La Senza’s new Extreme Weightless bra collection is the centerpiece of the lingerie brand’s latest national advertising campaign.
La Senza’s inhouse marketing staff designed a series of print ads for the May issues of national fashion and lifestyle publications, as well as out-of-home executions for the Toronto and Montreal markets. The ads simply show models wearing the bras, but are more about the store’s overall brand than the new product, which is only mentioned in small text at the bottom of the outdoor ads.
“The purpose of the campaign was to communicate our brand authority, leadership and experience,” says Karine Wascher, La Senza’s executive vice-president of marketing. “The key objective was reminding the customer that this is the place to come for all your needs.”
La Senza has adjusted its marketing budget this year to direct more spending to the mass market, as opposed to its traditionally high in-store advertising, says Wascher.
“We opted to target our core 18-to-35 market with an urban outreach,” she says. “We have always been very aggressive in our in-store presentation. We flip the merchandise around every three weeks. Our windows change every three weeks. We drive the business with entertainment value for customers in our store… For spring, we wanted to extend that beyond the store experience to other media.”
The campaign will be unveiled at a media-only event at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto this afternoon where fashion photographer Chris Nicholls will conduct a live photo shoot with La Senza models in the museum’s upscale C5 Restaurant Lounge.
The event was designed by Anwar Mekhayech, Matt Davis and Allen Chan, partners at Design Agency and co-hosts of HGTV’s Designer Guys.
La Senza has 326 retail outlets in Canada and an additional 341 locations worldwide. In January 2007 it was purchased by Limited Brands, the Columbus, Ohio-based parent company of Victoria’s Secret. It is the only Limited Brands retail operation to show sales growth so far in 2008.
