campaignasia.com34 campaign october 2014 campaignasia.com october 2014 campaign 35

From the time she was a girl growing up in Lyon, France, Anne-Gaelle Lacondemine knew she wanted to travel, live and work internationally. That helps explains how a French law graduate came to be living in the small Somerset town of Street, marketing to Asia-Pacific for an English heritage brand, Clarks.

It all began with an Erasmus exchange pro-gramme to study law at the University of Kingston, which ultimately inspired her to abandon law alto-gether to pursue an MBA specialising in marketing. While writing her dissertation, she started working for Laura Ashley in the brand’s stores. “That’s when I learnt about marketing first hand,” she says.

While working in retail, Lacondemine saw that every interaction the consumer has with the brand, especially with sales assistants, mattered and served to build the brand in the long-term. “The people in the stores are brand ambassadors; they represent the brand in the eye of the consumer. That realisa-tion made me want to work in marketing.”

After graduating, she returned to Laura Ashley for her first full-time role in marketing and inadvert-ently launched a career specialising in marketing English heritage brands. “I suppose I became a sort of expert, working at Laura Ashley, then Habitat and now Clarks,” she laughs. “But this was not planned.”

After five years with Laura Ashley and a year with Habitat, Lacondemine joined Clarks as its in-ternational brand manager as part of a corporate restructure initiated by chief executive Melissa Pot-ter, who joined in 2010. Since her appointment, Pot-ter has been striving to turn the still family-owned brand into a global force whithout losing its herit-age and small-town roots. C&J is still headquar-tered in the small Somerset town where it was first founded in 1825.

“You don’t become a global brand all at once, so she [Potter] has been putting in place a structure that will help deliver this ambition. She has restruc-

A priority for Lacondemine, based on her early ex-perience in retail, is to take all aspects of the brand’s retail experience in the region in hand: from its win-dow displays to the different sections of stores tar-geting different consumer segments. Clarks will be looking at gender-specific stores, for example, and seeking to match expectations in its global markets.

Besides retail, ecommerce has been an important sales channel in both China and India. “We have two online stores in China, one on T-Mall and on JD Mall as well,” Lacondemine said. “It’s been a great way to enter the Chinese market. In 2013, on ‘singles day’, we reached 1 million page views and had fan-tastic sales, just on the T-Mall platform.” In India, the brand is working with Myntra and Jabong.

Clarks’ product lineup, while staying true to its Brit chic appeal, will have select shoes adapted to local markets where factors such as the weather and consumer tastes may influence design. “Our mer-chandising team is working very hard to provide lo-cal shoes when it’s required,” Lacondemine says. “If you’re a true global brand, you have to adapt to these things, but there will intrinsically be a look that shows the hands of Clarks, a style that defines us.”

Working with BBH and media agency Havas Me-dia, Clarks launched its ‘Life styled’ campaign over the last few months across a mix of channels includ-

invest in shoes that are well crafted with good mate-rials,” says Lacondemine. “He is attentive to the de-tails, such as colour and finish, he likes his shoes to look good, feel good and to last.”

The study also helped identify the best way to reach target audiences around the world. In Asia-Pacific, the main touchpoint for the brand is un-doubtedly its retail outlets. “Our marketing strategy is to make sure our stores provide the experience our consumer wants,” said Lacondemine. “We’re cur-rently testing a shopping concession in Shanghai that’s different from our regular stores. It’s a new environment designed to appeal to the stylish and sophisticated lady in China.”

Currently, Asia-Pacific represents just over 8 per cent of the group’s total sales, but it is also Clarks’ fastest-growing region, says Lacondemine. Her cur-rent location, she admits, is inconvenient for some-one managing Asia-Pacific but there are no immedi-ate plans to relocate her.

“I agree that at some point, a regional office needs to sit in the region and it would make sense for me to eventually move to Asia-Pacific. But we’re still es-tablishing ways of working and making sure the foundations are right. So for now, I travel regularly to Asia-Pacific and work closely with our talented team of marketers there.”

tured the company, regrouping all its business un-der one name, C&J International, and defined its four distinct markets which are the UK and the Re-public of Ireland, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas,” explains Lacondemine.

Until 2011, the company lacked formally defined marketing regions and focused mainly on the UK. As a result, the brand is well known in the UK but less so internationally despite its presence in 100 markets globally. “Until recently, our company has been product-led. But with the appointment of Syl-via [Woon] our global marketing director, the direc-tion has changed and we are becoming brand-led,” she continues.

Potter’s strategy has paid off for the company. Since 2010, C&J’s revenue has grown from US$2 bil-lion to $2.4 billion in 2014, selling close to 45 million shoes a year worldwide.

With the new structure in place, the shoemaker prepared for its major brand push with a global con-sumer study last year. The survey, which involved 20,000 respondents, found that the brand was al-ready favoured by a more mature consumer segment who were pragmatic and seeking a balance between comfort and style. But to grow and to appeal to a younger audience, it had some work to do.

The new global campaign, ‘Life styled by Clarks’ developed by BBH, targets women, men and chil-dren. “For women, we are looking to reach more pre-mium consumer segments than we have previously reached without alienating our current consumer base,” says Lacondemine.

The brand’s new target customer, she explains, is a confident and successful woman who wants the best for herself, her family and friends. “She loves shoes, loves the glamour and appreciates quality, craftsmanship and refinement. Comfort is second-ary but definitely part of the consideration.”

For men, the brand is likewise trying to reach a more stylish audience. The ‘Clarks man’ is one who looks for timeless quality in his shoes. “He seeks to

ing print, out-of-home and online, as well as in taxis in China. Clarks also plans to diversify its rather eth-nically homogenous models to reflect a “true mod-ern British society”, Lacondemine says.

The build-up for the campaign has been gradual and at present there are no plans for a TV campaign. “We are developing brand awareness and changing brand perception through controlled distribution. From the start of the year, we’ve been working very hard with the global team to make sure all our on-line properties, whether ecommerce or non-ecom-merce, have been relaunched to show a single con-sistent brand presentation,” she explains.

Social media has also been a top focus for the brand’s global restructure, starting with the look of its Facebook pages around the world and now mov-ing on to content. “We’re working with fashion writ-ers and editors in the UK to put together content that demonstrates our fashion credentials and that matches our consumer target,” she says. “Today we’re creating about four times the amount of con-tent we’ve created previously.”

All this is supported by the push that accompa-nies the new global campaign. “We’re working care-fully towards ensuring that the brand is portrayed in Asia-Pacific exactly the way we want and we’re making consumer experience a priority,” she says.

the face behind the brand Clarks’ Asia head of marketing wants people to see the brand as a true reflection of modern Britain. By Emily Tan

Brit chic’s ambassador

Lacondemine... says her team is working to

professional cV

2012 asia-pacific Vp marketing, clarks2011 international brand marketing

manager, clarks2009 group head of marketing, UK, Habitat2006 marketing manager, Laura ashley2004 marketing executive, Laura ashley

personal cV

Interests interior design, scuba diving and skiing

ensure the brand is portrayed “exactly the way we want” and will put emphasis on giving consumers a positive experience