OVERVIEW
Type: Brand Content Strategy
Brand: Men’s Wearhouse
In-Market Dates: October 2018 – 2019
Target Audience: Brides and Grooms
BUSINESS PROBLEM
As Men’s Wearhouse aspired to attract more Millennial brides and grooms and combat competitive pressures from both brick-and-mortar formalwear retailers and digital upstarts, the brand needed to adopt new tactics that would grow acquisition, consideration, and engagement. As the biggest formalwear brand in the US, Men’s Wearhouse also had the opportunity to leverage its position as a credible leader and authority in weddings.
INSIGHT
In today’s world where customer data is currency, once an engaged couple started to plan their wedding, they were immediately inundated with messaging and offers from multiple formalwear brands that all appeared to offer the same thing: black and gray tuxes and suits. What compounded the issue was that couples were also dealing with an increase in stress — the magnitude of which they may not have experienced before — while they tried to navigate through the millions of wedding-related decisions they had to make.
SOLUTION
Knowing that a wedding was typically a first for most brides and grooms, I understood from our qualitative and quantitative customer research efforts (as well as from my own experience in wedding planning) that couples were looking for guidance, inspiration, and confidence. To address this, I partnered with our creative agency, EP+Co, to create “Down the Aisle”: Men’s Wearhouse’s first digitally-led content strategy and suite of assets that prioritized educating and entertaining advice-seeking brides and grooms (vs. simply selling to them).
“Down the Aisle” was an episodic video content series that featured wedding experts giving their professional opinions on every stage of the wedding planning process. Our renowned gurus included celebrity stylist Jeanne Yang (@jeanneyangstyle), wedding planner Alia Wilson (@fireflyevents), photographer Zac Wolf (@zacxwolf), barber Russel Cordeiro (@russdoeshair), and real-life newlyweds Rebecca and Jacob. The series also starred Men’s Wearhouse expert, store manager Mo, who shared the brand's POV.
Each of the eight “Down the Aisle” episodes offered tips and advice on critical questions and concerns most couples faced when planning their wedding, including how to set a budget, picking the right vendors, and, of course, deciding between a tux or suit — and what exactly was the difference between the two.
”Down the Aisle” was distributed as both long and short-form video content across multiple channels and platforms, including social media, email, blogs, and partner content. Our goal was to reach as many brides and grooms as possible and convince them that Men’s Wearhouse was the definitive formalwear destination in their wedding planning journey.
RESULT
The ”Down the Aisle” wedding content series successfully positioned Men’s Wearhouse as a credible and supportive ally for brides and grooms. Post-purchase customer surveys reported positive feedback. In addition, we achieved our campaign awareness goals, as the videos generated increased reach and engagement among prospective wedding customers across multiple channels (social, email and web).
And finally, having a more robust content library enabled my team to diversify Men’s Wearhouse’s wedding marketing communications and achieve a more balanced — and effective — cadence between branding and promotional messaging throughout the year.