Wednesday, 16 September 2015

Celebrating the rejuvenation of our new look Millers brand!

This week we are celebrating the rejuvenation of our new look Millers brand! They have a fresh new style with beautiful logo, feminine colour palate and have launched a new brand campaign ‘Millers & Me Made for each other’ featuring our real Millers customers as the stars of the multi-channel advertising campaigns.

This blog will provide an overview of the rejuvenation and over the next few weeks we are going to share more details behind the Millers & Me and Seeing Me projects.

Brand rejuvenation
In order to truly understand what our customer was thinking and feeling we undertook Australia’s largest survey of women over 40 – and had 4,200 responses:
  • 75% didn’t feel defined by their age
  • 80% believed they were under represented in popular culture
  • 50% felt invisible

 
The new look Millers logo 
Millers Brand Director, Jane McNally explained the ethos behind the new look Millers; “At Millers, everything we do is for the love of our women. Our women are used to putting everyone else’s interests ahead of their own and our customers felt very misrepresented in the media. The way they were being presented was dowdy and frumpy. So we put out a call on Facebook for models to be able to give them something back. We talked to customers and found out about what they really wanted. In response we created the biggest multi-channel brand campaign since our launch. It is a brave step in a way - to use real women.”

Take a look at the new look Millers website: Millers
The new look Millers stores - Bankstown, NSW

Millers & Me
Over the years, the brand has struggled to find mature models through the usual casting agencies. We’ve always wondered why this age group are so under-represented. Particularly when we see so many beautiful women in our stores!
 
New campaign image
Our new campaign is called ‘Millers & Me’ and it’s where we showcase our real customers. We wanted our women to feel proud of who they are, and who they’ve become.

Our women deserve to look and feel amazing, because they are amazing!

Seeing Me
As part of the new Millers & Me campaign featuring ‘our women’, the Seeing Me Project is also being launched.

In society, culture, fashion and advertising the mature woman is under-represented, some might say invisible, and we’d like to change this. 

The Seeing Me Project is a long-term commitment by Millers to celebrate the mature woman. Our mission is to encourage the world to see women the way we do. Our women have raised families and supported them. They’ve given love and life. They’ve given everything. They’re stronger than they realise, wiser than they know and more loved than they could ever imagine. Our women are amazing. And they deserve to be seen and celebrated! Seeing Me Project

Tracey Spicer, respected journalist, presenter & human rights activist has published a great article around The Seeing Me Project and new research on Debrief Daily here - Tracey Spicer on The Seeing Me Project


Friday, 11 September 2015

Meet Justin Pigozzo, Marketing Assistant for Rivers and recent winner at the Australasian Catalogue Awards!


Today we would like to celebrate some more SFG success and introduce you to Justin Pigozzo who is fresh from his win at the 24th Australasian Catalogue Awards. Over to you Justin…..

24th Australasian Catalogue Awards

“Hi, my name is Justin Pigozzo and I’m a Marketing Assistant for Rivers. I began my career with SFG back in May 2014. Like every new grad I trawled the internet everyday hoping to find a dream job and someone who would give a recent graduate a go!


With a degree in Graphic Design and a true passion for fashion and retail I was determined to work within the Retail Fashion industry. Whilst I was visiting family in Western Australia, I had a Skype interview for the role in Rivers, I then caught an earlier flight home to come in for a face to face interview and… a few days later I found myself as a new employee at SFG!

The Rivers Marketing team celebrating success
I joined SFG when Rivers was still a new brand to the Group. I am very fortunate to say that I have been part of the Rivers amazing transformation journey since the acquisition… and I look forward to what becomes of the brand in the future!

Working with the Rivers brand has definitely lived up to the “fast paced environment” it stated on the job description! My main role within the brand is Creative Producing – this means helping execute our frequent photo-shoots and TV commercials. With a catalogue produced every two weeks and over 3.5 million copies printed and delivered across Australia, along with countless TVC spots hitting the screens weekly, the need to be accurate and on time is hugely important. The role is hectic but that’s exactly the way I like it! No two days are the same, one day I’ll be casting models for our upcoming catalogue and TVC shoots and the next I am helping to organise a new store opening.
Justin and his giant cheque!

What’s also really amazing about working at SFG is the opportunity to succeed and be recognised for your achievements. Last month I was given the greatest honour to be nominated and become a finalist at the Australasian Catalogue Awards. I was up for the “Best Young Talent” category and was really excited at the prospect of winning! A group of us from Rivers Marketing flew to Melbourne for this fantastic event dubbed the ‘Catalogies’ that was held at the Crown Casino. We had an awesome night celebrating success as a team and enjoying dinner and a few drinks. When it came to the award announcements, I was nervous, but elated when I won my category (and a giant novelty Cheque) which was truly amazing!”

Sally Patman, Creative Director for Rivers said: “Justin’s ability and logical approach to creative production is a true asset to the team. His ability to negotiate model contracts, location fees whilst keeping the art production rounds on track is to be admired.”

Well done Justin – awesome achievement, keep up the hard work, creativity and dedication – here’s to many more years of awards & recognition!