Fashion Week meant one thing for the folks at Bourjois Paris: Docteur Glamour was coming to town. (In fact, he was making house calls.) As part of a campaign to introduce beauty editors to the new Bourjois Paris moisturizing line “Docteur Glamour” (and to generate buzz around town during Fashion Week), the cosmetics company created a beauty ambulance of sorts. A vehicle with glass sides served as the setting for prearranged appointments with beauty editors outside the offices of most large magazine publishing companies.This wasn’t the first time Bourjois had executed a less-than-serious promotional caper, one that also happened to get them in editors’ sightlines during Fashion Week without incurring the hefty costs that come with official show sponsorship. This year, the Bourjois ambulance circled Bryant Park and parked outside assorted prominent shows; last spring, Bourjois director of public relations Celine Kaplan and company staged a “strike” to promote a mascara (“Yes to Volume, No to Clumps!”) at the entrance to the park, which police had no choice but to permit. (The strike may have been silly, and annoying to the tents’ official sponsors—but it was, technically, legal.)
On day two of Docteur Glamour’s rounds, a couple of police officers even stopped in to pick up goodie bags for their wives. To which Kaplan offered: “A cute nurse’s outfit goes a long way, darling.”
—Mimi O’Connor
Photos: Elizabeth Lippman
Posted 02.12.07
On day two of Docteur Glamour’s rounds, a couple of police officers even stopped in to pick up goodie bags for their wives. To which Kaplan offered: “A cute nurse’s outfit goes a long way, darling.”
—Mimi O’Connor
Photos: Elizabeth Lippman
Posted 02.12.07
Bourjois director of PR Kaplan (far left) said the ambulance expressed her company’s brand values of silliness, humor, and that certain “joie de vivre.”
Kaplan considered a vintage aluminum-clad trailer and “really ugly” RVs as sets for the stunt. She found the see-through vehicle when she saw Locomotion Media’s MobileShowcase promoting Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in Union Square.
Bourjois integrated pieces from a medical supply store into the display of its new product. The vehicle was also decked out with a vibrant pink rug, plenty of product, and clear plastic stools.
While Kaplan attempted to secure a permit for the vehicle (which was parked with the motor running for a few hours at a time at each stop), she was told there was no actual permit applicable to her situation.
