The Campaign

Etam, a French fashion apparel brand, has suffered from a brand misperception by its Chinese audience. The challenge was to recall brand’s awareness of Etam and to reaffirm its French heritage. To achieve this, we created a new trend on social media #FAKATION, faking your vacation abroad, without even leaving your home. A Chinese girl revealed how she went on #FAKATION in Paris. She visited a FAKE Eiffel tower, posed in front of a FAKE Louvre pyramid, and even had a FAKE French breakfast. Her exploits immediately became a hot topic on social media and TV. When you are Etam, a real French apparel brand base in China, a market saturated by fake goods, the timing was right to jump and proclaim: #NOMOREFAKATION. So we sent this very same girl on a real vacation to Paris, where she visited the real Eiffel tower, the real Louvre pyramid, had a real french breakfast, and wore real french fashion apparel. This new topic became even more popular than the #FAKATION, with a total of 400 million views. It is good to see that people are more interested in authenticity than fake goods. And by the way, that #FAKATION in Paris, we created it.

The Brief

The goal is to help Etam be the top of mind brand for accessible French fashion. And campaign objectives include: 1. To level up brand image and associate with French Fashion 2. To create buzz for brand on big consumption occasion, Golden week 3. To recall the passion for brand and recruit new consumers

Results

Followers on SINA Weibo has increased 19,000 There have been over 45,000 reposts and 18,000 comments on SINA Weibo Total views of #Fakation campaign content has reached 400 million on SINA Weibo More than 17,000 likes of #Fakation campaign content on SINA Weibo

Execution

We asked a girl to use her own social media account and post a series of pictures of herself visiting a fake Eiffel Tower, posing in front of a fake Louvre pyramid, and fake French architectures. Then, she revealed the trip was in fact, faked. In her #FAKATION# post, she explained where to find fake French looking places in China and how to make pictures look like shot in Paris. Solely promoted through influential bloggers and earned media, the #FAKATION# post created a massive discussion and hit top trending topics on social media. Her story was then featured on Vogue, other fashion magazines and even national television without any cost. As soon as fakation became viral, we announced a new topic to the public, #NOMOREFAKATION#. Etam invited the girl on an all-expense-paid authentic vacation to Paris, and live broadcasted her authentic Paris experience and her authentic French fashion outfit.

The Situation

ETAM is a fashion clothing retail based in Paris, France. It opened its first store in China in 1995, and the brand is supported by 7 brands that appeals to it’s own distinguish target audiences. ETAM once ranked one of the 3 biggest national fashion retail stores in China, until 2008, the sales started to decline due to the new players ZARA / UNIQLO / H&M interfering the environment of China fashion market. At the meantime, ETAM failed to claim itself as an authentic French fashion brand to stand out from the competitive market.

The Strategy

The PR strategy initially used a Chinese girl’s fake vacation travel guide as leading asset to trigger customers’ interest. The guide was spread by a large number of influential bloggers on social media. The communication then shifted from fakation to no more fakation when Etam joined the conversation and sent the Chinese girl to an authentic Paris trip. During her whole Paris trip, Etam live reported the true experience of Paris and introduced authentic French fashion apparel through the girl’s outfits in Paris.