Marks and Spencer celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2009 with “Quality Worth Every Penny”, a marketing campaign showing how they have provided ‘quality worth every penny’ since 1884 and highlighting how their commitment to sustainability is undiminished despite the global recession. ‘Quality worth every penny’, applied to both fashion and food, asserted the retailer’s commitment to bringing the best quality to its customers and tied in with its origins as a penny bazaar, highlighted with special in-store ranges.
The most well known of the print/billboard advertisements, featured in Campaign’s Outdoor Hall of Fame sitethis month, was the work featuring Islington model Natalie Suliman, wearing a green silky D cup bra (with matching panties in print ads). As well as forming a campaign to promote the new range of quality silk underwear for M&S, the photograph was chosen by M&S for the ad apologising to the nation for charging £2 on bras above a DD cup. Online orders of the green underwear set featured in the ad soared by 163 per cent. The newspaper and billboard campaign helped to triple Marks and Spencer’s underwear sales over the following year.
