Case studies: Kleeneze

The client

Kleeneze is a home shopping company that markets a broad range of cleaning, beauty and homecare products. Its catalogues and magazines are used by home sellers to promote a wide range of products for home delivery in areas such as homecare, laundry, kitchen, home ideas, bed & bath, garden, DIY and health & beauty.

The approach

Refinery Photography is a busy photographic studio in Manchester. The company has worked with Models Direct for a while, numbering them among several agencies who are considered when models are required for client assignments. Often, timescale is a critical factor, as stylist Alex Chrapkowska explains. “Sometimes, we might need to arrange a photoshoot at very short notice, perhaps for the following day,” she says. “That can be a challenge, both for ourselves and for the models involved. Sometimes it’s a case of ringing round the various agencies and finding one who can deliver what we need in the time available.”

Refinery have found Models Direct to be an invaluable ally when time is at a premium. “Models Direct have been very helpful, especially when I don’t have time to look through brochures or websites,” affirms Alex. “It’s always handy when they can work from a description of what we need, and come back to us via email with some possible models who are available. That saves us doing all the ‘homework’ ourselves.”

The assignments

For their most recent assignment, Refinery were looking for one small white dog and a cat to model Santa hats and scarves in Kleeneze’s seasonal brochure, to promote pet products. With the run-up to Christmas being a key marketing period, all the images in the brochure needed to work hard to give Kleeneze’s home distributors every possible chance to maximise their sales.

With a very demanding timescale to work to, Models Direct had to pull out all the stops to find the animals required. Models Direct co-ordinators Summer and Lisa took one animal each and got to work, with Summer successfully identifying Enrique, a pedigree Havanese, as the ideal canine model. Lisa came up with Rudi, an eight-month-old Ragdoll cat, and got in touch with his owner, Joanne – just one day after she had registered her pet on the Models Direct website.

Joanne thoroughly enjoyed her cat’s first modelling experience. “We were made to feel extremely comfortable,” she says. “Rudi, if he could speak, would say he enjoyed it – he was purring all the way through.”

Another assignment for Refinery caused some consternation at the Models Direct office when it became clear that, despite a broad range of canine models registered, the agency didn’t have a West Highland Terrier on its books – with just one day to go before the photoshoot. Always happy to go the extra mile on behalf of a client, the Models Direct co-ordinators did some rapid research and located a local breeder, June.

Although her dog, Polly, had not been photographed professionally before, June was confident that she would perform to standard – and was proved right. Polly performed brilliantly, delighting both the agency and her owner. “Everything was handled very professionally,” June explained. “Polly enjoyed her time, although she was a little distracted due to the noise. Everything was made simple and clear.”

Animal behaviour is always unpredictable, so clients using pet models are looking for the animals supplied to be as well-behaved as possible. “Once you’re actually shooting, you haven’t got much leeway for things to go wrong,” says Alex.

The results

Despite the rush involved in sourcing the animals, the final shots were everything that Refinery and their client had been hoping for, and were duly accorded pride of place in the Kleeneze catalogue.