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Britain’s best-known erotic retailer Ann Summers has hired Team

Saatchi to develop its first brand advertising, with a brief to be

controversial but inoffensive.

The move comes as Ann Summers steps up its ambitious plans to establish

a presence on every UK high street within two years. The retailer, which

has sales of over pounds 43m a year, owns 28 UK stores and plans to open

a further 15 in the next five months.

Team Saatchi, which won a lengthy pitch against nine agencies, will

promote store openings this autumn and redesign store windows ahead of a

full-scale brand campaign next January. The first store to be redesigned

will be the flagship branch in Soho.

Ann Summers wants to reposition the brand as more upmarket and

mainstream in a challenge to other high street fashion brands. Media for

the campaign could include cinema, poster and outdoor advertising. There

will also be a packaging revamp to make the brand appear less tacky and

more indulgent.

Rebecca Franklin, head of PR and marketing at Ann Summers, said the ads

would reflect the content of the stores, without being offensive. ’We

are targeting independent, confident and strong-minded women who want to

take control of their lives. They will be in their early-20s, watch Sex

and the City and Friends and identify with Bridget Jones,’ she said.

Budget for the campaign has yet to be decided, but Franklin claimed she

had set no upper limit.

It is understood that Ann Summers wants to spend about pounds 10,000 a

store on the initial renovations.