Title	THE VERY LOVE TRIP
Brand	LE SLIP FRANÇAIS
Product/Service	LE SLIP FRANÇAIS
Category	D02. Costs/Creative Performance PR Campaign
Entrant Company	BETC Paris, FRANCE
Advertising Agency	BETC Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Stéphane Xiberras	Betc	Executive Creative Director
Gaelle Richard	Betc	Art Director
Guillaume Palmantier	Betc	Copywriter
Marielle Durandet/François Brogi/Quentin Derviso	Betc	Account Management
Guillaume Gibault/Antoine Clemenceau/Sarah Kanapa	Le Slip Français	Brand Management
Antonin Romeuf	-	Director
Edouard Le Scouamec	-	Director
-	Curveball Prod	Production Company

The Campaign

Le Slip Français, a 100% made in France underwear manufacturer, had a simple business objective: continue to grow outside France by exporting its business to the US. To achieve this, we invented a KickStarter story around the 'French lover' universal image through Léo, a French plastic underwear mannequin, on his quest to get back with Sherry, a plastic beauty living in Los Angeles, after they met at the Paris fashion week. The social story was based on a unique testimonial video, from Léo, looking for Internet users' good will to help him get to California, and open a boutique to live in with Sherry : a simple metaphor for the French brand to conquer the US. This is how Léo became a strong PR object. Everything we did was through his eyes and his 'voice' on social platforms we created for him: his own Facebook page, his Instagram & Twitter accounts. This Mannequin and its love story were the best way for Guillaume Gibault, Le Slip Français CEO and founder, to get media talking about the brand. For French press and media, Léo was the symbol of a French dynamic and creative Start Up embodied by its CEO, and they loved to talk about that. For US press and media, Léo allowed Guillaume Gibault, totally unknown, to get some attention.

The Brief

The main objective was to generate as much conversation about the project as possible to: - Create awareness about the brand abroad, especially in the US where it was yet unknown. - Most of all, reach our KickStarter $30.000 funding goal, to fund the shop in Los Angeles.

Execution

The PR timeline was very simple: 60 days. 60 days, the time allowed on Kickstarter to raise funds. It began the day we launched the KickStarter campaign, and started generating as much PR as we could. The story was social, as Léo would be the main character of it, speaking on his own social networks, thanking the backers, shouting for Sherry, encouraging people to help him out. Social networks but social real-life as well, as Léo really did his #VeryLoveTrip throughout the US to meet people and ask them to help him out. And to do this, we had the best possible ambassador: Guillaume Gibault, CEO & creator of the brand, carrying Léo throughout the US. This helped us a lot to generate more PR about this mannequin travelling through NY, Austin, Vegas, to finally get to L.A. The PR timeline ended with the new store's opening party !

Throughout the campaign, we managed to reach: - 35 articles on online newspapers and blogs. - 20.000+ likes, regrams, retweets for the #VeryLoveTrip and #LeSlipFrancais hashtags thanks to the digital content shared during the trip. - 7 million views in earned media thanks to the 3 TV shows (including 1 in prime time on French TV) we were finally invited to. And, Sherry on the cake: we reached our $30.000 goal ($30862) on the official KickStarter page, allowing the brand to open its store in Los Angeles.

The Strategy

Our strategy faced a simple challenge: crowdfunding platforms are overcrowded with (good) projects. How could we get past this? More than just selling our products, we created a love story between two mannequins and a funding campaign for them to be able to live together happily ever after. This story was based on how French men are perceived abroad: lovers. A lover that's so romantic that he would do anything to get back to Sherry. To activate the PR we started with Twitter, first reaching little blogs and, step by step, trying to go mainstream as our ultimate target was to reach TV shows. People were listening to our story for two reasons: > Either the mannequin love story itself was crazy enough to be spoken about > Or the 'little French company trying to conquer America' angle that finally allowed us to reach radio and TV shows.