The Campaign

Activating the Boss Jour campaign in Singapore was a challenge due to an existing partnership between local broadcaster Mediacorp and MSN - xinMSN. Mediacorp barred any mentions of external broadcasters on xinMSN. This became a challenge for us in terms of digital promotion of the “High Heeled Warrior Awards”, a property that belongs to NBCU. To make up for the lack of digital promotion, we drove traffic to one central address, www.highheeledwarriorawards.asia. This leveraged MSN Hong Kong for Chinese content and MSN Malaysia for English content. We relied on xinMSN’s natural traffic and internal push to drive the campaign.

Results

The Boss Jour High Heeled Warrior Awards were created to celebrate the launch of the female fragrance, Boss Jour, across Asia. We worked closely with pan Asian partners (NBCU and MSN) who also shared the belief that women should be celebrated for their success, with female strength being the epitome of femininity. Hugo Boss's core equity is Success, but in Asia its primary association is with men. This posed a great challenge for the female scent positioning of 'Possibility and Inspiration'. Bespoke research revealed the coast majority of women were now working, with a third holding management positions. Being feminines is no longer defined by beauty. Asian women no longer spend time wishing that they could look like the half naked women in advertising for most fragrance brands. Instead they desired a 'look with substance' to adequately balance their feminine persona with their professional drive; the true testament to being a successful Asian woman. For the first time in Asia, we worked closely with two key media owners - NBCU and MSN across broadcast, digital and events platforms. The awards celebrated the contribution of Asian women in the areas of Entrepreneurship, Community, Services, Arts & Entertainment and Unsung Heroes: a special award designed to recognise ordinary women who have inspired others. Nominations for this category were driven through editorial content in MSN; this was then shares on various social media platforms and promoted on MSN"s Facebook pages in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Women read the inspiring stories, and nominated who they felt should be recognised. This drove engagement and social buzz across MSN and NBCU's digital properties. We aided judging by ensuring the winners perfectly embodied Boss Jour strengths. The activation ended with personal interviews with the winners, who shared their inspirations, and stories of strength, and courage.

Working closely with two key media owners - NBCU and MSN across broadcast, digital and events platforms. Through MSN editorial content we drove nominations for 'Unsung Hero Award'; shared through social media platforms and promoted on MSN's Facebook pages in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Women read inspiring stories about ordinary women and nominated who they wished to recognise. This drove engagement and social buzz across all of MSN and NBCU's digital properties. To aid the judging criteria we ensured the winners embodied 'Boss Jour' strength. The activation ended with personal interviews with the winners, their inspirations, and their courage/success.

The partnership saw high engagement from the audience with more than 9,000 (votes) and 77,140 unique visitors engaging with the campaign across six weeks. Our target truly engaged with our content and more than 50% of visitors returned to the campaign site, staying more than 5 minutes per visit. This extraordinary engagement drove record sales, making Boss Jour the most successful female fragrance ever launched in APAC. Beating the previous Boss Nuit launch by more than 20%. We smashed the sales target selling 168,000 units in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong alone, helping the usually male lead Hugo Boss brand build its market share across the region by leveraging the power of successful, feminine women across Asia.