Handbag.com drives traffic with Body Confidence ads

by Jennifer Whitehead,, Brand Republic 09-Mar-04, 11:00

LONDON - Handbag.com, the women's website, is unveiling a new marketing drive telling people that they are perfect whoever they are, with advertising in print, radio and on the internet.

The £200,000 campaign has been created by the Hertfordshire-based agency Tableau with the aim of driving new users to the website and increasing the site's traffic.

The "Body Confidence" campaign will include a week-long radio campaign on Heart FM, advertising in the Metro daily newspaper and in Boots Health & Beauty magazine. There will also be a direct marketing element, with 400,000 women targeted through a promotion with Boots Advantage Card. Handbag.com is 50% owned by the Boots Company.

The online advertising will appear on sites including GM.TV, ITV, Virgin.net, MSN and AOL. Media for the online and offline campaign was through m-One, the digital arm of Ogilvy & Mather.

Alicen Stenner, brand director at Handbag.com, said: "Research we commissioned late last year demonstrated that body confidence was one of the many themes that were deemed important and relevant to our readers.

"Our variety of channels from fashion to careers allows us to illustrate to women how body confidence is about a total package -- not just your shape or size."

Handbag.com revealed an ABCe figure in January of 876,031 readers and a rise in its unique user base of just over 6%. The site says that this puts it as one of the leading media choices for women, ahead of glossy magazines such as Marie Claire and Glamour.

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