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The building of a brand Crafting the look and feel of Bodie and Fou
By Miri Thomas K arine Kong has always had a
desire to co-own a business with her sister Elodie, but admits there was never a “real master plan” behind the launch of Bodie
and Fou, the online and mail order retailer of decorative homewares that won this year’s ECMOD Award for best new market entrant at SME level.
Kong, who started her career in advertising in France working on brands including Canon and L’Oreal, moved to the UK in 1999 to work at Universal Pictures International and later Universal Music International. When she purchased her first flat, in Stoke Newington in 2004, she was disappointed to find the shopping experience left her uninspired; everything on the high street was “all very formulaic”, she recalls.
That was the catalyst for Bodie and Fou. “It was named after Elodie and myself,” explains Kong. “Bodie because it’s been my sister’s nickname since she was little and Fou, which means mad in French. My husband thought I was mad when we met and called me Fou. It should have been folle but his French was not as good as it is now.” And so Bodie and Fou stuck.
The sisters embarked on a journey to create the Bodie and Fou brand: a “chic, inspiring concept store for design lovers in search of cool, modern designs for the home and unique, beautiful gifts”. The brand aims to be a haven of inspiration and creativity with a collection of home
accessories and gifts that customers won’t find on the high street—it is also an extension of the sisters’ own tastes and personalities. Kong sums up the brand as what the modern experience of shopping should offer: “It’s friendly, enjoyable, stress- free and open 24/7... No crowd, no noise, no parking ticket, no heavy bag to carry... pure bliss.”
Making the brand vision a reality
In 2005, Bodie and Fou was launched online. From the start, Kong wanted the site to have a boutique feel and recalls “having numerous discussions with our first web designer at the time asking him to streamline the site, make it simpler, stylish and different”. She adds that when it came to approaching journalists to get some press coverage, the look of the site and the curated collection of products the sisters had put together “just did the trick”. Launching a mail order catalogue had been on the to-do list from the start, but the right time to debut a print edition came in 2011, both from a financial and human resources perspective. The company created roles in PR, catalogue production and marketing to help steer its expansion. “We spent a lot of time thinking about the brand image and the feel we wanted
to project on the paper version,” says Kong. After meeting with five design agencies, Bodie and Fou chose CHS Creative, “simply because right from the start, they just got what the Bodie and Fou brand was about.” It mailed its first ever catalogue in October 2011, using design agency CHS Creative, print broker JPS and printer Westdale, as well as taking advantage of the CatEx DCA postal scheme with Sunline Direct Mail and Citipost. It printed 50,000 copies and mailed them to the house file, online enquirers and some lists sourced from Abacus and Transactis. The first catalogue, says Kong, was not only beautifully stylish but also commercially successful. The mailing increased annual sales by 17 percent and saw average order value jump from £75 to £95.
Thanks to exposure on major interiors blogs, the catalogue’s success also had an impressive impact on Bodie and Fou’s social media success: traffic on Facebook increased by 251 percent in one year and sales through Facebook increased by 190 percent.
The exercise was so successful that Bodie and Fou is now preparing its spring/ summer catalogue, which, says Kong, will have a different look from the Christmas edition. “This time, we will take our customers on a summery journey between London and the French Atlantic coast. With a design collection that will seduce savvy shoppers while building on the spreads that really worked for us in the previous catalogue, plus a few more styling tips and lifestyle images that bring real-life solutions.” Firmly demonstrating that the Bodie and Fou brand is solidly rooted in the cofounders’ personalities and tastes, all the shots in the new catalogue are in Karine Kong’s family home. To further ensure the success of its next mailing, the sisters sought advice from key industry figures, including Baukjen de Swaan Arons and Geoff van Sonsbeeck from maternity and womenswear retailer Isabella Oliver, whose brand Kong has long admired.
Being social
Bodie and Fou’s upcoming summer catalogue
Getting the most out of a brand means understanding and engaging with customers and developing something that is meaningful to them. The only way to do that is to ensure the retailer’s entire team understands what the brand stands for and
Direct Commerce | Catalogue e-business |
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