Shop Direct Group, a client of prego*s for more than three years, asked us to work with them to recruit top shoppers to become the brand advocates for their new brand Very, launching in July 2009.
Over the next few months, the Very team here were proper busy bees. More than 1,500 invitations were sent out, each individually hand written and with a diamante stuck to each one (glue guns are the way forward). The only way to get through this was a combination of roping in friends and family, pizza, wine and an ongoing supply of chips.
After two months of planning and organising six launch events were held in Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and London. The little prego* team went out on the road trip to meet our new Very brand advocates.
Ten put ups and take downs of furniture, shoes, handbags, denim, bras, homewares, cots, pushchairs and PA systems, three finishes past 1am in the morning, 813 canapes (not all eaten by myself, although I had a good go), 2,468 miles in the car, 71 bottles of champagne and more than 250 attendees including Caprice (my new best friend) and Louise Roe and we were done.
The prego* team are now ten years older, have many more grey hairs, a happy client and a new best friend. But I tell you what, that Caprice is just getting irritating ringing us ALL the time.