Zalando – Europe’s leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle – is on a mission to become a more sustainable fashion platform with a net-positive impact for people and planet. As part of this, Zalando launched the Sustainability Award, in partnership with Copenhagen Fashion Week, to spotlight up-and-coming brands that are driving sustainable change in the industry. Swedish brand House of Dagmar (HoD) were deemed the winners in Feb 2021. Their prize? To partner with Zalando to launch a capsule collection.
Our brief was to use the Zalando x House of Dagmar collection to demonstrate Zalando’s commitment to more sustainable fashion to its Gen Z audience, with specific objectives to:
Zalando research showed that Gen Z consumers have an appetite for transparency, approachability and accessibility when it comes to shopping more sustainably.
We embedded this key insight into our planning and made it our mission to go beyond just ‘amplifying’ this launch, but to create a collection with a difference. We hoped to make a real impact through consumer-friendly and inspiring content - encouraging customers to make informed, values-led purchases.
At the heart of our strategy was the Fibre Impact Report – a first ever for Zalando. This report would explain how the materials used in the HoD collection were thoughtfully selected to minimise three things: water, waste and CO2.
Data-rich yet reader-friendly, the Fibre Impact Report aimed to tell an authoritative, visually interesting and relatable story – giving consumers tangible insights into every garment’s fibre footprint.
Our ambition was to showcase the report, the HoD collection and its sustainability efforts to the world through impactful touchpoints. To bring the report to life, we set about partnering with authoritative media and sustainability partners - Vogue Scandinavia and global sustainability consultancy, Anthesis.
We knew the Fibre Impact Report had the potential to change mindsets. But we knew it would only achieve that goal if we delivered it in a way that was interesting, jargon-free and relatable.
Firstly, we worked closely with Zalando’s internal sustainability team, HoD’s production team and Anthesis, to ensure that all information we shared was accurate and agreed upon.
The Fibre Impact Report focused on the three key sustainability pillars of the HoD collection: water, waste and Co2. The savings of each garment made in relation to each of these three categories was shared in a way that was easy to grasp.
For example, the ‘Alba Denim’ jeans - the 1,180 litres of water saved in its creation was communicated as the equivalent of almost 4 bathtubs – something our readers could easily understand. Similarly, for the kg of CO2 saved, the ‘Thelise Coat’, showed a carbon saving of 28kg of CO2 - the equivalent of charging your smartphone every day for 9.5 years.
To further bring the report to life, we then partnered with Vogue Scandinavia to create a docu-series that showcased the report, the collection, and its materials to the world - housed on their Youtube channel.
This series featured genuine sustainability advocates (not just fashion models or influencers), sharing their valued opinions. These individuals became part of our Global Influencer group who shared content on socials alongside Zalando’s dedicated Academy - a group of sustainability ambassadors.
Vogue Scandinavia published two bold advertorials to showcase the HoD collection, the docu-series and highlight their sustainability efforts.
We gifted one piece from the collection to key journalists to promote the collection and direct their audiences to the Fibre Impact Report. The packaging and the gift card (printed on plantable paper) was carefully selected to optimise sustainability.
The campaign was placed on the Zalando website, housing links to the report, the collection itself, the docu-series and owned social content.
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