Allen Solly turns Friday Dressing into Hot Fridays

Ogilvy Bangalore has conceptualised a new print campaign backed up by social and digital media initiatives to infuse a sense of style and fashion back into Fridays

Shachi Tapiawala | Mumbai | November 9, 2012 

Keeping in mind the ideology of Friday's being the most important day of the week for professionals, as it is followed by the weekend, apparel brand Allen Solly has redefined work wear through 'Friday Dressing'. The brand's core USP of 'Friday Dressing' has held steady over the last many years and has now created a new category of work casuals. The creative agency is Ogilvy & Mather Bangalore.

Highlighting the insight behind the new print campaign, Sooraj Bhat, Brand Head, Allen Solly, said, “While speaking to consumers we realised about their desire to dress up well on Fridays, but were not doing so as the code was to be very relaxed on Fridays. Relaxed to the extent of almost not bothering about what was being worn on Fridays. For these consumers, Friday was the most exciting day of the week as it is the start of the weekend and hence they were most open to experimentation.”

The campaign was released nationally in leading dailies on October 19. To leverage awareness on the digital space, the media plan included a Tweeple powered collection launch. Allen Solly did a first ever live hoarding where tweets unveiled the collection and unravelled the launch campaign to create awareness and extend the idea in the digital space. There was also a presence on social media, where the brand's Facebook page has a Friday Card game; each card in the deck of 365 has 52 representing Fridays when flipped by fans will unveil a part of the new brand campaign, thus getting an opportunity to win goodies.

Commenting on the initiative, Simi Sabhaney, President, Ogilvy & Mather, Bangalore, said, “Working on the insight that Friday is a day of possibilities, a day when fun and play do a perfect tango with work, a day of celebrations, bonding at work and outside of work, parties and so on, we created a campaign to provide a new meaning to Fridays by showing how we should 'dress up' and not dress-down on the most important day of the week. The new campaign hence is titled 'Hot Fridays.'”

The campaign saw the brand going to London to capture the essence of its new identity and its English roots for the production of the Autumn-Winter collection that features in the new campaign, Hot Fridays. The product had to live up to the promise of Hot Fridays and after much research it was found that what works is the mix-n-match look. Consumers were clear that to look stylish and smart, it's essential to dress up and create a look that is very trendy, stylish and very international in essence. Given that brand's sweet spot lies in products that fundamentally are vibrant, lively and colourful.

The latest collection features the best of Allen Solly's colourful shirts and relaxed chinos. But the key is the coordinated look that comes through some smart styling and layering. Smart casual shirts teamed with chinos became the starting point. Add in a casual blazer with some colourful accessories such as tie, belt, pocket-square. And not to forget the shoes. And the Hot Fridays Look was complete.

“It was important to tell the young office-goer that Friday is the most exciting day of the week at work and that they can't possibly let go of a Friday by being dressed in their coded casuals of jeans and tees. They need to 'dress up' and grab all that the action Friday offers,” Sabhaney added.

Owning Friday is as a part of the brand's larger objective of strengthening its connect with its target group and ensure consistency in its stated positioning across all touch points. Allen Solly has very recently introduced its new retail identity across all leading stores in the country.

Speaking about expansion plans, Bhat added, “We expect to close this year with over 170 exclusive stores. The last few months have seen several flagship stores come up including in South Extension in New Delhi and Brigade Road in Bangalore. We sense a fresh impetus on the brand – new identity, logo, aggressive investments into brand building, merchandise...they are all coming together.”

Shachi@BestMediaInfo.com

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