WOMENKIND

We have been overwhelmed by the amount of emails and messages we received this week after our appearance on The Pitch. We never anticipated so many people would watch and take the time to reach out. It seems our mission connected with the viewers and we honestly couldn’t be more delighted. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. We read every email – whether good, bad or ugly – and posted our favorites up on the wall for inspiration.

Here are some highlights,

“Wanted to take a moment to applaud your agency for the passion, professionalism, and sound strategic thinking you delivered on the C. Wonder pitch. What you have is special and rare in this industry.”

–Lisa Taylor Minor

“I daresay the losing agency of tonight’s episode of “The Pitch” is the real winner!”

–Clair Natola

“I’ll make sure I boycott any products and companies you do Ad work for since I’m incapable (as a man) of making decisions about their products or services…”

-Ben Moore

“I wanted to give you a big KUDOS for being hard-nosed, ball-busting and savvy women who are also fashionable and feminine! ROCK ON LADIES!! You are inspirational!”

-Jeanette Rauchle

“As a 13-year advertising veteran, I watched with delight the way you approached the C.Wonder pitch. You delivered not just a campaign, but the kind of strategic and creative framework that reflects the way modern marketers need to be thinking.”

-Kate Donaho

“…just made me cry. In a coffee shop.”

-Floyd

“Well, that was a swing and huge miss.”

-Anonymous

“I have never felt so empowered to be a woman in business then I did after watching the episode featuring your company.”

-Morgan Mackenzie

“Just hire me already.”

-Anonymous

“Do not wear that brown and white coat ever again. It looked like it came from a Holstein cow hyde.”

-Robbie Goldstein

“Even though the store did not excite me—your passionate ideas did and made me want to check it out.”

-Linden Young

“Your core values are an inspiration and we could tell that your employees believe in each other and your mission. Your company had a major impact on us.  How do I know?  Because I cannot recall the name of your competitor or who the company you were pitching to, but I totally remember WomenKind.”

-Mike

“I wish the world was run by women.”

-Robbie Goldstein

TheLadders team stopped by last week to see what its like to work here at Womenkind. They hung out in our offices for the entire day and put together this video which pretty much sums it up. Thanks to Lisa and the gang for making us look so good — and calm!

Countdown: 2 Days before The Pitch

We’ve got the brand platform and an organizing principal, so we go into executional overdrive.  Every pitch needs a bit of theater, so we decide to create huge, dramatic presenation boards with the iconic C. Wonder door on one side. We label them somewhat cryptically to create surprise.  We group all the ideas we’ve generated over the last few days by themes of engagement; each presentation board representing a touch point for our dear consumer. How do we surprise her in the store? How is our website’s innovation a surprise? How do we invite her loyalty and promise her more and more surprises in the future. How does the advertising campaign surprise her?

We prepare the presentation of the multimedia campaign:  print, digital, advanced media, experiential, loyalty, merchandise, PR, personalization and even a good will effort of surprising altruism. We reject TV on a strategic basis – for a retailer with 4 stores, it would be a waste of precious marketing funds. We decide to allocate the investment to a staged event during Fashion week in NYC to drive traffic directly to the store.

The Pitch Day

There’s a minor screw-up with the presentation boards, but something’s bound to happen in the final hours leading up to a new business pitch. We’ve hardly slept in 5 days, but the adrenaline rush sustains us.  We set the stage for the pitch:  we remove all the accouterments from the C. Wonder conference room and bring in our oversized boards. Each board leads with an insightful quote from a C. Wonder customer: what she desires in her own words. This insight leads logically to the creative idea. There are 8 boards, each with a different aspect of C Wonder’s brand experience and how we bring the brand promise to life.  It’s truly a 360-degree view of the brand experience and how integral the Elements of Surprise are.

We know our work resonates with the C. Wonder customer; we’ve created it based on what she’s told us. Will it resonate with the C. Wonder brand team? That is the multi-million dollar marketing question!

Don’t forget to check out ‘Diary of The Pitch: Part 1,‘ where we dive into the first 6 days of the pitching process.

Countdown: 8 Days before The Pitch

Investor/entrepreneur Chris Burch invites Womenkind and the agency we’ll compete against for their business to the C. Wonder headquarters for a briefing. He describes the challenge:  to create an innovative brand that will appeal to time-pressed women who want and deserve a moment for themselves.  Burch says, “Give me what the girl who walks into my store wants to see.”

7 Days before The Pitch

The team gathers in the office to develop the Womenkind creative brief.  360-degree brand immersion begins. We pull market data, study fashion trends, shopping trends, and begin the hunt for a consumer insight.

Meanwhile, Sandy and Kristi board a plane in Australia for the long journey home. There will be no rest for the weary.

6 Days before The Pitch

The team gathers in the C. Wonder store in Soho to experience the store from the perspective of the customer. The creatives are thoroughly briefed. We spend hours in the store, browsing, shopping, trying things on, memorizing the merchandise, speaking to salespeople and engaging customers.  We’re seeking a visceral brand experience and a deep understanding of the woman who shops there.

5 Days before The Pitch

The C. Wonder team decides to spontaneously drop by. Sandy and Kristi happen to be at a client meeting, but come rushing back to greet our perspective new partners: Chris, John, Amy and Brandi. Chris Burch is larger than life and everything he’s said to be. He challenges Womenkind to come up with big ideas worthy of his brand. He wants merchandise ideas. He wants shopper marketing ideas. Digital ideas. Technology ideas. Loyalty program ideas. Ideas for personalizing the customer experience. He pushes for innovation and most of all wants us to prove to him that we know his customer.  He also asks us to predict where the brand could evolve in the distant future.

We call in the Womenkind Muses.

4 Days before The Pitch

The Muses descend on Womenkind to share their thoughts on and experiences of C. Wonder.  The Muses are our insight engine — a panel of infuencers who keep us abreast of the way women really think, feel, buy and act.  They’re always our first stop in the hunt for ideas. We’ve sent many of the Muses to the store for secret shopping and almost all have been to the website by now. We probe their thoughts about shopping. Turns out, it’s not as exciting as it used to be. For some women, it’s a chore, for others it’s a diversion, for most, it’s a very pleasant respite from their day.  They all agree that it would have to be something pretty special to get them excited about a new store.

We uncover the insight:  She doesn’t want a place to find new pair of khaki’s or a bracelet. It’s not about any one item. She wants delight and surprise.

3 Days before the Pitch

We’re working around the clock now. We decide the brand needs more than a tagline or an ad campaign.  C. Wonder needs a distinct brand platform, a unique POV that will attract and win the hearts and minds of women. They need a clear connection to build an authentic relationship with women over the long term.

The platform we commit to is built on what C. Wonder promises:  Elements of Surprise.

We see this as a credo for the company and a description of how the brand behaves in every aspect of its business: from the location of its stores, to how it buys media, to what kind of merchandise it curates, to the way sales promotions are announced.

We write the manifesto that promises women delightful Elements of Surprise in every facet of the store and the brand experience.

Want to know what happened 2 days before The Pitch? Stay tuned for ‘A Diary of The Pitch: Part 2‘ where due to overwhelming demand, we’re going to include all the final work!

Well, we have officially made our television debut and that means the second part of our FAQ is all yours! We’ve been getting a ton of fantastic emails and messages with questions, critiques and comments on our involvement with The Pitch, and we hope they keep on coming! How do you think we did? Who do you think should have won? Your opinions matter and we can’t wait for your feedback!

1. How do you feel about the work Womenkind did?

We feel great about the work. We enlisted our Muses, which is our panel of highly engaged women who offer us perspective and insight. We did a lot of strategic digging, and we came up with a 360 degree campaign for the brand.

2. How long was filming?

As luck would have it, the project began when the founders and top creatives were on a shoot in New Zealand for another client. The Pitch briefing was on a Friday, and by the time Kristi and Sandy returned the following Monday, we had exactly one week to come up with the big idea and execute it. That was 7 days of around-the-clock work, and around-the-clock filming!

3. What was it like to have everything you do filmed?

At first it’s really weird to have a microphone on and camera guys follow you around everywhere you go. But then something even weirder happens: you get used to it and completely forget they’re there. Upon reflection, that is the scariest part. That you don’t notice and don’t mind it, which means you don’t watch what you say!

4. Reality TV is all about drama. Are you afraid you’ll come off badly?

Of course we do! But we have a lot of faith in the producers and their vision for the show. They’re not interested in manufacturing drama, they’re interested in the creation of ideas. They had to have filmed nearly a hundred hours of footage that week in our office. If you figure we’re roughly half of a one-hour show, it sure leaves a lot of film on the cutting room floor.

5. Did you have hair and make-up people?

No. This was real life.

6. How do you feel about the experience now?

We’re very proud of the talent and the passion of the Womenkind team and the work we delivered in a very short time. It was a torture test. As all pitches are.

1. How did Womenkind get invited to do The Pitch?

A couple of months ago, Paul Cappelli from AdStore asked if he could drop by and show us some work they created for a brand marketing to women.  When they showed up, they came with a camera crew.  Turns out, they were filming an episode of The Pitch.  The show hadn’t premiered yet, but it had a lot of buzz in the industry. So when the producers invited us to participate and explained that it would be a real new business pitch, we gave it careful consideration.

2. Why would you want to be on TV?

We had no personal ambition to be on TV – we are just as leery as anyone about being portrayed like those crazy people on reality shows. But the concept for The Pitch isn’t a reality show. It’s a documentary series that presents the pressures of coming up with creative ideas that solve a client’s business issues. We’re a young agency with a distinct point of view – it’s our mission to uncover real insights and create marketing messages that respect women as the world’s most valuable consumer.  We felt like if The Pitch could bring us a client who shared our vision, it would be worth exploring the opportunity.

3. Who’s the client?

C. Wonder. It’s a unique retail concept that features clothing, accessories, housewares and lots of other cool stuff for women.

4. Did you win?

You’ll have to watch June 3^rd to find out.