Our objectives for Ray-Ban included increasing consumer awareness of the Ray-Ban brand to its core demographic (males & females 25-39) and to reinforce Ray-Ban’s position as a classic, desirable style that is a must-have accessory for confident consumers. Additionally, we sought to extend our product placement efforts wherever possible through promotional opportunities and story points for publicity. 

We worked with major studios and television/cable programs to place Ray-Ban products in programming that was consistent with the brand’s positioning. We targeted the film Pearl Harbor because of the dual appeal of its young hot cast, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, and the relevance of Ray-Ban sunglasses to the WWII storyline.  The fact that Ray-Ban Aviators were actually worn by fighter pilots during WWII provided a built in credibility for the brands placement in the film.  We also knew that the superstar power of directors Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, whose films appeal to audiences 18-34 years of age, would almost guarantee that the film would be tops on the “must see” list with Ray-Ban’s core demographic. 

On television, we aggressively targeted the shows Sex & the City and Friends because of the popularity of the shows among Ray-Ban’s core audience and their appeal was dead-on with Ray Ban’s consumers.  Another reason we specifically targeted these two shows was due to their reputation for perpetuating fashion trends that translate to the masses. 

A brief summary of the results

Ray-Ban’s involvement with the Pearl Harbor movie was a big hit with all the lead actors, Ben Affleck, William Lee Scott and Alec Baldwin, wearing the Ray-Ban Aviators in the film.  Pearl Harbor raked in more than $450 million worldwide in box-office receipts ensuring that the Aviator’s were seen by a large percentage of its core audience.  In fact, the placements led to publicity about the resurgence of military fashion.

The Aviator placements in Pearl Harbor became the basis of a retail promotion in over 10,000 retail outlets, including Sunglass Huts and LensCrafters stores nationwide along with a direct mail campaign to over 3 million consumers.  We worked with our client, Disney Studios, Jerry Bruckheimer and our client’s promotional agency, Alcone, to coordinate the promotion of the Aviator glasses for the film.  We negotiated approval to utilize Ben Affleck’s likeness wearing Aviators for Point-of-Sale materials that were displayed in major retail outlets for the eyewear.  

Ray-Ban also received outstanding exposure on fashion diva Sarah Jessica Parker, who also touted the classic Aviator style on Sex In The City.  We supplied SJP and her personal assistant with all the newest and hottest styles to personally choose from, often before they were given to anyone else. This relationship helped us garner some great exposure for Ray-Ban on the show over the past 3 seasons.  In an effort to continually leverage Ray-Ban’s relationship with HBO and Sex and the City, we brought in our Integrated Marketing group to work with HBO on a targeted 3 month, 40-city radio promotion. 

On TV’s most popular sitcom, Friends, not only did Matt LeBlanc wear a pair of classic Ray-Ban’s on the Spring 2001 season finale but David Schwimmer mentioned the brand by name.  More than 21 million viewers watched this particular episode!