Why Boots and VML Aren't Looking Backwards to Celebrate the 175th Anniversary

In the pantheon of brand anniversaries, 175th is quite something. But the health, beauty and pharmacy chain Boots won’t be spending too much time wallowing in a self-indulgent retrospective. A brand that is neither flashy nor arrogant, Boots intends to look forward to its next 175 years in the same style.

And there’s good reason for that: CMO Pete Markey, working alongside WPP and VML’s  global client leader Justin Pahl, is all about focussing on what lies ahead.

“Ah you’re joining good old Boots,’” Markey used to hear when telling people about his imminent move in 2020. “That used to drive me slightly mad as it suggested Boots was this recessive thing at the back of your mind. It felt like a brand you used to love but now you don’t visit so often,” he explains.

So Markey and his team set out to change the narrative; instead, they wanted people to say “Wow Boots. It’s the Boots I need today,” whenever the store was mentioned. It has become the internal touchstone for each new piece of creative work that consumers would respond with that feeling.

For much of its 175 years, Boots has played a key role in society - a regular destination with its health, beauty and retail space offering products and services people seek out almost daily. And Markey is adamant that he doesn’t want Boots to become “a bit yesteryear”, he's determined to keep it relevant and reliable for future generations of consumers.

And that’s going to be the recognisable intent of the 2024 Christmas campaign too, Markey reveals.

Behind the partnership

The relationship between Markey and Pahl also has history. The pair have known each other for almost 20 years, from their days working together at Fallon when it had More>Than as a client.

And Pahl has played a key role in Markey's success at Boots. “Justin set the drumbeat behind it all – to deliberately be challenging and disruptive while we push the brand forwards and challenge each other, and not sitting back relying on this 175-year heritage,” Markey says of how the current Boots relationship got moving.

“For me coming in new, with the team together I wanted to set a new ambition for where we were going. And it wasn't in the Renew vows [of 2020] but Justin and I, together with the team, had this sense that we wanted to take this thing and move it forward,” explains Markey.

And Pahl highlights the close working relationship, meaning they are often aligned on the focus of remaining relevant and adding to people’s lives, while using the 175th anniversary to remind people of the values that underpin the brand.

The pair looked at the brand purpose of Boots when Markey first took on the role three years ago, with the intention to move on from the slogan “Let’s feel good” in a deliberate attempt to reflect the post-pandemic feeling many people were carrying. Meanwhile, it was also offering beauty makeovers for cancer patients experiencing chemotherapy and helping people battle against poverty.

“With the WPP team, we stepped right back and thought: ‘You know what, this is an amazing brand, but the purpose doesn't fit today',” states Markey adding that it lacked longevity. The team then redeveloped the phraseology to become “With you. For life” instead.

This reflected the origins of the retailer, set up by the Boot family and led by John and Florence Boot who, among other things, promoted employee welfare, leading to the introduction of the five-day working week. So important is Florence today that her portrait will be hung in the National Gallery later this year as part of the anniversary celebrations.

“It is cradle to grave,” adds Pahl when talking about the services Boots offers consumers. “So we’ll talk about 'from nappies to methadone'. 'From your first kiss to your last kiss'. And it’s quite emotive to think about it in those terms, that in the most personal moments, intimate things that are going on in your life or with your loved ones, Boots is there.”

Pahl also describes the historic impact of Florence as being ‘a motivator’ and ‘an inspiration’ to the whole team involved.

Another element of the anniversary celebrations is the highlighting of the retailer’s role in sun safety in partnership with Soltan and Macmillan, despite what has been a washout of a summer so far.

The current summer activity this year includes the ongoing sponsorship of ITV's Love Island, which enables Boots to showcase its beauty and skincare range using online content and some recognisable faces from the series to showcase and endorse the products. Those endorsements drive up to 50 per cent uplift, Markey claims. "It still works brilliantly".

And that ongoing sponsorship is seen as being about creating a balance across the Boots' marketing strategy when it comes to using both 'new' and 'traditional' media, with the mix including TV, out of home, radio (iHeart Media), online and social media activity.

Beyond the partnership

The history of how VML came to work with Boots is not a straightforward one, but it’s a sign of the times as far as the industry is concerned. The creative account moved from Mother to WPP in 2017, three years after a 45% share had been acquired by Walgreens in a deal valued at around $10 billion leading to the formation of the Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Initially that global relationship was led by Grey, before being shifted over to sister creative agencies Ogilvy and VMLY&R in 2019 to handle lead creative and digital duties without review. The following year, the relationship was extended with the formation of The Pharm, a dedicated operation involving various elements of WPP agencies, an agreement that is currently set to run until the end of this year. Within that, VML handles creative, Essencemediacom the media, Ogilvy leads on PR, while Hogarth leads on production.

Markey joined Boots not long afterwards in November of that year and was instantly a fan of the integrated agency setup that The Pharm was providing.

Over the years, through its focus on customer experience (CX), VML has taken a customer-centric perspective to support how Boots serves its customers in the moment, be that in-store or across the brand’s digital touchpoints, working alongside internal agency Beehive and Oliver which also delivers in-store activations. “It's a big team effort, but the main thing VML brings to it is the CX mentality,” Pahl explains.

History shows that client/agency relationships rarely themselves endure long enough to notch up anniversary celebrations. But the shared ambition between Markey and Pahl, Boots and VML, suggests that there are plenty more milestones worth toasting still to come in this partnership.