PR & Influencer Relations Case Study
The Brief
WHITEHAIR.CO has been working with SOREL since 2015. Initially retained to implement influencer engagement strategies in the UK, with global activations on a project basis, having been so impressed with the agile service and great results, WHITEHAIR.CO was then also appointed to handle PR campaigns, from AW20 season onwards. Since then, WHITEHAIR.CO has been the sole UK agency working with SOREL in the UK and Scandinavia for influencer, VIP and PR relations.
One major challenge WHITEHAIR.CO has needed to overcome is that SOREL is synonymous with winter, with their snow boots styles being the brand’s biggest selling product range. So our main remit was to promote the women’s collections of functional, fashion-forward footwear, focusing on Autumn and Summer styles.
PR
To secure coverage and establish SOREL as a brand with year-round functional fashion, WHITEHAIR.CO leveraged the following PR tactics:
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Product Placement via themed press release distribution to all key fashion and lifestyle media, focusing on key footwear trends of the season.
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Dedicated feature placement of key styles on the back of celebrity sightings (such as Meghan Markle, Sydney Sweeney, Ellie Goulding, and Katie Holmes, among others), including distribution of “Get The Look” e-shots to key celebrity and fashion media.
As a result of the above tactics, in AW23, WHITEHAIR.CO secured coverage in top tier titles such as, Elle UK, Stylist.co.uk, Vogue.co.uk, Daily Mail, The Times, The Guardian and many more with a combined circulation of over 478M.
INFLUENCER SEEDING
WHITEHAIR.CO has been engaged to seed and ensure content with relevant women's style influencers, especially with 'on the move' and UGC style. To achieve this WHITEHAIR.CO has leveraged the following tactics:
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Celebrity seeding
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Influencer seeding
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Sponsored content in collaboration with SOREL stockists (Net-A-Porter, John Lewis, ASOS)
As an example of results, the AW23 influencer seeding campaign alone generated the following results:
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Total reach 4.3M+
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Pieces of content: 79+
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YouTube views: 107K+
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IG posts: 26+
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IG stories: 66+
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Likes: 147,400+
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Comments: 3,760+
INFLUENCER ACTIVATION VIA TRIPS
WHITEHAIR.CO hosted Trips to destinations including Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Ibiza, New York, and more, with the objective of securing content which could be used across the brand's socials, with links to shop on SOREL's website. Our most recent trip, for AW23 engaged a select group of UK influencers including Olivia & Alice, Charlotte Leaman and Yanin Taylor, in order to create buzz on Instagram and TikTok for the opening of SOREL’s first-ever pop-up store in Williamsburg, to celebrate 50 years of their iconic Caribou style.
CELEBRITY SEEDING
Since appointment WHITEHAIR.CO has recommended that festivals were a relevant moment for SOREL - in order to promote the product’s functional fashion potential and to guarantee column inches of coverage with style influencers. Since then,WHITEHAIR.CO has secured product placement with the likes of Cara Delevingne, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sienna Miller, Poppy Delevingne and Suki Waterhouse at Glastonbury, the star of the festival fashion show. The value of the global press coverage secured with these images, reached millions, including features with Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Daily Mail and Vogue.
TESTIMONIALS
"I appointed WHITEHAIR.CO to take care of SOREL influencer relations in the summer of 2015 and have been consistently delighted with their work since. More than a PR agency to us, WHITEHAIR.CO not only produce fantastic results but are also a real support to our team"
Nathalie Snowden, Sales & Marketing Manager
"I have been working with WHITEHAIR.CO since I joined SOREL in 2016. The team have a commendably agile nature and are always willing to go the extra mile. It has been a pleasure to work with Emma, Zoja & Co and I look forward to continuing to work on global influencer activation projects with them."
Michelle Noschese, Global PR manager
