Foot Pain to Fashion Feet: Barbie Style

“The skin on your feet is 40 times thicker than the skin on the underside of your wrist,” Schering Plough brand manager Dawn Kidd said, addressing the sales team.?She was explaining what motivated the owners of the Dr. Scholl’s footcare brand to extend from insoles and a male-dominated audience to include new products aimed at women.??

As an agency specializing in marketing to women, the brand was in safe hands.?Plus, we had all the research showing that Americans had some very interesting views on foot pain: most felt a little foot pain indicated a hard day’s work – proof of their work ethic.?This is antithetical to health, but that’s what they thought.

Spoiler alert: launching Dr. Scholl’s Pedicure Essentials delivered $20 million to the brand in under one quarter – pushing it nearer the coveted $1 billion threshold.

Broadening brand appeal can be tricky: How do you include new market segments while not alienating others??How do you transform equity from foot pain to foot CARE??How do you make feet interesting and appealing??Dr. Scholl’s (not the sandal, that was a license to Brown Shoe company and already female-centric, if a bit dated) held what could be seen as an 'authority position' when it comes to feet – leveraging this was foundational to our strategy.?

Introducing a whole new product range to an entirely new audience is a tall order.?Our strategy was:

• ??Extend the halo of Dr Scholl’s authority position to quickly drive broadscale awareness
• ?“Prove it” in a torture test environment (both for the product and for the brand – read on to see what I mean).

Awareness Driving/Halo Extension:

Broadcast television advertising was always a great awareness driver – reliable, measurable and it worked for this brand.?We needed to capture attention among our demographic – to transition Dr. Scholl’s from a foot pain brand to a footcare brand.?A nude woman always gets attention because sex always sells.

We chose Melrose Place alum Josie Bissett for a number of reasons:?Known to our target,?beautiful, able to deliver a mundane message in a provocative way.

As an added benefit, at the time VH1 (MTV’s older sister) created programming to remain relevant at the time.?One of its shows was “Where are They Now?”: a look back at TV celebrities no longer on the air.?Upon seeing Josie in our ad, producers created a segment around her and replayed our Dr. Scholl's commercial on the show -adding millions of UNPAID eyeballs to our brand: the result of some clever casting and PR foresight.?

Torture Test:

You know commercials where Tide demonstrates it can get stains out of NFL uniforms - therefore it must also be able to clean your 7-year-old’s clothes??Or where Febreze can control the locker room odor so it must be able to handle your kitchen…??P&G (maker of Tide & Febreze) is known for its use of the torture test paradigm.

For us, gaining widespread acceptance meant influencing decision-makers in a moment when they most need it.?

When would the cognoscenti be gathered in one place at one time??When would there be a gaggle of women in high heels aching (literally) for a pedicure??Fashion Week!?With more than 850 fashion editors gathered at that time in New York’s Bryant Park under tents – not to mention the models who were seldom given the right size shoe to wear on the catwalk. All in high heels on cobblestones (women reading this are wincing right now).

We sponsored the shows; hired celebrity nail technician Maria Salandra and her team to offer pedicures on site in between the shows. ?To authenticate our position, we also brought podiatrist Dr. Richard Braver to our booth.

In a funny twist, you would think women would line up for a free pedicure during this torture test – in fact, they wanted a free podiatry consult with Dr. Braver!

Mission Accomplished:

Supported by broadcast advertising, an immersive brand activation and a masterstroke of PR engineering, Dr. Scholl’s Pedicure Essentials was a grand success and brought women into the franchise.

Whether you’re trying to attract new audiences into your franchise (relevance); extend your product portfolio and appeal or create broadscale awareness quickly, LOCC can help.?Contact us to find out how.??