Fnac is the iconic cultural retailer in France, fighting for culture’s openness since 1954.

By being a store where culture was lived and not just consumed, Fnac occupied an important place in French minds and hearts. But Fnac has undergone the massive disruption of the culture, the same one that has empowered platforms while killing so many traditional players: dematerialization.

The brand was loosing its relevance and progressively its connexion with French people. The internal vision for the future of Fnac was not aligned, with different perspectives and massive doubts about the decision to fight back for culture or simply to focus on others product categories such as technological goods. We needed to fight back to regain consideration, love and to make Fnac a place to be again.

New brand platform, new comms platform, new actions… we had to change everything while aligning the whole organization.

The new brand platform has given life to a new brand tagline: “Free the culture”. The commitmend was clear: empowering the plurality and richness of culture to free people from their bubbles and give them back the beauty of serendipity.

Then, creative executions needed to be as bold as the strategic ambition. And we didn’t want just a one-shot, because we were aware that this fight needs to live through a long-lasting journey.

That’s how we have built the communication plateform called “Unrecommended by the algorithm”. From display, to Twitter, Spotify or OOH, we spread our commitment: going beyond what people are supposed to like to open them to what they are not, in order to free the culture and expand people’s cultural horizons.

To exist in the world of platforms, we needed to act as a counter-power. We had to make the weaknesses of platforms our strengths. And if it’s totally impossible to make people quit Netflix, Spotify or Amazon Prime, we can at least offering a useful alternative model.

So, we decided to run a fight model against model.

Platforms are made of powerful recommendation algorithms? Fnac will fight with its human advisors. It’s how it started. And the playground was super rich.

Algorithms vs. human

Binary-led recommendation vs. emotions-led recommendation

Filter bubbles vs. always discovering new cultural horizons

Uniformization vs. openness

Isolation vs. freedom

The breakthrough moment was when we presented this. The core idea was there. And then it was all about building the brand platform and activating it through an impactful comms platform.

Fnac is the iconic cultural retailer in France, fighting for culture’s openness since 1954.

By being a store where culture was lived and not just consumed, Fnac occupied an important place in French minds and hearts.

But Fnac has undergone the massive disruption of the culture, the same one that has empowered platforms while killing so many traditional players: dematerialization. The brand was loosing its relevance and progressively its connexion with French people. Even internal voices among the company started to think that it was maybe the time to say goodbye to their cultural DNA.

It was time to fight back and we seize the opportunity to revamp the brand platform to do it.

We needed to assert our cultural positioning by finding a way to reignite what has always made the value of fnac: its commitment towards cultural openness. And doing this with a clear challenge in mind: building a value proposition that gives an essential role to Fnac in this new era led by platforms.

Fortunately, it appears that this era comes up with a big issue that can be at the heart of our needed fight: recommendation algorithms. The invisible machine power of platforms. The ones that influence everything we like, talk about, buy, read, or watch. The ones that guide us into bubbles where we see only a part of what the world really is, which empowers dangerous mindsets and behaviours such as addiction, polarization, radicalization… The ones that make us experiencing a culture where everything looks the same, where nothing surprises us, where nothing shakes us, where nothing makes us see the world a bit differently.

For Fnac, the fight was here. We revamped the brand platform and set a new brand tagline: “Free the culture”. A fight to empower the plurality and richness of culture, but above all a fight for freeing people from their bubbles and give them back the beauty of serendipity.

Then, we needed to act bold. Not just a one-shot, because this fight needs to live through a long-lasting journey. So, we have built the communication plateform called “Unrecommended by the algorithm”. From display, to Twitter, Spotify or OOH, we spread our commitment: going beyond what people are supposed to like to open them to what they are not, in order to free the culture and expand people’s cultural horizons.

And the results were there. Oustanding results for the advertising campaign, strong engagement with our display activation and last but not least, for the first time of its history, Fnac has been ranked 2nd most preferred brand for French people.

New brand platform, new brand tagline, new value proposition, new communication platform, new campaigns from TVC to OOH and display… we had to change everything to reposition Fnac and help the brand to have a future in the world of platforms. Good news, the results so far are outstanding.

For Fnac, the great comeback is underway!

Results of our advertising campaign:

- Top-of-mind awaress: +12 points

- Brand image: +19 points of very good image (= note between 8-10)

- Brand trust: +28 points

- Brand expertise: +35 points

- Brand proximity: +40 points

- Brand commitment: +32 points

- Purchase intent: +43 points

- Will to get information about Fnac: +26 points

- Recommendation: +12 points

Results of our display campaign:

- 1 million impressions with the digital banners

- More than 4000 visits to the unrecommended by algo Twitter account in just 2 days

- A record engagement rate: 35,7%

= x1800 compared to the cultural good industry average

= x715 compared to other sector averages

- Click-through rate from display banners to Fnac website: +300% compared to campaign average

Last but not least, for the first time of its history Fnac has been ranked 2nd most preferred brand for French people (OC&C 2022).