forever+21+men.jpg — Forever 21

men’s winter collection

Challenge

Get more people to know that they are a source of male clothing and increase purchases of male clothing. Create a campaign centered on Forever 21's (F21) men winter collection and a custom landing page for the winter collection.

Outcome

A double campaign approach targeting women and men to drive an increase in men clothing sales.

Research & Insights

When approached with this brief, I wanted to know how men viewed Forever 21's men's clothing and the brand itself. To find out, I put together a Google survey and with the help of my team, we collected 60 responses that began to answer this question.

We learned that biggest reasons why men weren't already shopping at Forever 21 were: men see F21 as a girl brand, and they found a limited selection of clothing for men in stores. We realized our content needed to communicate one core value to men: Forever 21 has a large selection of men clothing that they will love.

Click here to view the responses gathered.

Where are the largest market opportunities for Forever 21? Demographic Analysis

Now that we had a basic understanding of men's attitudes towards F21, we needed to decide where will the efforts of the campaign be focused on. Our secondary research revealed that Forever 21 was most successful in Kansas, Maryland, and Michigan. Therefore, our main focus would be on the areas with the largest population of men, 18-25: New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Each area has it own distinct winter weather and would be great means of showcasing the extent of F21 mens clothing line. Also, the use of multiple languages would be important due to the range of cultures found in each area.

How can we reach men? Psychographic Analysis

Well, our advertising definitely needs to communicate to men who don't shop at F21 on their preferred platforms and influences. Another way to reach men are existing F21 customers. There are many customers that have the trust and interest of men who don't shop at F21. These F21 customers would be an excellent means of reaching our objective. In order to effectively reach and convert these markets, we need to tailor our campaign appropriately. We ultimately decided that men who don’t shop at Forever 21 could be reached through their significant others who shops at Forever 21 or directly through captivating messaging.

Design Principles

From our findings we created the following design considerations to guide our exploration into solutions.

Clothing for Men: our messaging needed to convince men there are a variety of styles available for them
Brand for Men: our campaign must convey that Forever 21 is a reputable brand for all men, including heterosexual men
Leverage Existing Trust: our campaign should leverage the power of word of mouth from existing customers to convert men

Generating Concepts

How can we grab the attention of significant others?

When forming our approach to this existing F21 customers, we wanted to know how to be relevant. We reflected on our own experiences during the winter season and realized that this season is all about giving gifts to the people we care about. To be relevant, we could help current F21 find the perfect gift for themselves and the men in their lives.

Getting the right gift can be stressful, so we wanted to share a light, fun message. From our research, we learned that women like seeing prospective clothing being worn on models, so we wanted to include those kinds of images across our campaign. Ultimately, our message needed to communicate that Forever 21 has clothing that F21 customers would enjoy seeing on their man. As we brainstormed, I came across the thought of showcasing how good their man can look as a way to resonate.

Ad Storyboard for Significant Others

Forever 21 Storyboard: Ad for Current Customers from Tomas Castro

Now that we had their attention, our next objective was to make finding the perfect gift easy for existing F21 customers once they clicked on the link. From our research, we learned that gift guides were a great tool to accomplish our goal. Also, as mentioned earlier, these customers prefer to see clothing on models. Therefore, I designed our landing page as a gift guide. Visitors would be able to explore clothing options through couple lookbooks, male models, and items of clothing.

Concept Landing Page for Significant Others

As visitors are exploring the gift options for their man, they will receive the opportunity to apply a coupon to their purchase. This coupon would encourage visitors to purchase something for themselves and their man. By signing up with their email, visitors can save on their gifts and receive additional promotions throughout the year. The coupon and promotion emails will help introduce men to Forever 21 clothing and increase purchases of men's clothing.

How can we grab the attention of millennial men?

According to Variety.com, men 18-24 watch up to 10 hours of video a week on Youtube and social platforms. So, the challenge here is making a sponsored ad that captures their attention, communicates Forever 21's men's clothing clearly, and is memorable. The first step was in analyzing the digital landscape to see what content were men engaging the most with.

I scoured through the Instagram pages of F21, Zara, H&M, UO and ASOS in order to find the posts with the highest likes and comments. Below is a map of the most engaging posts across all brands.

From this analysis, I learned that the most engaging content was clothing collaborations with influencers, followed by images of the clothing. Additionally, men prefer to review clothing without male models. The least engaging posts were of men's clothing on male models, especially when their face were visible.

Putting Together the Attention Grabber: Men dislike ads that interrupt their video or Instagram browsing. Therefore, I decided that within the first 2 seconds, men should experience something familiar that excites them in order to keep their attention. To do so, I chose a track that has a memorable intro and adrenalizing pace...Kanye's "Black Skinhead." I then lifted the intro and power beat to create an impactful teaser track. From there, the visuals needed to communicate the main message: F21 has a large range of clothing men would desire. To do so, we scoured Youtube to find clips that focused in on clothing and not the men wearing them. With the clips, I brought them into Premiere Pro to cut and time the audio.

Since the target areas featured men of various languages, I included translations of the word "swag" that would connect men with the main message of the ad. As the video came to an end, men needed to remember two main things: Forever 21 and desirable men's clothing. So, I left the message "This Winter Find Your Style, Forever 21. #21MenStyle." With the hashtag, F21MenStyle, men could easily remember the brand and what the brand offered. Without further ado, please enjoy the teaser ad below.

Concept Ad for Men Who Don’t Shop at Forever 21

How do we convince them to buy on the site?

Now on the site, men should be able to easily find the clothing they want. Based on our survey insights, we decided to make the clothing searchable by styles, items, and exclusive collaborations. In the "Styles" section, men can browse different styles of outfits, with minimal visuals of the models' faces. In the "Items" section, men can browse clothing in the format that they're most accustomed to. In the "Collaborations" section, men can browse through collections by influencers available only at Forever 21.

Concept Landing Page for Men Who Don’ Shop at Forever 21

As men are finding clothing they want, they will receive the opportunity to apply a coupon to their first purchase at Forever 21. By signing up with their email, men would be able to reduce their barriers to purchase and receive additional promotions throughout the year. The email promotions they receive will focus on exclusive collaborations with their influencers, the most engaging content for men. The coupon and email newsletter will increase men's rate of purchase and long-term purchases of Forever 21 men clothing.

Solution Delivery

Through our research, we discovered that we could build the awareness of Forever 21's men clothing through men and current Forever 21 customers. With these two target markets, we designed two separate messages and landing pages to ultimately drive the sales of Forever 21’s men clothing. Lastly, with the integration of coupon and newsletter, we secured customers for today and tomorrow.

With these campaigns we met our objectives: Get more people to know that they are a source of male clothing and increase purchases of male clothing.