Marketing Brazilian slipper brand tries new marketing strategy on for size

February 22, 2008

That rubber slippers used to be footwear reserved for home use is a fact many of us are aware of. We grew up being admonished by our parents and yayas (nursemaids) to always wear our slippers when we stepped out for a game with the neighborhood kids. Slippers were always referred to as tsinelas and never by their brand name.

The entry, however, of Brazil's Havaianas into the market five years ago has elevated the lowly rubber slipper to something befitting "basics" like Colgate for toothpaste, Cokes for softdrinks, Kodak for cameras and Xerox for photocopiers.

In Cagayan de Oro last weekend, this writer spent one morning inching his way across three hanging bridges before speeding down a zip line several hundred feet above the trees.

When he noticed his companions arriving at the starting point barefoot, he asked why and was told by one of the guides: Baka kasi malaglag ang Havaianas.

Apparently, they were told to secure their slippers before swinging down the zip line unless they wanted to lose one or both of them. That's when he knew the slipper brand had earned its space in the roster of Pinoy "basics."

While Anne Gonzalez, managing director for marketing of Terry S.A. which imports and distributes Havaianas, would be pleased to hear this tidbit, she isn't one to rest on her laurels.

Late last year, she and her partners attempted a marketing strategy designed to create more buzz for the brand.

Pop-up Retail is not exactly new but in the Philippines, they seem to be one of the more visible experimenting with it.

This emerging trend was discovered in 2003 by trendwatching.com. According to material provided by Terry S.A., the consumer trends firm coined the term Pop-up Retail to describe these temporary stores that have "a tendency to pop up unannounced, quickly draw the crowds, and then disappear or morph into something else."

In their case, Terry S.A. came up with temporary setups designed to reach untapped markets in the provinces.

"We chose this strategy after learning that there are people who are aware of the brand but have a difficult time getting to the stores," Ms. Gonzalez told BusinessWorld.

The areas that benefited from the stores which literally "popped up" for a few days before moving on included Batangas in Southern Luzon; Ormoc, Bohol and Roxas City in the Visayas; and Surigao, Zamboanga and Koronadal City in Mindanao, among others.

Even before they were aware of Pop-up Retail, Ms. Gonzalez and her team have been holding limited engagements like the popular Make Your Own Havaianas weekend where customers had the chance to mix and match colored thongs with rubber soles.

In Boracay, they sold freezer-cooled pairs from a hut complete with thatched roof that was only there for a few days.

In the US, one brand that has experimented with the strategy several times is discount emporium Target which opened a 150-square meter store at Rockefeller Center to announce Isaac Mizrahi's affordable women's line back in '03. They also put up one in the Hamptons offering a complete summer collection.

Levi's sold only 501 pairs of their special edition 501 jeans for one month when they partnered with alife, a hipster store in the Lower East Side of New York City.

Ms. Gonzalez knew they had done the right thing when she was told how a grateful customer from Ormoc had likened the marketing strategy to "a breath of fresh air."

The total number of pairs sold from their provincial tour? Four thousand pairs with each pair priced at approximately P895. This year, Ms. Gonzalez said, they intend to sell at least 500,000 pairs more compared to the one million pairs they sold in 2007.

Now, that's a lot of rubber.

 

 

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