La Sirena is the leading department store in the Dominican Republic (a country with a population of 10 million) and receives 45 million visits annually. It offers many products ranging from groceries, house supplies, furniture and clothing. Despite the company’s growth in terms of business and image, the clothing department’s sales were not increasing.

While the store is a favorite with customers, La Sirena’s clothing department is negatively perceived by them. Customers feel that La Sirena is not trendy enough, a trait that is very important to our target. We researched our consumers and found that they believe fashion is important because they feel a need to show off. They were not purchasing our clothes because La Sirena does not sell well-known brands. They believed La Sirena sold unattractive and unfashionable clothing without actually having seen the collection.

We knew we could not create a traditional advertising campaign to help improve the store’s negative perception so we decided to give La Sirena’s clothes a starring role by making them part of fashion content, most importantly, part of the discussions and conversations revolving around the country’s most important fashion events. We conducted a series of tactical actions comprised of PR, guerrilla, special events, celebrities and interactive and strategically displayed our clothing during key moments that were important to the fashion audience. By becoming part of the fashion context we showed - not told - our audience that La Sirena is in fact a fashion option.

Within a five-month period, we gained free media press in magazines, newspapers, social media and television; La Sirena’s Facebook page received a 620% fan increase; over 268,538 unique visits to the store’s website; over 769,500 clothes combinations were viewed on apps; the fashion department received a 53% increase in buying preference. Sales surpassed objective and La Sirena received US$7.86 million in 2012, a 12.45% increase compared to 2011. ROI also surpassed the objective and La Sirena realized a 77.8% increase in returns.