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Banana Republic Looks to Make Consumer Love Connections

February 7, 2013Written by George Anderson

Valentine's Day is near and men and women everywhere are feeling the pressure ... ur love ... to make the holiday romantically meaningful. Banana Republic is looking to do its part to bring people together through a joint promotion with Match.com, an online dating site. The retailer is hosting eight in-store "After Hour" events for Match.com subscribers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

The marketing hookup with Match.com is part of the chain's "Love" campaign. Included is print and social media messaging showing models and celebrity blogger Joy D. Cho of Oh Joy wearing the chain's fashions while interacting with significant others in their lives.

"The Love campaign reflects our passion for celebrating our customers' most meaningful moments — both large and small," said Catherine Sadler, global chief marketing officer for Banana Republic, in a statement. "The images beautifully illustrate Banana Republic's spring style in a soulful way, and the use of an influential blogger enables us to extend our content and reach, which is both fun and exciting."

The association with Ms. Cho is seen as particularly significant for the chain, which is seeking to use digital content to create an emotional connection with consumers. Ms. Cho's participation in the campaign will include a recreation of her first date with her husband while, of course, wearing clothes from Banana Republic.

Ms. Sadler told Bloomberg News that Ms. Cho's blog gets more than 190,000 unique visitors a month and that she has more than 12 million followers on Pinterest.

"We're really interested in adding dimension to our conversation with our customer and telling deeper stories," Ms. Sadler told Bloomberg. "That is very much a focus of 2013, to be able to engage with our customers at a deeper, more dimensional level, and to be able to create content that showcases our product."

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