Sainsbury's Tu bra campaign focuses on body positivity

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 6, 2019

Supermarket brands may occasionally try to be a little edgy with their marketing campaigns, but in general, those campaigns tends to veer towards the more conservative mainstream, given that the retailers themselves are fully focused on the family-oriented customer.

So it's interesting that the latest creative for the Sainsbury’s Tu Clothing brand has set out to be different, which is both a reflection of the influence of creative consultant Mary Portas on its thinking, as well as the fact that concepts once have been seen as cutting edge are now much more mainstream.

The company's new campaign is for its bra offer and is encouraging women to love their breasts as they are, rather than viewing them through a male-focused filter.

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Created by the Portas agency, the new work is part of the clothing label’s wider Be You approach and has been called All Boobs Welcome.

The core of the campaign is a video (shot by women) featuring real women wearing their bras and talking about their breasts and what they call them. The names range from ‘knockers' to ‘lemon drops’, 'fried eggs', 'crumb catchers', 'saggy and baggy' and even 'Ant and Dec’.

The end message of all this is that however they're shaped and whatever they're called, women will be able to find something suitable for them at the Tu brand.

It puts Tu head to head with the UK’s dominant lingerie retailer M&S and also sends out a signal that women aren’t happy with current intimates advertising. The company said that 71% of women think lingerie ads are too male-focused and only 56% of women talk about their breasts in a positive way.

The campaign features on Tu’s social channels, via video on demand, in print and outdoor ads, as well as being backed by a PR push. There’s also a pop-up experience from Wednesday in London for five days with a professional bra fitter. It targets the large number of women who say they don’t like shopping for bras and are embarrassed to ask for help.