Keep the Party Started

Resource: Huishion Advertising

Brainstorming - 003 - inspired by Iceberg

Iceberg AW0304 campaign

Considering about AllSaints' brand image and self-definition, "Rock'n'Roll" would be definitely a way to go; however, in my opinion, this kind of concept is indeed safe but also seems to be a little overabundant in recent years. In accordance with my research, most of AllSaints customers love clubbing or have a drink with friends during weekends, that is to say their lifestyle may be pretty free and easy. As a result, my idea at the moment is to convey the images that people are going home with a lot of fun and satisfaction rather than to show how crazy they are at the party.

Brainstorming - 002 - inspired by Sisley

The images above come from Sisley spring summer 2006 advertising campaign, which is quite good from my viewpoint. I think one very important element of this campaign is "allure", models are all posing sexily but not vulgar at all. Moreover, the outdoor background makes the images full of South European atmosphere; all in all, these factors seem to insinuate people to get ready for summer and go traveling. A picture paints a thousand words, I am now carefully thinking how to create some kind of situation and feeling that consumers can get it immediately when they see it, as well as be stimulated to purchase.

AllSaints Took Part in Clothes Show Live 2006

Click the picture to see Clothes Show Live 2006

Date: Monday, September 25, 2006, 12:44 UK
Collection of the most glamorous and exclusive brands

We had a collection of the most glamorous and exclusive brands to Clothes Show Live 2006...
...Here's a taster of some of the companies who were at the show...
Guess, All Saints, Von Dutch, Antik Denim, Tony Pimlico, Fiorelli, Juicy Couture, Caprice Lingerie, Hooch & Bench, Remmington, TIGI, Wet 'n Wild, Chill, Jelly Pong Pong, B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful, Rimmel, Bourjois, Paul Frank,Guess, Golddigga, Lambretta, Traffic People, Fresh Soap Deli, Sally Hair & Beauty, Almost Famous, Black & Brown, Playboy, Dunlop, Pineapple, David & Goliath, Amplifier, Twisted Ribbon, Grail, Laura Lees, Dexter Wong, Franklin and Marshall, People's Market and many more...

Resource: Clothe Show Live

The Achievement of Main Competitors - Religion

Resource: Religion

The pictures above are the advertising campaigns Religion ran from AW0506 to SS06, and there are some interesting messages along with the images. Religion uses the name of the brand to play on words as "Religion'N'Roll" in a scrawling way, and "www.religionclothing.co.uk/nroll" is offered to lead the consumers to visit the official website. In addition, theres something like a tag, with some upside down numbers and the sentence "Religion Duality Manufactured Creation", on the bottom of the post. Although I have totally no idea what the aberrant tag stands for, these post still caught my eye when I left over the magazines. The most important of all is a post like this would definitely appeal to most of AllSaints' customers in my opinion.

Religion becomes more calm for the Spring Summer 2007 advertising campaign. The logotype is properly typed with just a little trick on the letter "O" to make it more specific. "Designed in east London" somehow is strongly emphasized; moreover, "quality manufactured creation" is also stressed instead of the inexplicable tag. The interesting thing is even though the infomation of the current campaign is more easily read, I just feel it is not that appealing and exciting as far as I am concerned. This occurs to me to carefully balance the concept of the caimpaign, corporate identity and the information I would like to put on the post.

AllSaints As A Brand

Click the picture to see Peter Doherty plays dress up with AllSaints

Brand History

AllSaints established in 1994 as a menswear brand wholesaling to the likes of Harvey Nichols, Harrods and Barneys New York and Japan, solidifying a name for itself amongst style conscious shoppers as the first stop for design led fashion that never follows trends.

In 1998 womenswear was born directly out of the expanding menswear collection of sharp tailoring, fine knits and the signature washed leathers; injecting sexiness into the "boyfriend" wardrobe.

On AllSaints day, November 1st 1997, ALLSAINTS opened their first standalone store in Fouberts Place, off Carnaby Street, presenting the complete menswear collection for the first time. The store has now been expanded and completely renovated to reflect the original character of the building and its location. This style is now characteristic across all stores, the intention being to create totally different looks for each location, so that ALLSAINTS retains an independent, non- corporate image.

From the outset AllSaints has had a long standing history of collaborating with and supporting the cream of the music industry; U2, Stereophonics, Kelis, Robbie Williams, and Kings of Leon were amongst the first artists to work with the brand. As a testament to our dedication to music the brand hosts its own underground AllMusic parties throughout the year as a showcase for the ever emerging stock of British talent.

The brand has now built a portfolio of 25 standalone stores and 18 concessions in key cities nationwide with three international stores amongst them.

AllSaints stands for being a brand leader; our mission is to create a brand that blends cultural, fashion and music into a potent formula of desirable clothing that expresses individuality and attitude.

Resource: AllSaints

Brainstorming - 001

The colour tones in these photographs and the music video are quite in line with AllSaints' image, in addition, there is a kind of strange but amazing atmosphere full of the pictures, and that mystique is something that I would really like to create for this AllSaints campaign.

The Achievement of Main Competitors - Miss Sixty

I have noticed that only if a brand has partnership with a celebrity, whose name would be definitely shown on the advertising printing. One of the examples is the versatile and fashinating Italian actress, Asia Argento, was the face for Miss Sixty, hence "Asia Argento for Miss Sixty" has been always there with other information like "www.misssixty.com" during their two-year collaboration. However, Miss Sixty has a quite interesting advertising campaign this time to bring out their spring summer 2007 collection. Two top models, Vlada Roslyakova and Daiane Conterato, have shown very different styles respectively; nevertheless, the thing is they may not be recognised by those people who are not fashionistas. As a result, the background is chosen to be light pink, two models represent contrary looks, in addition, the most arresting part is one is colourful and more feminine but the other one is boyly in mainly black and white. In my opinion, these factors make this campaign really stand out amongst the competitors since the brand's personality is shown clearly and more importantly, I believe the brand would be indeed perceived just as Miss Sixty perspectives.

Resource: Miss Sixty

Considering AllSaints' personality and perceived position, I am not going to use any celebrity in my campaign; that is to say, I have to figure out other means to make it recognisable and outstanding. My idea at the moment is to create some kind of signature layout, which would definitely become one part of AllSaints' corporate identity in the future. The other thing is I would rather like to set up a theme for my campaign than have a strap-line for the brand, it is because I feel AllSaints still have a lot of possibility and I would absolutely not place restriction on it.

Media Use - 002

As I have mentioned that both department stores and international brands would do commercial films in usual and they mainly do that for specific "purpose", such as new collection, special edition or sales promotion.

Karl Lagefeld for H&M


Stella McCartney for H&M


Viktor & Rolf for H&M

I suppose there is no need to describe how huge it is every year H&M invites high-fashion designer to create a special and limited collection for them. These commercial films here definitely play a very important role to promote the annual event; nevertheless, H&M as a brand seems not reveal their personality obvious enough as far as I am concerned. There are a few of reasons, and I think a portion may be due to H&M's "brand position", which is more about value instead of strong design. On the contrary, AllSaints may need to put emphasis on good quality, specific design and unique even a little quirky brand personality. That is to say, what AllSaints should do at the moment is "institutional advertising" rather than H&M's "promotional advertising", though to reach the marketing objectives is important AllSaints are supposed to achieve their marketing communication objectives first of all in order to increase consumers' awareness.

Media Use - 001

Due to the surprise of Diesel's commercial films found on Youtube and some other new research I just did today, I am thinking that I should not only keep researching the achievement of those competitors who have well-performed in advertising field but also slightly mention their chosen media to use, and their evaluation to pick up or turn away from those media.
To be honest, I personally have excluded TV/cinema commercial films from my used media at the very initial stage. It is all because I do not believe this most expensive method of advertising could work effectively, though it reaches the highest number of people. Whereas television advertising may somehow be a useful medium to create "brand image", especially to advertise on specific channels or programmes which are likely to be watched by the target market. Considering about the above reason, I decide to re-evalute the effectiveness of commercial film for AllSaints.


Here are couples of interesting examples that I found on Marshall Street Editors.

DEBENHAMS 'Perspective'
Director: New Renaissance
Production Co: Pink Films
Creative: Dave Lang & Dave Fowle
Agency: WCRS
Editor: Kate Owen

HOUSE OF FRASER
Production Co: Outsider
Creative: Dave Westland & Dom Paver
Agency: Hooper Galton
Editor: Kate Owen

JOHN LEWIS 'SPRING & AUTUMN'
Director: Joe Roman
Production Co: Rose Hackney Barber
Editor: Tim Thornton-Allan

The thing is even though these advertising campaigns do deliver some sort of "brand image", I still could not help but wonder if it is worthy and necessary for AllSaints to do. Moreover, according to my observation, most of the fashion and retailing brands doing TV/cinema commercial films are either department stores or international brands, and sports brands in particular. I do not mean no other brands do this, so neither do we; what I simply want to make sure is if the rate of return on investment is good to go into operation or not. In fact, based on my research so far, I found out that Diesel seems stop doing TV/cinema commercial for a few years; nevertheless, it is interesting that Diesel now is merely running their promotional film on Diesel's official website for their latest campaign, Global Warming, Spring Summer 2007. Despite Diesel's actual reason to quit, I believe this more or less reveals that commercial film is just not a good media to go.

The Achievement of Main Competitors - Diesel

Among all the main competitors of AllSaints, I would say Diesel is the strongest and toughest one to beat, in fact, I think it is not excessive to say Diesel is actually the KING of advertising within all the high street retailers. Although from my own memory, I have never seen any Diesel TV/cinema advertising; what really surprises me is then I do find some of their former commercial films on Youtube, how amazing!!!


Diesel Jeans - Mono Village - AW 2005

At a scout style camp the young men are woken up for exercises earlier, and then happy to find the days activities are lessons on mouth to mouth, a young man steps forward thinking it is going to be a young woman. However it is an elderly man he has to kiss, so he imagines it is a pretty blond girl and he is frolicking with her, and the advert ends with the man and boy riding horses.

Reference: Visit 4 info

Diesel Jeans - Monster Burger - AW 2005

A pretty redhead woman is lazing about in the backwaters of a forest, as she does a man is fixing a trap. However a strange monster is creeping up on the pretty woman, and surprises her and gives chase, despite nearly catching her she escapes and the man with trap catches the monster, and the man hugs the woman. Then they are both shown making burgers with their children and selling Monster Burgers made from their captured monster.
Reference: Visit 4 info

I personally think most of Diesel's advertising campaigns work very well since they are very impressive and attractive for me. I found that Diesel used to do their commercial films during 1990s, and the main concept of these commercial films is "successful living", which is just as Diesel's strap-line defines themselves. However, Diesel's performance by means of print media is what I actually appreciate; in fact, I am afraid that I would never be interested in Desiel if I only see their TV advertising. Diesel has been quite good at utilizing strong themes to bring out their collection and meanwhile promoting their brand image. Here are my favourite two Diesel's campaigns, I would say the ideas are so fabulous that even now I still think they are so interesting and cool.

Diesel AW2001 Campaign - Staying Young Forever

Diesel AW2003 Campaign- Today We Work Hard

I have been struggled to come up with a matching strap-line for AllSaints for a while; nevertheless, an excellent concept for the advertising campaign may be more important for a brand from my viewpoint. As a result, I have decided, first of all, to clarify my main theme of the campaign, then hopefully I could hence figure out if a new strap-lined is needful or not. At the moment, I am thinking to create a motif, which could stand for AllSaint's personality and also represent the life style or attitue of AllSaint's consumers. There are several elements would be definitely included such as music, multi-culture, allure and so on; however, I wish I am capable to cover above-mentioned factors and have some further innovation as well, hopefully I could gain some suggestions or comments from my colleagues.

The Achievement of Main Competitors - We Are Replay

In 2003, the Replay group announce their evolved-casual label, We Are Replay, and officially deput at Pitti Uomo; furthermore, the first four We Are Replay single-brand stores then open in Italy during the year 2004.

Reference: We Are Replay

Photoshop: Uma

Due to their different style and target market, Replay Blue Jeans and We Are Replay are very different "brands", which could be obviously seen in their respective advertising campaigns.

Reference: Replay Blue Jeans

I would say Replay Blue Jeans painstakingly puts emphasis on "nature", and even a little "wild". Most of the view they use in the advertising campaigns are the open, and models look pristine. I suppose that they would like to reveal some messages, such as the occasion to wear the jeans, or the comfortablity of their jeans. On the contrary, We Are Replay is more fashionable and funky. They always have strong atmosphere and a clear-cut idea so that you can easily get involved in the brand's ambiance. I am not saying to copy, however, the kind of mood is just what I would like to create for AllSaints advertising campaign.

Lavazza. Italy's favourite coffee.

Lavazza 2004 - Mission To Espresso by Thierry LeGouès

Lavazza 2005 - Espress Youself by Erwin Olaf

Lavazza 2007 - The Most Incredible Espresso Experience by Eugenio Recuenco

Refrence : Lavazza

As everyone knows that Starbucks are very good at branding themselves and shown on varieties of Hollywood movies and American series all the time; I have not forgotten Anne Hathaway holding thousands of shopping bags and "Starbucks" in The Devil Wears Prada.

On the contrary, Lavazza may not be able to appear in that many shows but I would say they make themselves far more "fashionalby" than Starbucks by constantly fantastic "above-the-line advertising". By means of co-operating with great photographers, Lavazza have always utilized interesting strap-lines and brightly coloured images to develop their concepts and make them full of wit, humor and attractiveness. In addition, unlike other advertising campaigns of beverages, Lavazza put a lot of emphasis on sexy allure as well; in fact, these factors I just mentioned all play very important roles in fashion advertising campaigns. However, I am sorry to say that I have found fashion advertisement is getting more and more boring from time to time, and I actually believe there is some more to do apart from simply showing the latest collection. More unfortunately, I am not the only one who think so.

No love for fashion advertising
13th Nov 2006, 21:30 GMT
Gripes Wow. All I can say is I'm glad finally someone finally said this. Members of a fashion-focused panel discussion at a New York Ad Club luncheon blasted fashion advertising, calling it "boring" and more. Ads for fashion were ridiculed for being too focused on art direction and not focused enough on appealing to customers. They also took the industry to task for using the same handful of models, a tactic they say does nothing to make a brand unique since a dozen other brands are using using the same person in their ads. The best bit, though, came when no one on the panel could point to a recent campaign they thought was memorable. Ouch.