Case Study: Wonderbra Leverages Social Media for Revamp
StumbleUponOne of the most famous advertising campaigns of the nineties was the iconic “Hello Boys” series for Wonderbra. The 1993 billboard ad featuring model Eva Herzigova helped propel sales and was voted tenth in a “Poster of the Century” competition. Now the company is using social media in a new campaign.
By Chris Lee
Fast-forward fifteen years and the advertising scene had changed beyond all recognition due to the proliferation of the Internet and digital media. Wonderbra realised that to generate the kind of attention it enjoyed in 1993 it would need to engage social media.
Teeser Campaign
Jackie Cooper PR, part of communications company Edelman, was charged with the responsibility for generating awareness for Wonderbra, which it achieved using a combination of “traditional” public relations tactics and new media. To help, Edelman drafted in burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese.
“We decided to get a celebrity to design a Wonderbra,” explained Marshall Manson, director of digital strategy at Edelman. “Dita Von Teese did [the underwear design] herself. The campaign was very much about her personality and we created a whole load of content to generate the conversation we wanted.”
A website was established, SexySciencebyDita.com (no longer active), which Manson explained was not designed to be the key driver for traffic, while the “Science of Sexy” YouTube and Flickr sites were used as the main propellants for buzz.
“The website was always a secondary thing,” Manson said. “We put [the content] out where people would find it. YouTube and Flickr were the most productive sites, plus we did some blogger engagement and managed to generate a lot of conversations.”
Three weeks before the launch of the new Wonderbra line the website was set up. With two weeks to go the video went live. To continue momentum, photos were made available one week after launch to generate renewed interest.
Judgement by Results
Accurate and concise tagging of photos and videos was critical from a search engine perspective, Manson added, with links added to every single picture. The Flickr site received more than 160,000 views while the Science of Sexy video received more than 1.1 million combined views.
The campaign generated more than 600 pieces of press coverage and 3,200 blogposts. The film became the number one viewed entertainment film on YouTube and achieved Top Five Google ranking for the website, driven by search alone. The campaign generated 288 million “opportunities to see” (OTS), including 74 per cent of fashion conscious women up to nine times, according to Edelman. The social media supported the PR to record tangible results: the product line was sold out within two weeks.
“We got loads of coverage, as you’d expect with a celebrity and underwear,” Manson concluded. “But what was really interesting was where the conversation was happening.”
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