PUTTING NEW LIFE INTO CATALOGUES
Brand: Littlewoods Shop Direct Group
Client: Littlewoods Direct
Brief: To reposition the brand as a modern retailer and encourage
customers to shop more regularly
Target audience: Women aged 25-45, with families
Budget: £12m
Agencies: Prego/WCRS/in-house
CHALLENGE
Littlewoods is the UK's biggest mail order company and has come a long way from its betting roots, when founder Sir John Moores set up Littlewoods Pools in 1923. Since then, the business has diversified into catalogue and high street shopping, and latterly made the move online. It sold its high street stores in 2005 to concentrate on mail order and online, but an image problem had become apparent.
"Catalogue retailing is deemed an old-fashioned and low-value way of shopping," says Gary Kibble, brand director at Littlewoods Shop Direct Group, which owns various catalogue brands including Great Universal and Kays. "This has caused issues for Littlewoods. It's almost 100 years old, associated with the Pools, and thought of as stuffy and unfashionable," adds Kibble.
Following a rebrand in 2006, the retailer wanted to focus attention on Littlewoods Direct and reposition it as a modern, big-name retailer with an online presence. The firm also wanted to let people know it was still "open for business", despite the closure of its high street stores.
STRATEGY
Littlewoods had not invested in above-the-line advertising for five years, and so decided to run an integrated campaign that would encourage customers to re-assess the brand, as well as drive sales.
"We'd overhauled the brand in the last 18 months and customers were responding well," says Kibble. "It felt like the right time to invest a lot of money to tell people about the proposition."
EXECUTION
The overarching creative theme featured TV stylists Trinny and Susannah, and all work aimed to get customers online, using the tagline, 'Littlewoodsdirect.com - The home of big brands'.
Below-the-line work was created in-house and by agency Prego, with TV activity by WCRS. The campaign kicked off mid-April this year and finished in early June.
- Direct mail and doordrops: The company's monthly mailpacks to existing customers were redesigned to feature Trinny and Susannah, and to include areas relevant to the overall campaign. In addition, half a million door drops were distributed via free newspapers to relevant postcodes.
"We know which activity works for us," says Kibble. "And because we had a large above-the-line presence, we made the most of that by increasing our below-the-line activity."
- Email and online: Over the six-week campaign period, two million emails related to the Trinny and Susannah campaign were sent to existing customers. These were segmented according to customers' interests, such as price or fashion.
- TV: TV advertising featured Trinny and Susannah, dressed as burglars, breaking into a Littlewoods warehouse. While not positioned as traditional direct response ads, the work featured the tagline and web address as an endframe.
- Responsive press ads: Adverts were placed in a range of titles from Marie Claire and Grazia to Heat, Chat and Now. All press executions encouraged customers to visit the website.
RESULTS
As the main response channel for this integrated campaign was online, website engagement was a crucial measure of its success. During the campaign, site visits increased 76 per cent compared to the same period in 2006.
Once customers were on the site, they stayed there for eight minutes, 30 per cent longer than the same period in 2006. These figures resulted in more sales. The number of people requesting a catalogue increased by 84 per cent, with orders up 102 per cent.
"We're converting more customers than we used to, so we're doing something that is making the brand more relevant than it was last year," says Kibble.
Littlewoods is working with Ipsos MORI on assessing the brand impact of the work. Results are expected later this summer.
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