The fashion space is one of the most competitive when it comes to B2C PR. With so many brands competing for limited space (both online and in print), and to land with stylists with celebrity endorsements and social media tags, making your message stand out is key.

ALDO Shoes relaunched in the UK after falling into administration early in 2020. Their re-launch in 2021 gave us some unique opportunities:

  • Reigniting the chatter around the brand in the media space
  • Reestablishing ALDO Shoes as a go-to for dress and party shoes amongst stylists and fashion journalists
  • Connecting with a new audience of Gen Z to introduce ALDO Shoes to them
  • Partnering with influencers to produce content and reach audiences via Instagram and TikTok
  • Creating content for PR and social to help maintain brand visibility and audience connection

I joined the ALDO account just in time to support the Spring/Summer 2022 collection launch. Spring/Summer is an essential selling point for ALDO as many of their products focus on shoes that are better suited for warmer weather (think high heels, sandals, open toe). SS22 also heralds awards season, with celebrities gracing red carpets, and influencers are able to shoot more outdoor content.

In short, it’s a busy season for the brand.

PR Plan of Attack

After receiving the brief from the global team regarding the key products for the SS22 season and their overarching messages, it was up to us as the UK team to find ways to bring that to the media.

We made a content calendar of all key events coming up between late January and April. We covered everything from high-scale awards ceremonies, film and TV premieres, galas, and openings, to race days and cultural events such as Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.

Looking at the hero products, we then looked at what edits we could pull together to hit the key events while showing off the products.

Working to our retainer outputs, we devised edits such as ‘red carpet glam’ ‘green and gold’ and ‘race day ready’. These edits were outreached to stylists and fashion and beauty journalists, with samples and product imagery also sent out.

We also completed a personalised outreach exercise to all stylists on our lists, letting them know ALDO Shoes was here and ready to help with any requests they might have ahead of awards season.

This tailored and personal approach was highly successful, and we were able to support the styling of celebrities such as Natalie Emmanuel, Lucy Edwards, and Ariana DeBose.

Press coverage was achieved in titles such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Hello!, Okay, Bella, Chat, Best, Woman’s Weekly, and Red.

Social Plan of Attack

In addition to the PR outputs, we were responsible for producing social content for the ALDO Shoes Facebook page, which could also be reshared or repurposed for the global Instagram account.

The client gave us a great deal of creative freedom in our approach here, and we proposed partnering with beauty influencers to help us reach a new audience. Using the 2022 Valentine’s collection, we worked with two beauty influencers, asking them to select a shoe from the collection and then create a make-up look based on it.

The content was really successful and showcased the products in a new way for the channels, helping us reach a whole new audience as well.

The approach was repeated for one of the summer collection hero products, and we were praised by the global team for the creative approach.

Social content can be viewed here