It’s a Cannes Lions Silver for Boots’ 'Bootiques'

VMLY&R COMMERCE UK are proud to land a Sliver Lion in Creative eCommerce for Boots 'Bootiques'. The ground-breaking work saw the high street brand break the mould with an experiential-led Christmas described as “the most targeted, curated and contextual Christmas campaign from any UK retailer.”

Boots is a well-loved British institution. But when it comes to Christmas gifting, it’s considered a last resort, rather than a first choice. Boots needed a campaign that shook up customers’ perceptions of the brand, while solving one of Christmas’ biggest dilemmas: what to buy all the weird, wonderful people you call family and friends?

Using data from 15 million loyalty cards members, we aimed to transform the UK’s biggest high street retailer from mass production to mass personalisation by creating hundreds of targeted online shops and three disruptive and immersive shoppable experiences.

London’s upside down 'Head over Heels Bootique' brought a brand new perspective to all things love and passion. Liverpool’s 'Dreaming of Sleep Bootique' for troubled sleepers created unique soothing sleep experiences for troubled sleepers, and  in the tween capital of the UK, Birmingham, we popped up with 'The Tweenager Bootique' using colour and emjois to translate tweenager’s moods into curated gift collections.

In less than three weeks 14,000 people visited the Bootiques. VMLY&R COMMERCE UK achieved a 21 million social reach, and 75% of visitors re-evaluated what Boots was all about - from a quick stop for stocking fillers to the number one place to find spot on gifts for everyone on their list.

Michelle Whelan, VMLY&R COMMERCE UK CEO, has commented: “We could not be more thrilled. Brilliant ideation, attention to the minutiae of detail, clever copywriting, design perfection, data accuracy and production rigour – for our remarkable team, good was never good enough.

She continued: “Selling hard and persuading clients to be ambitious was our mantra – but above all, it was our teamwork, amongst ourselves and with Ogilvy and Mediacom that brought us all success. Here’s to all of you. Huge congratulations. This is the beginning of new things to come.”

VMLY&R COMMERECE UK'S Cannes Silver continues terrific momentum for Boots’ 'Bootiques' which, so far, has notched up a Grand Prix at WPP’s Extraordinary Awards [creative transformation]; Bronze at D&AD [branding & identity]; Gold at Creativepool [experiential]; Bronze at the Clios [design & retail design]; Bronze at AD STARS [design/communication].