Advertising Principles is mocking the dated look of Coronation
Street’s Deirdre Rashid in a point-of-sale campaign for Dollond &
Aitchison, the high street opticians.
The ads feature an exaggerated line drawing of the character - who has
become renowned for her lack of eye-wear fashion sense - alongside the
line, ’Don’t be a Deirdre’, and are being used to launch a new range of
700 frames. The product launch is the largest ever from D&A and kicks
off its seasonal marketing programme, in an attempt to enforce the idea
that glasses are a fashion accessory.
The idea began some months ago when D&A approached Granada, the
broadcaster of Coronation Street, suggesting that they update Deirdre’s
look. After several refusals, it decided to launch its own campaign
around the character.
’People don’t think of glasses as changing with fashion and that’s what
we want to address’, Alisdair Luxmoore, marketing director at D&A
said.
’We wanted to do something a bit radical for the product launch and
Deidre is the ideal choice. She is the worst sort of style icon.’
The POS campaign, which was originally scheduled to run for one week
only, will be backed by mobile poster sites in London and Manchester as
well as PR activity challenging the Coronation Street fan club and
websites.
