Personalised Ads Create Fashion Success

Marques’Almeida holds the fashion crown after launching a personalised campaign for its AW15 collection last week.

Rather than frantically reaching out to the media and fashion magazines for representation, the Portuguese duo - made up of Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida - decided on a different approach and tailored the collection to suit their fans.

If you email communications head Rita Tavares about the collection, you will receive some preview images to spark your interest. Based on your reply email, she will send an exclusive peek at the collection either in video, photo, text or illustration format.

The mini campaigns were created by friends of the brand. Photographers Ronan Mckenzie, Alice Neale, Jazmayne Mildyn and Masha Mel, as well as stylist Tess Yopp were involved in the project, each enjoying complete creative freedom and interpreting the collection in their different styles.

Since winning first prize at LVMH - an international competition for emerging designers - and receiving a €300,000 grant as prizemoney in May, the duo have been hard at work creating the interactive campaign.

Inspired by the late photographer Corinne Day, the duo favoured normal models and preferred to promote the collection this way so that campaign remains in the right hands and gets the attention it deserves.

“We thought people would pay much more attention to something if they wanted to see it, and they could give their opinion,” Tavares says.

Since initially starting out on social media before setting up their online shop, the duo built up a good rapport with clients who contributed to the brand’s identity. The designers enjoyed interacting with their clients in such a personal way and are encouraging customers to respond to the collection and its campaign by leaving feedback.

“We decided to try a new way of sharing our campaigns as we didn't want to just throw them at people, we wanted to share with our social media friends and clients who asked us to send it to them. We want to see how different people interpret the season and the pieces so that we can have a campaign that is not our perspective on the collection,” says Tavares.

Within the first two days of launching, the brand had already received over 200 emails.

This level of interest is not surprising considering Rihanna was seen wearing one of their purple fur coats at this year’s Coachella festival.