The objective was two-fold: 1) Make Fruit of the Loom’s sweat-suit products top of mind as the temperatures dipped. 2) Create brand affinity with a desperately-needed younger audience. Our target was – yep, here it comes – millennials.

Further background on the target: In the United States, Fruit of the Loom is a brand known for its basic, functional apparel. This reputation is fine with their aging target, but It lacks the excitement needed to attract a younger audience.

In the United States, sweat suits (i.e., track suits) are known as the official outfit of those who have given up on life. They are baggy and visually unappealing. But they are also incredibly comfortable. Given this dichotomy, people tend to only wear them around the house, as they don’t make a good first impression out in the world.

That’s why we created the Professionals Collection, a product innovation that would have people feeling great and looking successful, anytime and anywhere. We created unique swing tags and look-book cards for each suit in the Collection, and then sent them to our biggest fans in custom garment bags, complete with personalized, signed letters inside.

Success for this campaign was measured in positive sentiment and social engagement from our target. After shipping out all 100 limited-edition sweat suits, we got an overwhelmingly positive response in the form of user-generated content from, and conversation with, those who received a sweat suit. Overall, we had a 100% positive sentiment, 4,000+ social engagements, and 1,800+ mentions of Fruit of the Loom, the Professionals Collection, and its associated hashtag.