The Maje Spring-Summer 2018 “Dream Tomorrow” campaign was my favorite of the season. The French-Parisian label celebrated their 20th anniversary with messages of love, friendship, and family. Focusing on the values and places that have shaped the brand they commissioned four different artists for each theme. Friendship in Morocco shot by Thurstan Redding, family in Paris shot by Mark Peckmezian, and love in London shot by Coco Capitan with paintings by Frances Wilks. Director Simon Cahn captured the allegorical world through video. It gave young artists the opportunity to help rewrite the future of Maje and will serve as a landmark for the label’s development. After analyzing the campaign and appreciating everything it set out to do, there were three key factors that contributed to its success.
Creating a lifestyle is key to gaining a loyal customer base, a brand people can get behind. Maje promotes individuality. It is something they have always done and continue to implement well. While keeping up with current trends, Maje creates collections that are catered to an individual’s passions and lifestyle. The campaign transcends itself with model Yasmin Wijnaldum, the 20-year-old muse. She is a symbol of youth evolving through change. Wijnaldum represents the woman’s woman, the Maje woman. Someone who is quirky yet elegant, loves her family, is inspired by culture, and finds expression in fashion no matter what stage in life they are in. Through her, Maje is personified, that helps consumers to engage with the brand.
Brands must be authentic when crafting messages. For example, you feel the passion within the Artistic Director, Judith Milgrom, has for her craft. This helped shape the tone of the entire campaign. People react to this, which is why their tagline “Dream Tomorrow” carries much more weight than usual. Again, the three artistic mediums, photography, painting, and video, show the campaign is both raw and refined. Brands must find that balance of being authentic and keeping it professional, because at the end of the day they are still trying to sell products.
Brands go through periods of transformation, but the successful ones never dismiss their original values. Maje was built on family and love, an example being the “name is a combination of the initials of Milgrom’s loved ones.” From the beginning, Maje set out to be an accessible luxury brand for women. And, for Milgrom, it has always been a family affair being inspired from a child to now. Since then the label has seen much development throughout the years, which includes expanding to 350 stores worldwide. Capitalizing on their past accomplishments they can look forward to a sure future. The campaign is an ode to the places and people that have helped support, curate, and rewrite the Maje story. It is a reflection of the past twenty years and celebration of what is to come. This passage of time shows that everything starts and ends with a vision.
Maje is the perfect example of having a clear and flexible mission statement. The label had a lot to leverage with it being a twenty-year anniversary, and they used the opportunity to create something special. But, the strategies highlighted here can be applied in small ways to make any campaign stand out.