Adgully Exclusive | Liberty's evolution from "We are About the People' to "A feeling called Liberty'

Liberty Shoes, the leading footwear brand of India, has launched a new advertising campaign with the most promising debonair youth icon as it's brand ambassador - Hrithik Roshan. Its for the first time that the company has associated with a brand ambassador.On the lines on the lines of the campaign's new tagline - "A feeling called Liberty', audience is witnessing a new and distinct silhouette of the brand as it undergoes its repositioning with this campaign.

Adgully interacted with Nidhi Arora, Group Head, Montage Advertising to know more about their step and campaign.

Commenting on the basic premise of the campaign, Nidhi Arora, said, "The basic positioning is "a feeling called liberty' wherein we are inviting customers to come and "express themselves.' We basically want that anybody who wears our shoes make a statement just like how they choose their apparels, their bags, make-up etc.For them shoes is not only a tangible product but a product with a lot of intangible attachments."

With this Ad Campaign, the brand will endure its repositioning as a more youth-centric brand with elegant and unique footwear designs, different from its earlier approach as a family- centric brand. The ad was released on September 9 and will be unfolding large size ads in the mainstream dailies.

When asked about the need for repositioning of the brand, she said, "we are not repositioning the brand but we are at a stage of evolution where we want to evolve our brand since it is an old brand and from quite some time we are trying to change the image of the brand so as making it more appealing to the customers. And we want to get a youth connect to the brand.The primary motive for getting Hrithik Roshan on board was to be able to connect to a wider extent of target group, both men and women, by way of Hrithik's alliance with the youth.

Talking about the new TG, she said, "There is a conscious effort to reach out to younger minds. So basically we are reaching out to youth and people who are young at heart."

The actor as well is looking very comfortable wearing the brand and is linking very well on "express yourself' tag. He is seen expressing himself in different moods and enjoying the campaign.

The marketing spends are around 6 crore and since they started the entire procedure on the digital front, it played an important role in their marketing and research step. They are well engaged with social media also. The biggest innovative approach for them was to get in a brand ambassador.

Speaking about the strategies that they are looking at, she said, "The best strategy was bring in a brand ambassador and that to which is perfectly connects to youth and who is style icon for them"

The company also conducted various online polls before choosing their brand ambassador and also with a lot of thinking and rephrasing they chose Hrithik. For the next three months the company would be focussing at the print campaign. They will be releasing a television commercial next season. The campaign will see print advertisements, television commercials and radio advertisements, thus connecting with a wider enormity of people from different walks of life, yet focussing on more fashion- oriented and trend setting class.

As far as loyalty is concerned, the oldest shoe brand has always had and enjoyed the company of their loyal customers. Liberty has successfully carried its image of being a durable, comfortable, value of money brand since 60 years as of now and has undergone many changes as per the latest taste and preferences.

If one recalls, some years back people would not take Liberty as a brand with fashion and style. But with this initiative the company is trying to change the image and this step would take the brand to a next level altogether.

The campaign has been conceptualized by the creative team of Montage Advertising with a motive of relocating Liberty as a fashion brand, thereby, showcasing the brand's connect with the suaveness and style of the star. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]