Killer Greenfold - Killing Competition

Think of any denim-wear brand ads and two expressions that will instantaneously hit your brains will be two phonetically close words – Sexuality and Sensuality.

Historically, denim brands have been very innovative about the execution of their 'assigned' branding themes, but they can be very much held guilty of innovation paralysis as far as their central themes are concerned.

This can be easily established on looking at campaigns for some of the major brands in denim wear.

Wrangler is one of the biggest denim-wear brand of the country and has had a long association with John Abraham. John Abraham brings youthfulness and macho image to the brand which works in its favour. This brand image has been a tried and tested platform for many players and not many venture outside this ‘safe’ zone.

These ads while promote the clean finish jeans, there is higher focus on the brand ambassador and hence it is difficult to decipher the key message in isolation.

Levis did something very similar in its campaign for button-fly jeans. The brand ambassador was Akshay Kumar and Levis didn’t leave any stone un-turned to capitalize on his uber-macho image. The campaigns showed him doing stunts and flaunting the product in the process. Though the makers can claim ‘freedom’ do be the central them due to the key message –“live unbuttoned”, it was not apparent. Apart from a different brand ambassador and a louder message on macho-ism, there was nothing new to offer.

Another campaign from Levis for the cling fit jeans featured Kangana Ranaut in some “clingy” shots. Again the idea was so tightly bonded with sensuality, the key message was lost. The use of celebrity brand ambassador took a major portion of focus away from the campaign in this case. 

The “stupid” campaign by Diesel was a lot more thoughtful and did reap benefits in creating excitement for the brand as these ads started even before diesel opened its first outlet in India.

However, One campaign that stands out of all for multiple reasons was the ”Green fold” campaign by Killer jeans. Killer jeans was launching a new range of jeans wear and needed a clutter breaking thought that would stand out among its competitors .

The campaign was designed on the fact that each of these jeans consumed 100 liters less water then any other jeans, while being manufactured. The thought was simple and was picked up from a manufacturing innovation aspect.

This point was very tactfully converted into a marketing aspect by putting across the acceptance and usage of these jeans as an environmentally conscious decision. Also, the campaign stressed on the fact that the buyers should be proud of themselves to have bought a product that helps in ecological preservation. The campaign was divided into multiple print ads which showed the models using the saved water in a more responsible way like watering the plants and storing water for birds. Some of the high points for the campaign were as follows -

• The campaign hit the right note as the jeans-wear projected itself as a conscious brand among the sensuality and sexuality driven brands.

•  The campaign put the killer branded jeans on a different table than all others as it did not blow the  “be sexy and look gorgeous” trumpet like its competitors

• The campaign very smartly labelled Killer jeans as an environmental crusader urging youth to participate in this “holy” mission of saving water by doing their little bit - Buying this jeans over others

• The campaign also ensured that the focus is only on the message, hence no celebrity brand ambassadors were used

• A very interesting aspect of this campaign was that there were no pointers on the product itself leaving this aspect untouched. This helped the campaign in keeping focus on the key message

• The campaign however, used the tried and tested technique of using foreign models conforming to this trend in the denim wear industry

The idea of green-fold was a very exciting one.  This idea stemmed out of the human psychological behaviour which was intelligently picked up by Killer Jeans. More than doing good things,  people want others to know that they are doing good things. Since these jeans looked the same, Killer wanted to differentiate them from others which will also give its owner a sense of proud and “ecologically aware” status

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      The jeans were dyed green inside, so a fold at the bottom showed the green colour unlike the traditional blue. This not only gave the denim a stark different look from other jeans but also labeled its owner of being environmentally conscious. The choice of green as the colour for this fold was apt.

The overall communication stands at making “being ecologically concerned and aware” as the new "cool" for its TG. The campaign also give Killer jeans the first mover advantage for being a conscious youthful denim brand, a notch above being just sensual and sexual.

Truly, a Green-fold campaign!

 Cheers,