Centrepoint Mans up for Movember

The region’s largest fashion retailer supports Movember – because good health never goes out of fashion

Dubai-UAE: December 2014 –#GrowYourMo was the trend to follow this November.Centrepoint supported Movember as an initiative that drives awareness on men’s health and the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Movember is an annual global event every November that aims to raise awareness on men’s health issues. Established in 2003, Movember has spread to 21 countries and has raised a total of $559 million till date. Participants called “Mo Bros” grow out their staches in order to increase saliency of the issue and encourage early cancer detection.

As a brand that understands the value of family, Centrepoint recognizes the importance of all family members staying healthy and aware of potential health risks. Men are less likely to go for regular health checkups compared to women. In fact 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Due to this, the fashion retailer sought to increase understanding of Movember and men’s health issues through their social media pages. This campaign was conceptualized by Impact BBDO and executed across social media pages by Impact Porter Novelli.

The starting point for the brand was to make Centrepoint relevant to Movember, which is largely a pop culture phenomenon. According to Gautam Wadher and Aunindo Sen, Integrated Creative Directorsat Impact BBDO, “the challenge was to talk to an audience that is not a customary target of communication for Centrepoint. We thus decided to adopt a tone that we felt men would relate to – tongue-in-cheek humour.” Movember posters and a unique series of videos on “Mr. Movember” across social media pages take a lighter note on the issue to encourage men to “man up” and grow their stash in support of the initiative.

Rohit Venkatesh and Smit Agarwal – the Creative Team at Impact BBDO further add that “the moustache is the key element of the Movember initiative as well as an important element in men’s fashion. Given the planned tonality of the campaign and insight that a moustache is a sign of good health and proof of masculinity that a man needs, we decided to pick situations for the videos and posters that men enjoy but never really admit. The Man Quotient games were also intended to be fun and casual as opposed to competitive.”

Engaging health tips were also posted across Centrepoint’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. With a total fan base of over 1,500,000 fans across their social media pages, Centrepoint has generated a total engagement of 5.13% on all posts related to Movember and #GrowYourMo.Centrepoint recorded over four million impressions on Facebook, over a million impressions on Twitter and over 2.2 million impressions on Youtube. The “Mr. Movember” videos have gained over 476,665 views.An impressive turn out, showcasing the active participation from “Mo Bros” in the region.

In addition to the social media campaign, we got a few enterprising barbers to help our cause all across the U.A.E. Participating barbershops distributed flyers with information both on Movember and the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. To make the campaign more engaging, men with the best 'staches were given a little something for their efforts. (Growing a moustache isn’t as easy as it sounds). Leading Radio Jockey, Kris Fade also sported an impressive moustache and spread the message of #GrowYourMo on-air. All posts by Kris Fade that were reposted by Centrepoint gained a total of 327 likes and 36 favourites on Twitter. Kris Fade also greeted fellow “Mo Bros” at a special Movember party at Centrepoint’s Mall of the Emirates store. From patchy stubble to twirl-worthy masterpieces, Centrepoint stores across the region marked high interest in the Movember campaign, message and moustaches in general. Looks like good health is going to stay in fashion.