Sonia Rykiel is all that at once, but above all else, she’s a woman like any other, and she hasn’t forgotten that.
She advocates the “old-fashioned approach” – adapting fashion to the female body and her own style, instead of bowing to the diktats of big designers – and created a stir when she asked her models to smile on the catwalk.
In short, Sonia Rykiel is an atypical designer who has always fought for women’s freedom, and it’s perhaps from there that she owes her irrepressible success.

Sonia Rykiel publicly supports the freedom of women ever since the opening of her first boutique in May 1968.
Her creations are spectacular but always adaptable to everyday life – for proof, look no further than her capsule collection with the high-street brand H&M in 2010.
But even in her traditional collections, Sonia Rykiel has always wanted to create clothes that women could effortlessly make their own. Her key creation is simply the knitted sweater, and she even created a less expensive sportswear corner in each of her shops, to offer women on all budgets the possibility to dress in Rykiel.

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Dement, lingerie with magnetic powers


Thanks to Laëtitia Schlumberger, an age-old fantasy is now possible: she has created Dement, a collection of magnetic underwear that men can ferociously rip off… without causing any damage. Dement’s lingerie is quite simply magnetic!

Women have reason to celebrate: from now on, they can surprise men with underwear that’s both sexy and fun: gone are the days of struggling to unfasten a bra or clumsily slipping off a pair of pants. This underwear, attached through an invisible magnetic system, can be ripped off with no consequences to the garments.

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Sony loves women… and proves it


Everyone has in mind the PSP Pink, the Sony console dedicated to the female public. But, in reality, Sony started its campaign to appeal to women much earlier on: a pioneer of marketing to women, the Japanese brand launched the temporary Sony loves Women! site back in November 2007.

This short-term site saw the light of day because of an observation: women have less technological expertise but they’re no less demanding, yet brands tend to neglect them. As Nathalie Hoffet, Communications Director at Sony France, explains: “We wanted to lead local reflection about women’s needs and factors affecting their decisions when purchasing high-tech products. The current environment is rather masculine and women can’t necessarily find their way around it.”

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Abercrombie & Fitch’s new push-up bras for “kids” upset a wide audience


Abercrombie and Fitch has once again created buzz around its products—this time, though, it has caused a stir with its audience. In April, the clothing chain began selling padded bikinis at their children’s stores which are aimed for 8 to 14-year-olds. This has sparked controversy among parents and the media who are concerned with the over-sexualization of youth today. The brand has attempted to relabel the bathing suits as bras for 12-14 year olds, but the negative buzz has already made the rounds and has spread all around the internet. We are thus left wondering: great publicity stunt or terrible marketing idea?
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Womenology welcomes Influencia as a new partner


The Womenology blog has begun a partnership with Influencia in relation to gender marketing content, and we just published our first article about women and brands. QualiQuanti’s Womenology lab has been operating for 2 months and already there re over 150 articles published, a monitoring section on new products and services, and a plethora of studies about best practices in the area.

To learn more about what the Womenology lab is all about, you can read an interview about it at l’Expression/Top/Com, or follow our Twitter.

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VocalPoint, Procter & Gamble’s content strategy geared towards moms


In launching VocalPoint.com, Procter & Gamble were experimenting to see how many visitors they could get through word of mouth. The gamble worked well, seeing as today over 500,000 moms are members of this online community focused on providing tips and advice.

The social network provides enriching content with real value added, which is one of the reasons its popularity exploded. The word-of-mouth strategy has also proven valuable in this specific case, because mothers are, in marketing terms, “connectors” who influence those around them in terms of spending decisions. Overall, the innovation and usefuleness of this service has helped Procter & Gamble’s brand reputation and can take it much further than it’s possible to measure.

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Lacoste, the crocodile who wants to seduce women


The brand of the crocodile, which has been around since 1933, wants to re-energize its image by diversifying and attracting new customers.

Target #1: women, who represent only 25% of sales, but are actually 80% of their clients.

The strategy: first, hire designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista (previously at Max Mara) to change up the style. Next, fashion show at New York fashion week.

The brand is also redesigning its 1100 store locations by making them more friendly to women, and expanding their childrens section in order to attract mothers. Only time will tell if this strategy will bring back some ROI.
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JWT launches its “Feminity Index” to measure the success of certain brands among women


JWT, an ad agency in Paris released a study called “The F-Word!” to commemorate National Women’s Day. The findings are helping benchmark some best practices when it comes to marketing specifically for women.

For example, the study finds three values that women care about in a brand: identity (having a strong and unique brand image), equality (with women) and “sister-ity,” a kind of feminine community vibe, symbolized by things like forums and social networks.

Their Feminity Index is a scale of values that feminine clientele are more prone to want in their brands. The reason why it’s important: JWT finds that women are vocal about what they don’t like and will tend to share it on the web, so brands should be sure to pay attention to their emphatic clients online.

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Intel’s website, the ideal companion for guiding women’s search for the perfect computer


To appeal to its female clientele, who are often less well-informed when it comes to technology,Intel launched the first women’s IT webzine in September 2007. The site, Compagnon-Parfait.fr, aims to help women find their ideal partner – but Intel isn’t talking about men here, it’s talking about a computer that’s “very intelligent, that would follow women’s rhythms and desires, and would never walk out on them!”

The concept of the site? Women need a guide in the digital world because although they might know what they want in terms of design, they often need to get to grips with technology!

To endear them, Compagnon-Parfait uses humour, interactivity and clarity. In place of complex technical explanations, there’s a quiz for finding the ideal computer model based on the woman’s profile (fashionista, career woman, mum). Of course, the quiz features information on the latest technologies in general and Intel’s new computers in particular. But the site also contains a forum, practical guides for beginners and competitions.

A site dedicated to IT, yes, but one that clearly asserts its position: via this site, Intel is catering exclusively to women, who nevertheless represent 40% of its customer base. Far from having a feminist or girly approach, the site is focused on the uses women give to computers. Since its creation, its aim has been enduring: Intel France wanted to make this site a real tool for women wanting to purchase a computer.

A little more than three years after its creation, the initiative has been so successful that it’s going to be copied in other European countries.

Marine Baudin-Sarlet

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Choreography for Japanese lingerie brand Wacoal


A Japanese lingerie brand have managed to make Aubade and Wonderbra shiver, simply with the help of innovative choreographies performed by women with less than generous busts.. . Surreal but true.

Source : Influencia.

For years, the Japanese have been crazy about Wacoal, a maker of fine and colourful lingerie. Through its new, surprising advertising campaign, launched in February 2011 and named Wacoal Lalan (short, innovative choreographies performed by models in underwear), the brand has created a lot of buzz on the Internet and is finally showing its face to European consumers.

Featuring dancers who are Japanese models, these short video clips aren’t bursting with sensuality like Aubade’s adverts, neither are they filled with unbridled eroticism or ample chests. There’s no sense of perfection either, as is found with the models at Wonderbra or Victoria’s Secret. What then has made these unlikely dances such a success?

Yes, the underwear on show is beautiful but more than that, Wacoal has based its campaign on the creation of a childlike universe: its site is an array of shades of pink, and its original, fanciful choreographies appeal to the little girl that exists in all lingerie consumers, the one who wants to dress up in tutus… reminiscence works, visibly.

Marine Baudin-Sarlet

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Castorama launches its DIY channel on YouTube


“Lancez-vous” (“Get involved”) is the name of the information channel from the French DIY retailer
Castorama. Broadcast on YouTube since April 2010, the channel explains home improvement projects in detail on video, with so many steps that it’s clear Castorama is targeting absolute beginners…

No more lonely DIY moments! This is the slogan of the new Castorama channel which, with more than 50 short but detailed videos (from 3 to 12 minutes long), keeps its promise while showing off its range of products that aim to make life easier, such as tiles that clip together…

Although the marketing isn’t forgotten about, users overall praise the usefulness of the initiative, particularly women who have often admitted to relying on their partners for this type of thing in the past, but now with the sharp rise in the number of women living on their own, things have changed. Castorama also feature women in their videos to show that the time when women merely took care of curtain and carpet choices has passed.

In France, where 6 out of 10 people admit to only doing DIY on very rare occasions, DIY appears to be getting easier thanks to these clear videos, where an expert carries out the DIY in question and makes comments on it, then a list summarising all the steps is displayed.

A related manual of almost 400 pages and an iPhone application complete this operation, which has already been a big hit (the YouTube videos have received almost 900,000 views since the creation of the channel!).

Marine Baudin-Sarlet

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An insurance service which cater to new moms has found an innovative way to market its products


La Mutuelle Générale, an entirely web-based insurance agency, has created an insurance policy, “Emma Santé,” dedicated to new moms with the special offers and services that they need to take care of themselves and their children.
Their new marketing strategy takes into account the growing power of social media and harnesses the power of word-of-mouth.
The campaign: holding a contest for women bloggers, asking them to write their favorite anecdotes about maternity, then choosing the seven best stories.

Afterwards, Sandra Sarroche, a famous comedian, put together the best stories in a hilarious one-woman show that attracted many viewers.
This strategy has been very successful for a few reasons: it involved lots of different women, used word-of-mouth to spread information about the show, and gave women interactive content without putting the brand at the forefront. Others should take note.

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