Bragging rights
Back in Spring quarter, I was in my first advertising class - Bus M&L 846. In our class project, we were challenged to try to change the perception of Carharrt jeans with the release of their Series 1889 jeans. We came up with the brand plan, creatives, and a media plan and each team presented to WPP's Team Detroit, who was Carharrt's agency.
Carharrt is known for their high quality work wear so releasing a fashion line was unknown territory for the company. The current customer base were fiercely loyal to their brand so our proposed ad campaign must not in any way alienate them. Our team, the Gadget Gorrilaz, came up with "show harrt" theme, alluding to the passion and intensity that the target market (18-35 year old males) had. As a sample, we created creatives that showed "show intensity, show harrt". One of them was a radio plug. In the plug, two friends were camping when a bear becomes their uninvited guest. When the bear got hold of his Carharrt jeans, one of the campers attacked the bear. gadget gorillaz radio plug (NOTE: website and promo mentioned in the ad do not exist and was just part of the plan we created.)
Let's fast forward to present time. Last week, an article about the current Carharrt campaign was posted in the brandweek website and their final commercial was strangely familiar. In the ad, there were three friends camping and sitting around a fire when one of them was attacked by a wild animal (wolf). See ad and campaign microsite here.
There is certainly an overlap in the story lines and themes between the two ads. And while our team cannot take credit for it, we'd like to believe that we, at least, influenced the outcome of the campaign. To my teammates: Robert Cary, Matt Drengler, Brian Grindley, Katherine Zollinger, Nisarg Shah, congratulations for the awesome job! Now, if only we could get more than just bragging rights... ;)