Dockers Shoppable Video Aims at Millennial Males
Dockers seeks to shed its stodgy image with a hip new clothing line and an interactive video featuring British Hip Hop Artist Tinie Tempah.
Dockers seeks to shed its stodgy image with a hip new clothing line and an interactive video featuring British Hip Hop Artist Tinie Tempah.
Yet another brand is trying to chase those elusive millenial males. Dockers, the Levi Strauss subsidiary, whose khaki pants still conjure up a vision of aging boomers on the golf course, recently launched a shoppable, interactive video featuring up-and-coming British hip-hop artist Tinie Tempah.
Launched on October 1, the video shows the artist on location in London singing his new single-ironically entitled “Don’t Sell Out” and sporting a variety of items from Dockers hip new Alpha clothing line.
“The younger generation has not been engaged by Dockers as it perceives us as an older, more conservative brand,” says Adrienne Lofton Shaw, who joined Dockers as chief marketing officer in April. “For us, it’s critical to make sure every generation is part of the Dockers brand.”
The new fashion line features slimmer cut, more tapered pants than typical Dockers, sometimes in funky colors like purple or orange, or tighter fitting shirts and sweaters.
Several times throughout the video viewers see a “click to shop” tag, enabling them to clickthrough to the Dockers site to purchase items such as its Alpha khaki slim fits or its cable fisherman turtleneck sweater.
“We wanted to blend art content and commerce to create a video people want to watch, and the Dockers element doesn’t seemed forced,” says Moksha Fitzgibbons, head of sales and marketing at Complex Media, which acted as creative director on the campaign. The video is being shown solely on Complex’s network of websites, geared to style-oriented males 18 to 34.
Tempah, however, chose his own wardrobe from among the new Dockers Alpha line, which emerged as a result of focus groups showing that millennial males want a dressier alternative to jeans that is nonetheless as trendy, stylish and comfortable as a pair of jeans, Lofton Shaw tells ClickZ.
“Non denim is trending really high for younger consumers,” she says, noting that millennial males in general are much more style conscious than their older counterparts. “As soon as guys find out about the Alpha line, they fall in love with the style,” she claims.
Launching the video was one part of the effort to get the word out. Tempah also performed at the Dockers Alpha Collection launch party in New York in September, as well as appearing at a Docker’s pop up shop in Soho. “This is not a one and done thing for us. We want our advertising to be seamless and integrated so that every time our consumer looks around, he sees Dockers from a fresh perspective,” says Lofton Shaw.
According to Complex, the video has seen 1.5 million views since it was launched. However shares on Facebook and Twitter on the main Complex site were relatively low with, only 32 tweets and 42 likes on Facebook. Lofton Shaw will not give more specific numbers but says that the Dockers site has seen a boost in sales as a result of the campaign.
Dockers earlier this year also teamed up with GQ for a mobile “Wear the Pants” tour, a pop-up dressing room in a converted airstream trailer where visitors could get free styling advice-and pants. The tour stops in Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia were publicized on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.