Pepe Jeans India logs on to facebook with ‘Are you Pepe?’

Pepe kicked off a facebook-led hunt in end-May, ‘Are you Pepe’? A predominantly digital campaign driving the hunt was supported by print, outdoor, in-store and radio activations. The contest ended in
end-June, and the winner will get to spend seven nights in London.

The contest also marked the launch of Pepe Jeans India’s facebook page.

On the brief given to the agency, Neha Shah, manger marketing, Pepe Jeans India, said, “The objective was to connect with the youth, re-establish the brand in their mind. The brief to the agency was to extend the current (global) brand campaign of ‘Have you seen Pepe’ into a contest to find one guy who personifies Pepe, and we take him to London for a week to live Pepe's life.”

Origin Beanstalk was the creative agency behind the campaign. Shom Mazumdar, co-founder, said, “We won this multi-agency pitch based on our strategic and creative inputs on how to leverage the British legacy of this iconic brand and make it relevant to the Indian context. Along with the client, we chalked out a strategic roadmap by conceptualizing ‘Are you Pepe?’ contest to give the Indian youth a Pepe experience.”

Being digital-led, the contest was national, and attracted over 1,350 entries. As on 4 July, the Pepe Jeans India facebook page had 185,907 likes. Webchutney and Lodestar UM were involved in the digital leg of the campaign.

MOMS (Madison) handled outdoor media, which was used in seven cities: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Delhi and Chandigarh. 

Radio One introduced an innovation through an imaginary group of girls, ‘Pepe Chickas’, for ‘Are you Pepe?’ The ‘Chickas’ went on air to create the radio leg of the campaign in Mumbai and Delhi, populating the Facebook page.

On the overall response to ‘Are you Pepe’, Shah said, “The facebook page of Pepe Jeans India was created for this contest and it became one of the fastest growing pages of a fashion brand - with almost 75 per cent talking rate against the industry average of 10 per cent.”

The brand has been present in India since 1989.