Liz Claiborne

In the early 1990s, clothing retailer Liz Claiborne Inc. (LCI) approached CRT/tanaka to help enhance its relationship with its core constituency – women – and demonstrate its strong sense of corporate responsibility. To help LCI achieve these goals, the agency developed and launched a domestic violence awareness and education program called “Women’s Work.” The program was revolutionary at the time, since open discussion of domestic violence was still somewhat taboo and most companies involved with women’s issues were focused on health-related topics. CRT/tanaka and LCI received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the campaign at the 2002 SABRE Awards, and “Women’s Work” was named one of the “Best Campaigns of the Decade” by Inside PR Magazine.

“WOMEN’S WORK” CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING

Challenge

Liz Claiborne Inc. (LCI) designs and markets an extensive portfolio of branded women’s and men’s apparel, accessories and fragrance products. The company approached CRT/tanaka to enhance and deepen LCI’s relationship with its core constituency of women, while demonstrating the company’s strong sense of corporate social responsibility.

Solution

CRT/tanaka developed and launched “Women’s Work,” a domestic violence awareness and education program. CRT/tanaka worked with LCI for more than 13 years on the “Women’s Work” campaign, and developed and implemented numerous tactics, including: billboard advertising; TV and radio public service announcements; educational posters; handbooks and brochures; college campus workshops; partnerships with local retailers and community groups; tie-ins with magazines such as Glamour, Marie Claire and Redbook; charity shopping days in Liz Claiborne and Elisabeth stores; retail fundraising items; mailings to influentials; an employee education campaign about the issue; and an aggressive publicity campaign.

Results

• Over the years, the “Women’s Work” campaign has successfully delivered anti-abuse messages to parents, teens, women, men, college students and corporate America. As a result, LCI continues to be positioned as an innovative, socially responsible corporate leader more than a decade after the program was launched. Despite intensified competition for editorial coverage of women’s issues during October, as well as the media’s increasing reluctance to cover tough subjects like domestic violence, awareness of LCI’s program has increased through widespread national and local publicity.
• Combined impressions for publicity and PSA airings yielded a total of more than 1.4 billion impressions for an advertising equivalency of more than $12 million and a PR value of more than $37 million.
• Since the program’s inception in 1991, LCI has donated more than $1 million to organizations working to end domestic violence and encouraged another $423,500 in donations from other companies. These combined efforts have helped to successfully “reposition” the issue of domestic violence from a private family matter to a public health crisis in order to get the requisite resources and funding from the public/private/nonprofit sectors in the campaign to help end abuse.
• CRT/tanaka and Liz Claiborne received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the campaign at the 2002 SABRE Awards. The campaign was named one of “The Best Campaigns of the Decade” by Inside PR magazine.