In May 2021, luxury women’s shoe and accessory brand, Carvela (owned by the Kurt Geiger Group) opened its first boutique outside of London in the Leeds Victoria Quarter. In addition, the Leeds Kurt Geiger retail store would be relocated to a new, larger space within the shopping arcade. Carvela we’re looking for an influencer and PR agency that really knew the city and its audience.
Prohibition was briefed to launch the new Carvela store, and the relocated Kurt Geiger stores to a Leeds-focused consumer audience through an integrated PR, social, and influencer campaign.
Create:
At the time of launch, the UK was emerging from one of many lockdowns. So we took the decision that a traditional ‘in-store launch’ was not appropriate with the COVID-19 restrictions in place. As such, a more targeted approach would be taken, providing more personal, one-on-one experiences for opinion formers, influencers and journalists.
We created an influencer and content campaign with a difference; avoiding predictable tactics, in turn delivering a diverse and effective social media campaign – all on a small budget.
Engage:
Both brands have a strong diversity and inclusion stance, so we wanted to shape the plans and strategy to align with brand values. With this in mind, Prohibition decided to eschew ‘predictable’ fashion influencers, and instead focused on non-fashion individuals who shared the brand(s) values. This included plus-size influencers, creatives, trans media personalities, young female entrepreneurs, and business women.
To make the campaign come alive and give it longevity we captured video and photography content when the influencers visited the stores. We also got influencers to provide online and social media content, which we then ran paid-social retargeting activity behind.
Alongside this, we targeted regional public relations support to provide ‘top of the funnel’ brand awareness.
Convert:
Despite a low budget, the campaign was hugely successful, winning ‘Best Use of Digital and Social Media’ at the CIPR Awards 2022 – and achieving the following results:
- Media coverage across key regional media titles, reaching 530k+ people
- 122 pieces of social coverage
- 700k+ people reached via influencer content
- 32 backlinks to Carvela website through digital PR activity
