Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Lululemon: Right idea. Wrong creative.

Lululemon’s most recent campaign, dubbed “Pro-Reality”, is intended to motivate people to get away from the TV, internet and cell phones and spend more time outdoors. A great message—and one that makes sense coming from purveyors of all things Yoga—but the ads themselves fall short of achieving, well, much of anything. A recent article on the campaign in Marketing Magazine shows an ad in which a young couple is out on a picnic. They sit on a blanket surrounded with food and wine, but their heads are replaced by larger-than-life cell phones. The cell phones themselves both have a text message on the screen, one reads “XOX”, the other “?". In the background, a second young couple dressed in Lululemon wear, can be seen enjoying a kiss. There’s also a line of copy, plus the tag line: Pro Reality. Whew! That’s a lot to take in, especially when you consider that consumer audiences aren’t interested in doing much work to figure out your message. Actually, they’re more interested in avoiding your message altogether. Further complicating matters is the media plan to extend the campaign to blogs and social networking sites. Ummm…aren’t those the very sources of technology that lululemon is trying to steer you away from? It appears the brief was on the right path, but the creative went way off course.

The article from Marketing Magazine is below:

Lululemon, the Vancouver-based yoga-wear company, has launched an advertising campaign called “Pro-Reality” in an attempt to tear people away from their cell phones, reality television, Facebook and Twitter accounts and get them back into the moment.

A print ad, which ran in Yoga Journal this month, shows a casually dressed couple having a picnic with cell phones covering their faces. In the background, a young couple clad in Lululemon gear is shown kissing.

Noel Fox, co-founder of Vancouver’s Cowie and Fox, the agency behind the campaign, said the idea was to take the yoga term “be present” out of the studio and onto the streets. In the brief, the agency was told to “bring back the senses.”

“Our lives are on the calendars, texts, tweets, blogs, e-mails,” said the brief. “When was the last time that you received a handwritten note from a family member or a friend? When was the last time you took a walk or held a meeting outside? Go create your own show, don’t record it... get off the couch and go live some reality.”

Fox said it was important that the campaign not come across as anti-technology—in fact the company plans to expand the ads into the social media space, and in other publications.

“We also developed a big viral aspect for it. How much of that gets rolled out is yet to be seen, but social networking sites and blogging are part of the plan,” said Fox. “It is ironic, but the reality is, technology is good and all of these things can be a useful tool, but as soon as you start misusing them is when it becomes bad.”

Future ads will address the growing running-wear side of the business, said Fox.

While Lululemon does not have an agency of record, Cowie and Fox has worked with the brand since its inception, and in 2000 created the “Manifesto,” which appears in-store and on point-of-sale materials.

Lululemon also hired Grip to do a brand audit about three years ago. The Toronto-based agency also helped with the company’s online presence and built a platform for the company’s grassroots advertising.

 

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