Butterfly glitter-print mid-tone jeans, shrug-set cardigans with three-quarter sleeves and matching sleeveless turtlenecks, accessorized with a hologram cosmetic pouch.
The latest get-up for Naomi Campbell or Esther Canadas? No, it’s more likely to be found on Canadian girls as young as eight, spurred by La Senza Girl’s new loyalty program, the centrepiece of which is a VIP card.
Designed for girls – or ‘tweens’ between the ages of eight and 14 – La Senza Girl’s VIP Club Card allows shoppers to get 10% off all purchases, as well as receive vendor money and coupons. Customers who buy the $20 card get $15 worth of coupons in return, provided they supply the retailer with their name, street address and e-mail address.
‘The customer loyalty aspect is extremely important to us,’ says Karine Wascher, vice-president of marketing for La Senza Girl in Montreal. With the program having launched just last month, Wascher says customer response during the first couple weeks was ‘phenomenal.’
The VIP kit includes a holographic card in a wallet-like holder, along with a calendar suitable for a school locker, and a poster.
It’s part of an overall push to raise the profile of the new chain, an offshoot of women’s lingerie purveyor La Senza. The company has opened 11 La Senza Girl stores in Ontario and B.C., with another seven scheduled to be open by the end of the year.
According to Wascher, the retailer would like to use the information it collects to develop a ‘loyalty base’ and find out who is purchasing and using the card. Developing the program further – for example, in the area of e-mail or direct mail – is on the back-burner, as the chain is just in start-up mode.
‘Our marketing objectives here are two-fold,’ says Wascher. ‘We want to build brand loyalty and address our promotional activities.
‘We’ve identified a market that spends approximately $1.5 billion a year in Canada,’ continues Wascher. ‘And there are 1.6 million ‘tween-age’ girls in this country. They spend an average of $906 a year on clothes, and we think it’s a retail area that has been overlooked. There was a real niche that had to be addressed.’
La Senza Girl, unlike its grown-up parent, sells head-to-toe fashions for the eight-to-14-year-old market, but the thinking is that younger customers will remain loyal to La Senza as they become adults.
John Williams, president of retail consultancy J.C. Williams Group in Toronto, says it’s a strategically sound idea.
‘If you get them used to the name and service, then they’ll probably continue to shop there as they go on to another age group,’ he says. ‘It’s like Gap’s strategy – Gap Infants, Gap Kids and then on to the Gap. But it has to be well-executed.’
In conjunction with the loyalty program is the launch of www.lasenzagirl.com, billed as an interactive Web site featuring contests, games and fashion tips.
‘Tweens are always looking for the latest, the hottest – and the online media is a way to reach them,’ says Wascher of the online venture.
‘And marketing to this group in any medium is one of our most important tasks. You don’t want to be condescending to them. You want to talk one-to-one. You want to motivate and excite them, while being very au courant with the latest trends. Our photography and creative reflects that,’ says Wascher.
For inspiration, La Senza executives routinely make fact- and fashion-finding trips to Los Angeles and other U.S. fashion centres, says Wascher.
La Senza conceived and carried out the entire strategy, including creative, in-house.
