Glossary:

Late Princess Diana was known and loved by the British public, not least for her fashion choices. She became a British (global) fashion icon and was very much associated with Harvey Nichols (not least living nearby).

Absolutely Fabulous was a long-running, highly popular TV series on British television with a storyline based around the world of fashion (one of its stars was in fashion PR).

Brexit – uncertainty around the UK leaving the EU has meant that consumers slowed down on their spending.

2018 marked 100 years since women in the UK won the right to vote on the back of the militant protests of the Suffragette Movement, led by Emmeline Pankhurst. This milestone was celebrated across London in a year-long initiative from the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, called #BehindEveryGreatCity.

Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge is known for the creativity of its window displays, attracting shoppers to store just for the spectacle.

The idea in a nutshell, became to replicate Harvey Nichols shared history with the Suffragettes, leveraging one of its key assets, the famous windows. One hundred years ago campaigning Suffragettes smashed windows across London. Eight were Harvey Nichols windows. A century later Harvey Nichols would invite a new generation of influential, boundary-breaking women to pick up a crowbar and smash them again.

Strategically, it was clear that credibility was key, and this mantra drove creative development. The work had to be action-oriented to be respected by the audience. Helen Pankhurst (great grand-daughter to Emmeline Pankhurst) was recruited to lead the ‘breaking of the windows’, bringing integrity to the idea, and acted as a symbol of generational progress.

Zero media budget also required some strategic ingenuity to get the message heard. Social media was identified as a hotbed for the female empowerment conversation so we developed assets native to this media.

Breakthrough thinking started with the audience. An Agency-led segmentation identified a clear bulls-eye in terms of audience and mind-set, evidencing the volume opportunity was with two segments, “Female Bosses” and “Career Climbers”. These women held values beyond simply being a wealthy quality seeker. Uniquely these women self-identified as ambitious, independent and passionate about movements like ‘Me Too’ and equal pay.

But the real breakthrough moment was connecting these empowering values to an underlying truth about Harvey Nichols. The brand is, and always has been, a business run by empowered women, for empowered women. Harvey Nichols as we know it today was born in 1850 when Anne Harvey forged a successful partnership with James Nichols, and today seven of nine Board members are women.

The strategic skill then came in spotting a culturally relevant moment (a window of opportunity) that could create high levels of talkability to help Harvey Nichols reconnect with their target audience. 2018 was the centenary celebration of women winning the right to vote.

Confident we had an authentic connection to the issue, the strategic launch pad centred on using Harvey Nichols real credentials to remobilise the fighting spirit of the Suffragettes for the women of today.

The business objective was met. Harvey Nichols’ declining womenswear sales at Knightsbridge were reversed.

Post-opening the new womenswear department relative performance did improve, but only on par with the rest of store (the best available benchmark to mitigate for other influences).

It was only several weeks later around ‘Breaking Windows’ that sales really ignited, with womenswear outperforming rest of store by +18% in the 4 weeks following activity = £1.5m incremental sales. A 55:1 ROI.

The activity attracted the right type of women. Sales came from attracting more high value female shoppers whilst maintaining the average transaction value year-on-year.

The campaign also boosted Harvey Nichols’ profile to new heights as a brand that champions ‘empowered and empowering’ women.

The activity generated 75+ pieces of media coverage – including a report on BBC’s prime time One Show. The £27k spend generated over £2.8m in free media.