We seek knowledge and want to learn – surprising results of LPP’s educational campaign
Consumers want dialogue with companies and, importantly, they are ready for change – these are the key findings from the closing Wear Your Story campaign promoting the repair and alteration of clothes. Launched at the end of May, the campaign, which is the second instalment of the ‘Dbaj o ubranie’ project, is the Polish clothing manufacturer’s response to the need to educate and promote more conscious and responsible use of clothes. After six months of activities, the company is summarising the results of its campaign, which far exceeded the expectations.
The LPP campaign focused on the topic of repairing and altering clothes enjoyed great interest, which undoubtedly proves that consumers are open to knowledge and want to learn. They were very keen to reach for the various educational materials created for the project. Among other things, the campaign produced 60 tips and articles (available at www.dbajoubranie.pl/en/) that show step-by-step how to deal with damaged garments. The influencers and creatives involved in the campaign – who collaborated with LPP, as well as the Reserved and Sinsay brands – shared over 50 stories about their favourite clothes along with advice on what to do to save various items of clothing from being thrown away. To capture the interest of young consumers, the company relied on a range of digital activities, including a campaign on Tik Tok, which recorded over 22 million impressions. The results of the Wear Your Story campaign clearly signal that customers are open to educational initiatives and are looking for a partnership dialogue with the business.
– When creating this campaign, we wanted its recipients to change their attitude to clothes and start treating them not as a scrap of material, but something much more valuable, even sentimental. It is emotions that are considered one of the strongest drivers for action. As a society, we are quite polarised in terms of our sensitivity to environmental aspects. So in order to activate people to use clothes more responsibly, in the campaign we referred to the emotional sphere, which also gave rise to the name of the campaign – Wear Your Story. We wanted to show that every piece of clothing is a carrier of certain experiences, which are worth giving a chance to survive – explains Ewa Janczukowicz-Cichosz, sustainability expert at LPP.
Industry change without consumers has no chance of success
Present-day climate challenges and the need to transition from a linear model of clothing use, based on the short life of items of clothing, to a circular model based on extending the life of clothing, requires joint action by business and consumers. This is because it is not only changes in the industry that are crucial, but also in our everyday behaviour and habits, which have a huge impact. That is why education in this area is so important.
Over the period of two years, LPP conducted two surveys on a representative group of Poles which clearly indicate that as a society we are environmentally conscious, but we are often unaware that our everyday behaviour, including the ones related to our clothing, can have a negative impact on the environment. It is encouraging to see that people want to learn and change, and although sometimes their declarations do not coincide with actions, it is dialogues such as the Wear Your Story campaign that can be an effective tool facilitating this change.
– At LPP, we believe that only concerted action in many fields and with the involvement of all parties from authorities, business, NGOs to the media and consumers, will bring us closer to the idea of returning clothes to the second and third circuits. We realise that when it comes to the clothing industry, there is still a lot of work ahead, and although we are still changing, as evidenced, for example, by the increasing proportion of more environmentally friendly clothing on offer from our brands, our responsibility does not end here. We have to, and more than that, we want to make our customers aware, because changing the business in isolation from them and their expectations has no chance of success. The fashion industry is at the beginning of this path, but we cannot deviate from it – says Dorota Jankowska-Tomków, procurement and ESG director at LPP.
The results of the six-month LPP campaign showed that consumers want to participate in the public debate on the future of the market and socially relevant issues.
– We have shown that changing existing habits is necessary and that the process itself is not difficult, it just needs to be understood and accepted. We hoped to reach thousands of recipients with our message, but we did not expect to attract the interest of tens of millions of internet users on social media and the reach of our publications to exceed 60 million recipients. This clearly demonstrates that the conversation between business and consumers needs to be continued – says Ewa Janczukowicz-Cichosz, adding: – We believe that thanks to our materials and activations many customers have changed their habits and are more willing to use thread and scissors instead of throwing away damaged or unworn items. However, if someone really wants to get rid of some clothes, we encourage them to bring them to one of our five brand stores. Clothes collected this way are sorted and, as a result, almost 90 per cent of the items get a second life.
The results of the Wear Your Story campaign have confirmed that direct contact and dialogue between business and consumers is necessary and will therefore certainly continue.
The results of the Wear Your Story campaign in figures:
• 64,000 people visited www.dbajoubranie.pl/en/
• 236,000 views of the campaign video spots
• 22,000,000 impressions of the campaign on TikTok showing that old clothes can still be fashionable!
• 662,000 viewers of the social media publications of the Practice Masters and the campaign’s subject matter experts showing their ways to repair and rework beloved clothes
• Over 550 media publications reaching an audience of 66,500,000
• Nearly 2,500,000 views of content about unique clothing stories published by Reserved, Sinsay, and their influencers
• Over 6,000,000 impressions of posts showing, among other things, video tips on LPP channels
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LPP is a Polish family business and one of the fastest growing clothing companies in the region of Central Europe. For 30 years, it has been successfully designing and selling the collections and accessories in Poland and abroad. LPP manages five fashion brands: Reserved, Cropp, House, Mohito, and Sinsay, whose offer is available today in stationary and online stores in 40 markets worldwide. The company has a chain of nearly 2500 stores with the total area of over 2 million m2 and distributes the products to 3 continents every year. LPP also plays an important role as it provides employment to 43 thousand people in its offices and sales structures in Poland, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The company is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the WIG20 index and belongs to the prestigious MSCI Poland index.