More than 40% of Arab women have never scheduled a mammogram, despite numerous breast cancer awareness campaigns done in the region. Studies suggest, Arab women under the age of 45 are more prone to breast cancer, and early detection can increase the survival rate by 99%.

As a lingerie brand with a right-to-play in the women’s health category, K-Lynn wanted to launch a purpose-driven e-commerce first activation with the objective of successfully encouraging women to act for early detection of breast cancer. And use each product shot on K-Lynn website to drive customers to self-check.

Lingerie shopping turned into a life-saving action.

Every lingerie website looks the same – with models featured in typical beauty poses. K-Lynn’s looked no different – but then we changed that.

We re-shot K-Lynn’s entire lingerie collection, turning every beauty pose into a step-by-step guide to self-check for breast cancer. And since most lingerie shopping is done in private, K-Lynn’s e-commerce website became a first-of-its-kind platform that could directly reach women during a captive moment and encourage them to act by immediately performing a self-check.

An interactive chatbot on the website even provided women with the option to schedule a mammogram screening at affiliated clinics.

Statistics indicate that women in the region spend an average of 60 minutes daily, browsing fashion online – and even longer when it comes to browsing lingerie. And 5 out of these 60 minutes are all it takes to perform a life-saving breast cancer self-check.

So, our strategy was to give these women – who form the core target audience of K-Lynn – these life-saving five minutes on K-Lynn’s e-commerce website.

And by doing so, sustain an always-on conversation – beyond just the usual ‘Pinktober’ campaigns – that calls women to immediate action through regular self-checks or mammogram screenings.

Insight 1: Women were not ill-informed about the threat of cancer. Nor were they lazy. They were scared. And procrastination was an excuse.

Psychologists have discovered that procrastination isn’t a time management thing but instead a coping mechanism. When we procrastinate, we’re avoiding an unpleasant task and doing something else that gives us a temporary mood boost.

The shame and guilt of not doing what we should be doing can make us procrastinate even further, creating a vicious, self-defeating cycle. And that’s what makes procrastination so harmful when it comes to checking for breast cancer.

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Insight 2: While women were procrastinating checking for breast cancer, they were not procrastinating on online shopping, and even lingerie shopping (in the case of K-Lynn).

When we looked at online behaviors data and time spent, we noticed that these same women who claim to have no time to perform a self-check also spend 60 minutes browsing on multiple online retail platforms every day, shopping for everything from makeup, accessories, essentials and even home décor items. 3

The website dashboard reiterated this behavior by highlighting that when it comes to browsing for lingerie or intimate wear, the time spent by these women is more than looking for any other item online.

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The disruptive strategy: Disrupt K-Lynn’s conventional e-commerce platform in an innovative manner, transforming it into a reminder and a breast cancer self-check guide for women.

Introducing: Self Check-out - A first-of-its-kind self-check guide from K-Lynn, a lingerie retailer, hijacking lingerie-buying experiences, converting lingerie models into self-check teachers.

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Introducing a disruptive twist to K-Lynn’s new lingerie collection:

Every lingerie brand including K-Lynn follow a set template and format when it comes to product photography. Models posing in familiar poses that depict comfort and confidence.

So, we re-shot all the fashion models breaking away from how they’re conventionally seen, with poses they took on creating a step-by-step guide to performing a breast cancer self-check.

These poses were defined with the help of oncologists who were present and guiding the models on-shoot, making sure each pose was an easily understandable step in performing a self-check.

Transforming K-Lynn's e-commerce platform:

These new photos, with each model striking a much more meaningful pose, replaced the entire online catalogue and turned the entire K-Lynn shopping experience for every woman into a life- saving lesson.

The homepage on K-Lynn’s website also encouraged visitors to self-check themselves as they checked out the collection

Targeting the shopper journey across channels:

We promoted the self-check-out collection through housing the content on K-Lynn's owned social media platforms, targeting shoppers who were searching for lingerie, driving them to the website and introducing them to the life-saving self-check guide.

We also targeted shoppers through programmatic banners across digital platforms, directing them to our website to explore the self-check-out collection.

Influencing behaviour:

We added to the capability of K-Lynn's website chat support by elevating it into a channel for women checking out to also book a mammogram in partnership with affiliated partner clinics.

K-Lynn’s entire lingerie collection was re-shot with models posing to showcase step-by-step instructions for a breast cancer self-check – and the e-commerce website was made live right after the clutter of breast cancer awareness campaigns faded away post-October.

The re-launch of the e-commerce website with this purpose-driven imagery was supported with social media content (posts, reels, stories) and influencer collaborations along with digital screens and posters in K-Lynn stores across the region. Every promoted post and reel were directed to K-Lynn’s website that motivated the shoppers to perform a self-check immediately.

The website continues to remain live even today, directly targeting daily visitors with an always-on conversation around the importance of regular self-checks and mammogram screenings, beyond just the month of October.

Over 39,000 women from the region engaged with our social content – leading to an exponential increase of 43% in site visits to K-Lynn’s website and resulting in a direct increase of website sales by 23%.

Affiliated clinics reported a 47% increase in mammogram checks, and as word spread, K-Lynn’s overall brand buzz increased by 213%.

Followers on K-Lynn's social media pages also began to tag competitor brands – from LaSenza and Victoria's Secret to Calvin Klein and H&M – on the post, inviting them to implement the same idea on their website.