How Wrangler is hoping it can finally shake off cowboy image with unified marketing and product strategy
The American jeans brand is hoping that by aligning its product range and marketing in Europe it will generate awareness of its present-day positioning away from its heritage in designing jeans for cowboys.
To solve its image problem Wrangler has today launched a new brand platform and advertising campaign to communicate its role in today’s consumer’s lives, while maintaining the brand’s history of designing products for both fashion and function.
The Born Ready ad push introduces Wrangler’s new signature product line, the Ready Range, which includes jeans containing special threads for different occasions such as Rain Ready and Cold Ready. Speaking to The Drum Wrangler European marketing manager Ilaria Pasquinelli explained the decision to unite marketing and product and deliver a more consistent brand message.
“What we’ve found out from research is that they [consumers] associate us with where we come from but they were not aware of how we are relevant to them today, which is why Born Ready was launched,” she said. “Our consumers have very busy lives and what they aspire to is to live in their jeans 24/7 and to transition easily from one occasion to another [such as] from the city where they live and work to the outdoors.”
“It really unites product and marketing together so that we have a baked in proposition with product and marketing having a hand in hand proposition for consumers. It is quite unique in a category where a lot of brands push seasonal trends but it’s not the same compelling 360 degree proposition that we see.”
Wrangler worked with We Are Pi for 18 months on the new strategy and campaign which runs in Cinema, Print/OOH, online, retail, PR and activation across Europe. It launched today (21 September) with a 60-second brand film produced in collaboration with MediaMonks Films, which shows a group of ‘urban adventurers’ who have escaped the city for a wilderness BBQ only to be met with an unexpected rainstorm.
It is also the first time Wrangler has run a 360 degree campaign and the brand is hoping the push will work more effectively than previous efforts – such as the 2012 We Are Animals campaign – to shift brand perspective.
“The uniqueness of this campaign and the strength of this campaign is that it gives consumers an integrated proposition,” said Pasquinelli. “We talk about Born Ready and it is not just a marketing platform it is a brand and marketing platform, which wasn’t the case for previous campaigns it is unique in this. It doesn’t start from marketing and it doesn’t start from product…this is why the platform is integrated.”
More broadly the jeans company is currently looking at ways it can better utilise mobile from both a brand and ecommerce perspective and is looking to invest in the channel over the coming months.