By Rosie Oakshott
I’ve been working at Relish as an intern for almost a year. One of our clients is L’Oreal, the brand owner of Elnett Hairspray, which has been leading the hairspray market for over 50 years. For many generations, the iconic gold can has enjoyed a prized position on women’s dressing tables up and down the country
Relish was asked to explore women’s relationship with the brand, including, amongst other things, what nostalgic memories or associations it evokes. I was tasked with helping with the project aimed at gaining insights into brand perceptions and understanding, based on the premise that loyalty to the brand is often passed down from mothers to daughter. We recruited 30 pairs to come to our offices for a depth interview about their use of the product, and feeling about the brand. My role was to ask them all about their experience with the brand, their history with it, and how it made them feel. I filmed part of these interviews, and asked their permission to show these films and highlighted quotes to our client, with almost all agreeing to this.
Memory after memory of mother and daughter moments were recalled as soon as the gold can was shown – these included windy (but thankfully not windswept) weddings, girly lunches, special anniversaries, family moments, treat days out – all of which showed that throughout, Elnett was an intrinsic aspect of preparing for these occasions.
The magic moments described inspired the Elnett team with their richness and warmth. As a result the ‘moments’ described by mother-daughter pairs Laverne and Simone, Joanna and Jessica proved so special that L’Oreal invited them to join with Hello and Grazia magazine, giving them a special VIP Day Out as a token of their appreciation for their love of and loyalty to the brand.
The two chosen pairs were lucky enough to be featured in the very glam photo shoots just featured in Grazia and Hello. In addition, they were taken out in the West End by the Elnett team. By all reports, they had a fabulous couple of days and I was very proud to have been part of making this happen for them.
The good news didn’t stop here! So many wonderful things were said about Elnett hairspray that the brand decided to include further quotes from the research (with women’s approval) in their new national press ad campaign.
So, what started as a research project blossomed into the thinking behind an exciting new ad and PR campaign. I was delighted to have been involved in this process, and I’m just hoping my next assignment will be an interview with the brand’s ambassador – Cheryl Cole!
