A modern fairy tale
Shoes Shoes Shoes
Issue 24 | September 2012
Agency
OgilvyAction Kuala Lumpur
Creative Team
Regional Executive Creative Director: Daniel Comar Creative Director: Nuno Lemos Art Director: Ewan Yap Copywriters: Kay Chin, Elissa Aziz Designers: Elle Poon, Javen Tan, Wei Kit Fong
Production Team
Art Buyer: Vinod Kurup/Mandy Lee Production Manager: Kiam Seng Koh
Other Credits
Managing Director: Mahesh Neelakantan Account Manager: Syed Alwi Regional Digital Planner: Gareth Ellen Planner: Guillaume Pagnoux
Date
May 2012
Background
Shoes Shoes Shoes is a Malaysian independent shoe label with a niche clientele of career women. The company wanted to build a distinctive brand image for itself and drive footfall into its two small boutiques.
Insight: Girls grow up with two obsessions: finding Prince Charming and shoes. Modern women may not have time to search for love but they always make time for some retail therapy.
Idea
Young women have two obsessions. One, shoes. Two, finding the right man.
They may not always have the time to find Mr. Right but they do always make the time for some retail therapy.
The idea, then, was to combine the two for them. Shopping and dating in one.
Shoe Dating was a promotion in which every shoe purchased entitled the buyer to a date with an eligible bachelor from Asia’s premier lunch-dating company, Lunch Actually.
The stores were remodeled to communicate the idea and to entice girls inside to find the shoes in which they might embark on the road to romance.
Results
4 out of 5 women who came for shoes took on the offer and went for a date, which sparked off dozens of love stories in the making. “Shoe Dating” – as it was coined – became an online sensation, was extensively covered by local and global media and created demand from single women around the globe to open a store near them.
Our Thoughts
Just ten years ago, sales promotion was advertising’s poor relation. Now it’s a category that is constantly innovating, inventing new ways for brands and customers to come together. Like this. Isn’t it hilarious? And brilliant? I’d love to know how many love stories this idea sparked off.
An idea is no more and no less than the joining together of two things we already know to make a third thing, which is new. Easier said than done. This campaign makes it look easy. But it isn’t. I hope it wins heaps of awards for the team behind it.