WINNER: Magnetic Spotlight Awards 2020 for Advertiser of the Year

“The research and evidence provided by PHD demonstrated that contextually relevant magazines were the perfect environment to help us meet our objectives. Our advertising not only looks fantastic in a range of creative formats, but also delivers our messaging to audiences in a genuine way. We have continued to invest within magazines as part of our brand activity and believe that this will allow us to push the boundaries of how we behave in our communications.”

Sainsbury’s spokesperson

The Challenge

Tu Clothing had an issue – they had low prompted brand awareness amongst their core audience.

They wanted to not only increase key business metrics, but also showcase Tu’s fashion credentials and their empowering confidence messaging.

They faced stiff competition from the likes of George (Asda) and F&F (Tesco), as well as high street fashion brands, all being highly active across a considerable range of magazine titles. To drive cut through the creative and comms approach had to work hard to create distinct positioning.

The Idea

‘Tu Be You’ was a new brand creative designed to speak to a core audience of 25-54s, whilst also encouraging confidence and endorsing that everybody is beautiful.

The key role identified for comms was to act as a disrupter in a cluttered market, to showcase Tu’s new bold tone of voice, whilst driving awareness, and stand out through a range of high impact magazine formats.

To prove print’s importance as part of a core channel mix, a combination of key Magnetic research, competitor insight and audience truths (PHD’s in house Rhythms tool) were used to develop a fresh and exciting media plan, appearing in places and spaces that our audience consumed, in unusual and attent-grabbing ways.

Magazines provide a unique audience who share similar passions, beliefs, and ideals. 85% of women who read magazines feel insecure about their body, further cementing the importance of print within this strategy.

Along with these shared values, magazines also provided high levels of engagement and quality attention, creating a unique distinction between print and other channels.

This was delivered using cover wraps, integrated formats, four full pages consecs and inside front cover (IFC) Gatefolds, along with traditional display.
The range of magazine titles used was changed significantly as Tu previously only used weeklies. Glossy premium monthlies such as Vogue elevated Tu from the typical grocer fashion brand image to that of a fashion forward, stylish brand.

The Results

• The launch campaign for this new platform – ‘Denim’ – accounted for an additional £700k sales of jeans, with total jeans uplift like for like + 26%.
• Lingerie products within advertising creative saw an increase of sales by 27%
• Day on Day sales lift from Mon-Tues of 74% after launch and 19% uplift week on week thereafter
• The campaign generated £3.1m in sales since it launched