The current economic climate poses a particular strain on those of us in luxury retail. How do we convince customers that it's okay to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on things that are so clearly not essentials? That is precisely the challenge that the higher ups at Saks have asked our creative department to resolve, across all of our advertising and marketing.My fellow writers and I have found a solution by spelling out what makes our merchandise so valuable. From hand-crafted workmanship to the origin from which designers drew inspiration; a one-of-a-kind item to pieces that are exclusively sold at Saks— it's become part of our jobs to uncover the worth of everything we write about.
I first implemented this new copy direction for the Fall 2009 Women's Want It! catalog. Each copy block begins with a value statement. Working closely with a Senior Art Director, I formulated novel and interesting ways of incorporating additional information throughout each section. Here are examples of three of those sections.
The first section, “Nine Modern Masterpieces” was shot using mannequins instead of models to cut costs. Realizing this approach could easily look down scale we came up with the concept of an auction house—even using a Christie's paddle for the opening spread. Although the looks featured are not one-of-a-kind, the copy I created adds to their perceived value.
I titled the next section “Power Tools” and it was shot in the same vain as the film “Attack of the 50 ft. Woman”. It was my idea to illustrate the strength of these looks by making the model’s wearing them look larger than life. To emphasize this, I wrote empowering statements that run throughout on background billboards.
The final section shown here is titled “Mood Enhancers”. What originated as a ‘get the look at any price’ story evolved into an upbeat, trend-focused section. Each trend is represented by a unique optimistic phrase I created—Bright Color is called “Look on the Bright Side”, New Designers is “Share the Good News”, Rock ‘n’ Roll is “Stay Upbeat” and New Classics is “Invest in Your Future”.
This book has been received numerous accolades from many of the Saks executives.
