Hairdressing

Background

Hairdressers tend to be generalists, with individuals who can both colour and style. Haringtons' USP is that, unlike other hairdressers, they clearly distinguish between the skills of colourists and hair stylists, ensuring their staff practise only one of the two disciplines and are thus experts in their field. Haringtons' aim was to disrupt the market norm by educating consumers that styling and colouring are two separate disciplines requiring different skills and practitioners and that Haringtons are experts in both.

Idea

For the brand response communications, outdoor and press were used to communicate Haringtons’ USP. Simple and bold art direction deliberately avoided the familiar territory of other hairdresser advertising (model shots and modern hairstyles), instead using graphical imagery and special attention to detail to underpin Haringtons’ dedication to perfectionism. To specifically target lapsed customers, Haringtons sent them a DM piece in the form of a mirror, with the line ‘Appointment reminder’ to humorously engage them and get them to make a new appointment. They also employed a similar creative in local gyms, placing transparent film over existing mirrors supported by the line ‘Appointment reminder’ to recruit new customers to their nearest salon. In addition to the ambient mirror pieces, clothes hanger tags, used in local fashion shops, directed people to the salon at a time when they would most be thinking about their appearance.

Results

The campaign delivered an average increase in sales over a six-month period of £184,704 per salon. This is the equivalent to two additional salons’ worth of revenue a year. The ambient activity delivered an increase of traffic into salons by an average of 4% (equating to 14 additional customers a month).

Target Audience

New and lapsed customers in areas near the salons.

Size

500 mail shots per each of the 11 salons.

Our Thoughts

At the back end of 2006, this campaign picked up several gongs at the UK’s DMA Awards. The insight that in the world of hair teasing you have your colourists and your stylists and never the twain should meet has led to a genuinely differentiating platform for all the different messages to Harrington’s different audiences. Elegant, we thought.