Braun: UNDER AND OVER THE ABAYA

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Localisation Campaign

Advertiser: PROCTER & GAMBLE

Product/Service: SILK-ÉPIL EPILATOR

Date of First Appearance: Oct 1 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: STARCOM , Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Entry URL: http://silkepil.maktoob.com/

Senior Media Executive: Rakel Saliba (Starcom IP)

Regional Planning Director MENA: Mark Hamilton (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media placement: Microsite - Maktoob Network - 01/10/2009

Media placement: Online Banners - Maktoob Network - 01/10/2009



Results and Effectiveness

In only four weeks, 1,000 designs were created and uploaded by local women, and half of these shared their design with friends. Their contact details provided a new marketing database, and they were re-contacted with more information about Silk-Epil.
The campaign led to a sales increase of 19% and volume share increase of 28% versus the previous half-year.
Silk-Epil’s brand manager called it “a showcase of how digital is opening up new ways to keep our market-leading brand relevant”.



Creative Execution

We teamed up with Poupee Couture’s Roula Ghalayini, a local designer renowned for pushing fashion boundaries within the context of being an Arab woman, who agreed to bring to life the winning handbag design.
Women were invited to upload their designs. They could begin from scratch or assemble their creation using templates on our microsite, which was hosted on Maktoob, the Arab world’s No 1 website. The competition was promoted with banners on Maktoob, on YouTube and on Facebook, where people could share their designs and interact with the designer.
And around the microsite we provided links to messages about Silk-Epil and information about hair removal, which women could access in their own time when the messages would not be embarrassing.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Saudi society dictates that women cover themselves in public, but in private and under the abaya there is a frenzy of designer clothes. Mothers want to pass on their fashion sense to their daughters; young women want to use fashion to express themselves.
For a brand like Braun’s Silk-Epil, the strict restrictions on advertising images pose a real challenge. It made it hard to directly communicate the smooth skin benefits of the product, even though we knew that in private these are very important to beauty-conscious women.
It was why we chose an exclusively online campaign, with which women could engage in the home, in private, and discuss amongst themselves.
And as for images, if we couldn’t go under the abaya, we would have to go over it.
Our solution? A design competition for the one fashion item that women can show over the abaya – a handbag.