Client Spotlight: Building Online Community with OHEN

One such client is luxury lingerie brand, OHEN. Founded in 2022 by Lu Blade-Bittle and Anja Bucher, this ambitious start-up with sustainability, inclusivity and community at its core has gone from strength-to-strength, thanks to a customer-centric approach that seeks to empower women at every stage of the customer journey.

In this interview, co-founder Lu talks about OHEN's savvy social media offering, the pitfalls of influencer marketing, and how PH Digital has helped put them on a path to success with a bespoke performance marketing strategy that's taken all the guesswork out of growing a business.

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OHEN’s distinctive social media offering puts its customers and people at the forefront. How's this approach supported your business goals as far as community building and audience growth? 

When we set out to create OHEN, it was clear that community would be an essential brand pillar. Lingerie is such a personal experience and as a woman, there’s this energy you get from connecting with other women.

We wanted our social media strategy and in fact our whole brand strategy to run with that idea, so we created OHEN On – a content series where we interview beautiful, creative, diverse women, and photograph them in our product. It’s gone really well online, I think because people see themselves in these women. They’re aspirational but not unattainable, and that’s easy to connect with.

As consumers wise up to modern digital marketing tactics and the same faces continue to saturate our feeds, influencer content can be increasingly tricky to land. How do you mitigate those pitfalls and ensure your posts cut through the noise? 

In terms of our OHEN On strategy and the women we work with, we always take the time to meet with them and really get to know them, and make sure our values align. We want to celebrate their individuality in the ways we photograph them, and at the same time, they all need to encapsulate the OHEN ethos and the OHEN woman – kind, loving, accepting. Again, our customers connect with that.

It’s also not about how many followers they have, or how much they put themselves out there. It’s about whether the content feels real. That’s the litmus test for us.

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The digital landscape demands a lot from retailers and business owners who often don't have a technical background. What has growing your online footprint taught you about the necessity of engaging with specialists in their field? 

Anya and I know what we're good at – we also know a lot we're not good at. So we were really determined from the outset to find the right people to partner with, who would bring their experience and expertise to our ‘team’.

We both come from backgrounds where we know the power of social media and performance marketing. But neither of us has the technical knowledge or just the depth of knowledge required to make OHEN successful. We were really lucky to be connected with the PH team very early on in the piece.

One thing I’ll say is a lot of people think of performance marketing as something you do when you’re an established business ready to scale, and you have these really ambitious growth targets. But engaging with PH as a start-up has added so much value to our business and given us a strategic roadmap that’s clarified our path and helped us achieve so many milestones in a short space of time. 

How has outsourcing your performance marketing strategy to PH enhanced your own knowledge of the paid digital landscape?

I think going into it, we were quite naive as to how much work goes into a digital marketing strategy. We sort of thought you could put some beautiful content out there and people would start engaging with it…obviously we know better now!

It’s been a very iterative process – we’ve learned from the data, learned from our customer feedback, learned from the way sales fluctuate month to month. One thing that’s been so incredible for us is understanding what creative resonates and performs and what doesn't. As a new brand, a lot of our organic content is very much brand storytelling. But what converts in terms of paid content and the paid channels is very different. 

We’re so grateful to PH for guiding our paid strategy in a way that upholds the integrity of our creative, and our brand integrity as a whole.

Let’s talk about your Digital Fit Studio. Why was it important to you to develop this service?

Lingerie shopping is inherently personal and often challenging. Many women struggle to find the right size or fit, and 80% of women wear the wrong bra size. This inspired us to create the Digital Fit Studio, an online tool that empowers women to find their perfect fit from the comfort of their homes.

Not only does the platform provide clear guidance on how a bra should fit, along with style recommendations, we’ve made the path to purchase as seamless as possible, with free returns and exchanges. These details are so important in reassuring women that they can shop with complete confidence.

How does OHEN’s emphasis on community and authenticity influence your customer journey?

Our focus on community ties everything together. Whether it’s women visiting our studio, engaging with us online or participating in OHEN On, they’re all part of the same network.

We’ve found that every woman has some vulnerability or insecurity, and creating a safe space to share and connect has been incredibly rewarding. It’s been beautiful to witness the sense of empowerment and support that emerges from this shared experience.

Discover OHEN at @ohenunderwear and ohenunderwear.com.

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