New celebrity-fronted ads seem to be working for the value high street clothes store Matalan. After suffering a fall in sales over the Christmas period, the budget brand has attempted to reinvigorate its image by getting model and TV presenter Melanie Sykes to front its new TV ad campaign, with Welsh rugby international Gavin Henson modelling its men's range in press ads.
Melanie Sykes first became known for advertising Boddingtons beer, but since then has become better known for co-hosting ITV's lunchtime slot with Des O'Connor, while Henson receives regular tabloid coverage as the arm candy of the Welsh hell-raising "voice of an angel" singer Charlotte Church.
The latest TV ads feature Sykes with three other models cavorting to the tune of More More More.
But the ads have sparked a row with high street stalwart Marks & Spencer, according to the Sunday Express. The retailer has apparently accused Matalan of ripping off its own current campaign, which also features four women - including modelling legend Twiggy.
But Matalan, which is currently looking for a new chief executive, insists the new ads are part of a drive to reposition the brand "into something that is more fashionable and not value-based".
Despite the argey-bargey, BrandIndex suggests that Matalan, which has nearly 200 UK stores including six clearance outlets, has done well in selecting Sykes and Henson as its new faces. After the ads first aired on 19 March, Matalan's buzz rating soared from +6 to +14, while its general impression rose from +7 to +12 and value rose from +21 to +27.
Since then, the ratings have fallen back again slightly, but the campaign does seem to have given Matalan a permanent boost - its "recommend to a friend" score, a key proxy for whether people would themselves shop in Matalan, has more than doubled since the ad campaign began, up from +9 to +20.
Ads featuring little more than celebrities standing around wearing your products may be unoriginal (especially if you listen to Marks & Spencer), but for Matalan they do seem to have worked.
METHODOLOGY
YouGov's BrandIndex is a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors, measured on a seven-point profile, with data delivered next day.
YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday, more than half a million interviews per year.
This means you can spot trends as soon as they happen, not when it's too late. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of more than 130,000.
The score is the net rating: people are asked to identify the brands to which they have a positive response, and then those to which they have a negative response, to whatever is the prompt measure. The net score is the positive minus the negative.
Each is taken independently - in any one survey, any individual respondent is asked about only one measure for the sector, not all seven. Therefore, none of the readings influence each other within the survey.
YouGov stresses the importance of this. The seven measures that make the complete profile are below.
1. Buzz
2. General impression
3. Quality
4. Value
5. Satisfaction
6. Recommend
7. Corporate reputation
In addition, Brand Index supplies an overall index score.
www.brandindex.com
Contact: sundip.chahal@yougov.com.
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