WITH so many young men spending their college years shuffling to class in pajama bottoms and sweatshirts, it should come as no surprise that they are largely ambivalent about fashion.
Only 29 percent of men agree with the statement “I like to keep up with the latest trends in fashion,” according to a survey of men 18 and older conducted by Mintel, a market research firm. What men most want from clothing has little to do with appearance; 85 percent agree with the statement, “I dress for comfort.”
Now Van Heusen, the 91-year-old clothing brand, is stepping up its efforts to use a different entry point — football — as a way to get young men interested in style.
A broad marketing effort called the Van Heusen Institute of Style features Steve Young and Jerry Rice, both Hall of Fame members, and Matthew Stafford, the current Detroit Lions quarterback, as guides to help men make the transition, in the words of the campaign, from “schlub to swagger.”
The average age of a Van Heusen consumer is 39, the company says, but the campaign is being pitched to younger men from 18 to 34.
The Van Heusen Web site and Facebook page have been transformed into an extended football metaphor. Fashion spreads featuring the players are called “playbooks” and feature gridiron lingo: one featuring fitted shirts is called “First and Fitted”; another with colorful shirts is called “Friday Night Brights.” First introduced in 2010, the newest iteration of the Institute of Style campaign is a collaboration between Van Heusen and Funny or Die, the comedy Web site. In a new online video produced by Funny or Die, Pete (played by comedian Rob Lathan) is about to meet with a banker for a small-business loan dressed in a hoodie, shorts, white socks and sandals.
Mr. Young and Mr. Rice, who are watching on a monitor in a van, stakeout-style, direct Mr. Stafford, who wears an earpiece, to scoop up Pete so they can dress him more suitably.
In the video, whose humor is in the over-the-top style of “Airplane” and “Police Squad,” Mr. Stafford takes Pete to a department store, where the quarterback runs through the men’s department knocking over mannequins as if scrambling for a first down.
The three-minute video, which concludes, naturally, with Pete looking dapper in Van Heusen clothes and getting the loan, will appear Sunday on Funny or Die and on the Van Heusen Web site and Facebook page.
Also on Sunday, during NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” a 30-second commercial in the form of a trailer for the video will direct viewers to the Van Heusen Web site.
Van Heusen, a PVH Corporation brand, declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, which also includes print advertising in GQ, Men’s Health and ESPN The Magazine. The brand spent $6.8 million on advertising in 2011, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.
Michael Kelly, executive vice president for marketing at PVH, said that Van Heusen took a fashion-intervention approach because men are in a sorry sartorial state.
“Men have sunken to an almost all-time low,” Mr. Kelly said. “Kids can get away with T-shirts and sweat pants in school, but the dress code allowed on campus is not the dress code allowed on Madison Avenue or Wall Street.”
In the age range of men the brand is pitching to, Mr. Kelly said that the ideal consumer is “a 26-year-old fan who is influenced by professional sports, and who is finding his way after leaving college.” Such fans, he added, are “getting their fashion cues from what they see athletes wearing postgame — on the sports runways, if you will.”
Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group, a market research firm, said that while young men entering the work force today might admire the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, they should think twice about emulating his hoodie-and-jeans wardrobe.
“Just a few years ago, you could go to work in your pajamas, and if you looked like you just rolled out of bed when you went to work, that meant you had the technological savvy to change the world,” Mr. Cohen said.
During the economic downturn, he said, applicants cannot afford to go to a job interview dressed sloppily.
Mr. Cohen lauded the Van Heusen strategy of using athletes whom many young men admire to prod them to dress more professionally.
Like its shirts, advertising for Van Heusen traditionally has been buttoned up, featuring Ronald Reagan and celebrities like Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart. Charging Funny or Die with creating a humorous video that highlights Van Heusen but without an overt sales pitch is a departure for the brand.
“Once you move into the social space, you have to begin to give up control of the brand a bit, and if you’re not willing to do that, you can’t reach this new demographic,” Mr. Kelly, the brand marketer, said. “Writing messaging that’s edgy is a bit of a scary place.”
Founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, Funny or Die draws about 19 million unique users a month, who on average watch between two and three videos per visit, according to the Web site.
Mr. Kelly was so impressed with the video that he decided to promote it with the commercial on Sunday, which had not been the original plan. But he noted that its humor did not resonate with all his colleagues.
“I reminded the old guys in the company when they were looking at this, ‘This is not targeted at you, so I really don’t care if you like it,’ ” Mr. Kelly said. “There’s a little bit of that ‘Saturday Night Live’ funniness, that you get it, or you don’t.”
Advertising: A Formerly Button-Down Brand Loosens Up
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Advertising: A Formerly Button-Down Brand Loosens Up
