Galliano/Creative Agency Christian Dior has a heritage of being a ‘revolutionary’ among the Haute Couture Houses. However, over the years the brand has rather lost its edge.With a core customer base of affluent but more mature women, the brand had to look into developing a younger customer segment which would represent the greatest growth potential for the future, without alienating its existing customers.Since Autumn/ Winter 2000 the marketing strategy has focused on re-establishing the brand’s revolutionary position among younger trendy females. The communication strategy for the campaign has been focused on the emotional aspects of the individual, ie: ‘We are what we wear’; this highly emotional and egocentric concept drove the approach both in terms of creative and media strategies. We knew that a ‘traditional’ media approach would have limited value in reaching this group of highly individualistic consumers: keen consumers, but savvy editors of which messages they want to be exposed to and when they want to be communicated with.

It was clear that the media strategy had to communicate to these cutting-edge individuals in their own environment.Activities included: -V In Paris – a joint-production between Christian Dior and Channel [V]. We worked with the production team to produce a truly chic and stylish programme about Paris, its nightlife, shopping and so on, incorporating backstage footage from Dior’s fashion show and exclusive interviews with John Galliano, to convey the right aspirational mood and to make TV that our audience would actively want to watch. An on-line contest to attend the fashion show was held on the channel’s site 8 weeks prior to the trip to Paris, which had attracted over 250 entries within two weeks. Mediaedge:cia took Christian Dior’s new brand positioning, designed to appeal to younger, trendier women, and developed an emotional communication strategy focused on the individualism of the target group. Our proprietary planning tools helped us to gain insights into the target: who they are, what they do, their values, aspirations and lifestyle. We knew that the media would have to gain access into their hearts and minds and become a part of their world, to allow the brand and consumer to connect.We therefore initiated a workshop with the client where we challenged the existing media strategy and dared the client to be different, to go against the dictates of a traditional print campaign and to consider additional alternative channels and formats to deliver the message in a bespoke manner to this highly selective group. This entry deserves to be a winner because, through the innovative use of media planning processes and by actively involving the Christian Dior marketing and sales team in our thinking process, we were able to: -• get ‘under the skin’ of a highly select consumer • and broaden the scope of media selection thus to achieve real results for our client, by helping change attitudes towards CD, from being seen to be an ageing brand, to one that is hip, cool, rebellious and trendy - all attributes that echoed the brand’s new values.Had we not managed to persuade our client to take a risk and explore new media approaches, the campaign would have remained a more traditional print campaign only. Instead, we identified new media connection points and translated these successfully into the following: -A provocative and impactful outdoor print campaign, which we evolved from the existing print campaign.A co-produced TV programme, which focused on CD’s Paris show, incorporating competitions, behind-the-scene documentaries and vignettes, which ran for three months and appealed to a young and trendy audience.

Mediaedge:cia took Christian Dior’s new brand positioning, designed to appeal to younger, trendier women, and developed an emotional communication strategy focused on the individualism of the target group. Our proprietary planning tools helped us to gain insights into the target: who they are, what they do, their values, aspirations and lifestyle. We knew that the media would have to gain access into their hearts and minds and become a part of their world, to allow the brand and consumer to connect.We therefore initiated a workshop with the client where we challenged the existing media strategy and dared the client to be different, to go against the dictates of a traditional print campaign and to consider additional alternative channels and formats to deliver the message in a bespoke manner to this highly selective group.