Pretty Polly initiates strategic review

by TANIA MASON, Marketing 19-Dec-02

Sara Lee Courtaulds has kicked off a strategic review of the identity for its flagship Pretty Polly brand, as it aims to target it at a younger 20- to 35-year-old audience.

The review encompasses both Pretty Polly lingerie and hosiery, and will bring the visual identity of the two products in line so consumers have a clearer impression of the brand's overarching values.

The company has appointed branding agency Dew Gibbons to carry out the review, and devise an image that can be applied to all packaging and marketing communications.

In July, the company brought its hosiery and lingerie divisions under one roof and promoted Aristoc managing director Sue Clague to a new chief marketing role overseeing all three brands: Pretty Polly, Aristoc and Courtaulds socks (Marketing, July 4).

As commercial managing director, brands, Clague was charged with creating a more distinct positioning for each of the brands in order to improve customer loyalty.

A month later, Clague hired Aristoc's incumbent agency, Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, to create advertising for Pretty Polly, after 18 months without an above-the-line agency. Pretty Polly split with TBWA/London in January 2001, ending a four-year relationship which included the famous 'Long legs' poster campaign.

Miles Calcraft's first work on the brand has already run into trouble, with feminists describing its poster campaign as sexist. The bus shelter poster invited passers-by to press a button just below a woman's breast, to hear information about the Baroque range of lingerie. But Clague insisted it was targeted at 'fun-loving women'.