As part of Hotter’s transformation to a digital first business, and with the aim of getting its core audience to reappraise both brand and products, the UK’s largest shoe manufacturer is set to launch a bold new TV advert challenging society’s perceptions and biases towards older women.
Claire Reynolds, Hotter’s Head of Brand & Strategy commented: “The campaign encourages women of all ages to own being comfortable in who they are whilst challenging stereotypes. It represents the launch of an exciting time for our business following a larger repositioning project, which has reinvigorated the brand, product, communications and experience for our customers. Hotter is ready to launch its empowering version of comfort, delivering a concept which asks us all to rethink stereotypes, rethink comfort, and rethink Hotter. ”
The new brand relaunch campaign, developed with advertising agency Pablo, will air from the 21st September across TV, Social & Digital, with a TV deal exclusive to Sky. The Autumn Winter 2020 campaign celebrates all women, encouraging them to ‘Get Comfortable’ both in the shoes they wear and the way they choose to live their life.
Consciously or not, older women are often expected to act in a certain way, to conform to a set of outdated expectations or settle into a vapid middle age. The campaign juxtaposes expectations and judgements of older vs younger women, exposing this bias head-on. Ultimately the piece is about more than just age, exhibiting that being comfortable is being unapologetically yourself no matter what. The authenticity of women was made paramount in the casting approach and the talent were chosen specifically against the scenes featured – which means the film celebrates real life people being their authentic true selves on screen.
The film sees a mental health campaigner using weightlifting to combat her demons, a political activist, a very heavily pregnant woman, recent graduates, a non-binary couple and a GB athlete, to name but a few.
The campaign includes three different mother and daughter pairings including the director for the film, the phenomenal Phoebe Arnstein, and her mother, NTA winning actress, Amanda Burton, who carries the voice over of the piece. By not only holding up a mirror to society and reframing the conversations around ‘old age’, the campaign aims to encourage women of all ages to fully embrace and express their individuality, to be unapologetic about who they are and to encourage the rest of society to get comfortable with that.
Nathalie Gordon, Creative Director at Pablo, says, “We’ve seen much mention of age and ageism in recent months – what it means for diversity of thought, work and culture. This campaign won’t singlehandedly solve any of that, but I do hope it holds a mirror up to some of our more outdated ways of viewing each other and forces us to reconsider our biases, for the better. In the much-overused words of most Hollywood movies, “We’re not so different, you and I” and really, isn’t it time we all got comfortable with that?”
The new advertising campaign will air on TV from 21st September and the new AW20 collection is available now from from Hotter.com.
