BRAND OWNER:Waalwear GroupCATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:EMEA
DATE:Aug 2008 - Sep 2008
Van Gils was a successful formal menswear brand across Europe in the eighties. In its prime it rivaled Hugo Boss, but had fallen into decline and had become largely unknown. Van Gils wanted to rebuild the brand’s visibility among 28-40 year old men in four local markets: Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
While other fashion brands use celebrities as models to add borrowed interest to the products, Van Gils understood that it is really only the suit that counts.
The campaign consisted of magazine spreads featuring an anonymous mannequin who “gets a life” and lives out a celebrity life.
The strategy was to take the mannequin (an actor in costume) to high profile events in each market. On each occasion the mannequin would be ‘dating’ a glamorous female star with a high profile in that market.
This meant model Susan K at the Survivor TV Party in Denmark; Miss Belgium, Alizee Poulicek, at David Coulthard’s pit at the Belgium Grand Prix; model Carolina Gynning at a film premiere in Stockholm and actress Lieke Lexmond at the Netherlands Film Festival. Two international events saw Pamela Anderson ‘date’ the mannequin at Vivienne Westwood’s London Fashion Week show and Channel 5 presenter Laura Esposto at the ‘Burn after Reading’ premiere at Venice Film Festival. 
This helped to generate major press interest and PR. In each market an exclusive content deal with one key publication was negotiated (such as FHM) to ensure a minimum level of coverage. To raise the profile beyond this base level they used extensive online seeding and blogging, while employing a local PR agent in each market to gain exposure in more channels.
Despite a relatively low weight of press advertising, the campaign achieved a 6% increase in Van Gils suit sales. This was accompanied by a 90% increase in new visits to the Van Gils website.
The viral
Fifteen different ambient scenarios were executed in four main cities in Norway during a two week period. Some 1000 posters were placed next to ‘missing cat’ posters, along with the question “What is kebab made of?”. A broken grand piano made to look as if it had fallen from the sky and landed in the centre of Oslo on street level with a ‘person’ trapped under it, complete with moving limbs, was accompanied by the question “What is Karma?”. This was supported by a digital campaign involving more than 200 banners on 60 websites including MSN and Facebook as well as more niche websites. 
The web campaign lasted for 8 weeks and each banner was tailored to its environment. On Facebook the question “can I get fired by checking my Facebook profile while I work?” was posed. 
On a fitness website they asked: “How does liposuction actually work?”. Answers to the question would be found at guru.sol.no. 
AstraZeneca wanted to build an online tool for the breast cancer community to celebrate and support its patients and survivors. One of AstraZeneca’s cancer drugs is Arimidex, which is indicated for early and advanced breast cancer. 
The key target audience was 18-29 year olds who were used to communicating via social networks. Usually people in communities search for people with similar interests, but Coke wanted to turn this idea on its head so that people could connect with people who are very different. 
The plot linked to the product as Manuela had cut her hair short only to get engaged the following day. The target audience became gripped with Manuela's struggles to have her perfect wedding and, more importantly, her perfect hair. 
The FAQ section of the website was transformed into video interviews with these skilled professionals. The mystery of who was trying to sabotage Manuela's wedding could only be solved via Manuela's blog, and the sitcoms character profiles that were created on social networking sites, such as Orkut, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. 
