In Our Back Pocket
Getting into the pants of millions of teenage girls may sound more like a perverse fantasy than a successful brand-building strategy. But that’ s the approach we used when Mudd jeans hired us to conceive and execute a brand awareness campaign for their line of girl’s jeans. Mudd wanted to break away from the traditional strategy – print campaigns in teen magazines – and entrusted us to develop a renegade promotion that would fit the brand.
Mudd had already captured a large segment of the bell bottom-clad teen girl market without advertising. Their loyal following valued the underground image of Mudd jeans. A killer promotion would fuse that image with Yoe Studio’s wit and humor to expose legions more teens to Mudd’s cool identity without alienating the pioneering droves of devotees.
The challenge was to create a format for such a promotion, one that exploded with rebellion and attitude and produced the same cult-like following as that of a pirate radio station or a fanzine. A zine – that would do it!
Mudd Zine is an edgy, 16-page, pocket-sized magazine distributed via the back pockets of 1.5 million pairs of Mudd jeans four times a year. Launched in May, 1998, Mudd Zine No. 1 featured an interview with teen idol Usher, fashion features, a comic strip, advice, and horoscopes. Nos. 2 and 3 followed with articles on snowboarding, trash fashion, and more interviews with hot new artists.
Targeting a generation raised on computers, we recognized the significance of cross-marketing the Mudd image on the Web. So we created a teen stomping ground, muddjeans.com, that will officially launch March 10 with an exclusive action-packed party. The magazine is being used to herd traffic to the Mudd jean’ s Web site, which carries interviews, boy talk, fashion news, and a VIP lounge where registered users get special privileges such as contests and opportunities to contribute to the contents of the site or the zine.
Mudd Zine has been a roaring success with the client and its teen audience. As a father of two teenage daughters, I had a hunch that my mission to empty the pockets of young girls would be achieved by filling them.
