Making the Baby Business Boom

With a sharp increase in competition from all quarters, Destination Maternity found itself being challenged by both new maternity brands as well as established fashion brands launching maternity lines. It needed to defend its leadership position both at retail and online, but in order to succeed, each of its brands would need to see an increase in traffic and awareness. Essentially this meant fighting a three-headed battle, requiring three distinct but unified strategies against a multitude of contenders.

It’s no secret that pregnancy is an exciting yet anxious time, when expectant mothers turn to a variety of resources to inform their decisions about everything from health to maternity fashion and accessories. With over 15 patents in maternity clothing, an encyclopedic selection of fashions, and thousands of knowledgeable associates, Destination Maternity has the unique credibility to be a trusted resource during a stressful period. It has a track record that new maternity brands can’t match, and its exclusive focus on maternity needs sets it apart from mega-brands looking to enter the field. Maternity apparel and accessories are the only things Destination Maternity does – and it does them better than anyone else.

To increase traffic across all online and in-store points of distribution, we created a vision to boost brand awareness. Making it easy for expectant mothers to find relevant information and products would help us keep Destination Maternity at the top of their consideration set as the best resource for quality, trend-right maternity apparel.

Because three brands exist under the Destination Maternity umbrella, we developed unique messaging and creative for each that would express the core values, boost awareness, and drive sales via a direct response offer.

Destination Maternity was positioned as a one-stop source for every mother’s pregnancy needs. On the other hand, our creative for Motherhood Maternity showcased an affordable maternity brand that was unexpectedly stylish. Finally, our work for A Pea In The Pod, positioned it as a high-fashion brand for sophisticated moms who refuse to sacrifice style.

We implemented a multi-channel approach with premium partners in both the fashion and pregnancy sectors, leveraging their brand equity for online and offline media integration. We also presented the Destination Maternity brand as a uniquely authoritative knowledge base that our target audience needs during pregnancy and beyond.

We deployed a two-pronged media approach to reach target consumers while they are directly researching prenatal information in addition to while they’re browsing relevant lifestyle content.

Maternity partners like Meredith, Fit Pregnancy, BabyCenter, The Bump, and WhatToExpect.com provided us an opportunity for precise targeting, and were also a place to present Destination Maternity as a knowledge resource. To align directly with each mother’s prenatal journey, stage-based specific targeting and content alignment helped drive qualified traffic at scale. Executions included blogger programs, sponsorships, social promotions and sweepstakes.

Fashion sites like Lucky, InStyle, BAZZAR and Elle helped us further elevate the brand and keep Destination Maternity top-of-mind. Our custom high-impact units provide meaningful exposure in relevant content areas, with pregnancy keyword targeting driving strong engagement. Among our executions was a mini video series featuring maternity styling tips and a dedicated editorial feature with maternity must-haves.

We leveraged a robust cross-channel media mix to connect with our target audience across all touch points in her customer journey. Using digital, email, print, mobile, social, and in-store events, we ensured that frequency of messaging captured the attention of new and expectant mothers and drove both in-store and online traffic.