OVERVIEW
Type: Brand Campaign and Social Media/Influencer Content Strategy
Brand: Men’s Wearhouse
In-Market Dates: March 11, 2016 through June 2016 (the end of Prom Season)
Target Audience: Teens Ages 16-18YO
BUSINESS PROBLEM
Men’s Wearhouse’s prom formalwear business had been declining over the past several years, leading to the spot-on hypothesis that its traditional marketing communications strategy was not resonating with its of Gen Z audience.
INSIGHT
Gen Z were neither their parents nor Millennials, with the latter two being the audiences that Men’s Wearhouse had been prioritizing at the time. The brand needed to understand that appealing to Gen Z required an entirely different strategy. Specifically, a strategy that recognized that teens were pre-programmed to aspire to individuality and were eager to showcase their unique, one-of-a-kind personalities using the digital tools they literally had at their fingertips. Like Snapchat.
In addition, by 2016, promposals had become an essential — and extravagant — element of the prom rite of passage. At the time, teens were obsessed with outdoing each other by staging and sharing the most elaborate and creative “Will you go to prom with me?” moment.
SOLUTION
Prom 2016 was my first campaign for Men’s Wearhouse. After evaluating the brand’s earlier prom tactics, conducting consumer and market research with focus groups, and analyzing market and competitive trends, I realized that both the marketing strategy and planning process had to evolve.
Because teens were the primary target audience for prom, I advocated for a more appropriate channel mix and content strategy that would resonate with this unique demographic. Specifically, social media and digital marketing needed to be a cornerstone of Men’s Wearhouse’s efforts to capture teens' attention and then change their perception of the brand.
In addition, I recognized that implementing a new strategy would require all teams — Brand Marketing, Channels, Creatives, Operations, and Merchants — to work more closely than ever before.
Using my CPG-heavy agency background as a blueprint for strategic “go-to-market” planning and execution, I initiated an omnichannel, cross-functional effort to overturn Men’s Wearhouse’s legacy mindset and help the brand become the prom pioneer as the first retail store to tap into the promposal behavior of teens. I saw the opportunity to leverage teens’ preferred social media platform, Snapchat, and obsession with peer influencers to re-introduce Men’s Wearhouse as a relevant and relatable destination for prom formalwear.
This integrated and consumer insights-driven marketing strategy consisted of:
1) Establishing March 11 as National Promposal Day: the official day high school students across North America could celebrate their creativity by sharing their unique promposals on social media (#nationalpromposalday)
2) Introducing Men’s Wearhouse to Snapchat by partnering with the platform to create a custom branded National Promposal Day filter that geo-fenced over 18K high schools across the country
3) Teaming up with teen social media star and content creator Brent Rivera, to help him pull off the ultimate promposal — which was viewed on his YouTube channel by his millions of followers on National Promposal Day
RESULT
Our inaugural #NationalPromposalDay campaign was, at the time, Men’s Wearhouse’s biggest and most ambitious youth-marketing initiative to date. This effort required carefully orchestrated and integrated planning among multiple cross-functional teams, and resulted in double to triple-digit increases in impressions, engagements, and new follower growth for the brand. In addition, the high-level awareness helped guarantee that Men’s Wearhouse was top-of-mind among consumers during prom season, enabling us to recapture prom rental unit share.
In addition, the new holiday we created immediately trended and was picked up by other brands such as David’s Bridal and Sharpie Pens. Because teens have definitively established the promposal as a critical component of their prom experience, National Promposal Day continues to be celebrated every year on March 11.