Issue #124 - Calvin Klein on TikTok

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Simon Andrews

and

Anthony McGuire

Apr 10, 2023

Welcome to Good TikTok Creative!

We are Simon Andrews and Anthony McGuire, two people who have been working in marketing, advertising, and media for decades.

Find Simon and Anthony on Twitter.

TikTok Case Study = Calvin Klein

Simon’s Take:

As the distinctions between social platforms reduce we see more campaigns designed to work as TikToks and as Reels and as YouTube shorts. The media logic behind this makes sense - maximising reach and frequency. The natural reaction of most creatives is to find something that doesn't look out of place on any of these platforms - thus minimising creative spend.

But as we know the impact of creative on media effectiveness is so profound that extra money spent on making something bespoke - that fits the grammar of the medium - is (nearly) always a good investment.

For some brands though that doesn't quite work — like Calvin Klein, their approach is so singular.

Their brand platform is unchanged since the 80s. They find iconic talent, put them in Calvin Klein jeans and let the association do the work.

First in 1980 with a 15 year old Brook Shields and a killer headline "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

Then in the 90s it was Kate Moss and Marky Mark (aka Mark Wahlberg). Then Christie Turlington and other iconic models.

Now it's the turn of Korean pop idol Jung Kook. As well as his solo records he is known as the singer in BTS on TikTok his name as a hashtag has 180b views. His own profile (enigmatically titled 2143510081) has 2.6m followers.

The huge fab interest in all things BTS and KPOP make this campaign work, with lots of sharing and the #CalvinKlein has 1.6bn views. The brand now has getting on for a million followers. And the launch ad inspired 68k comments.

The iconic ads from the 80s and 90s always used top photographers, including Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber and this campaign is shot by Korean photographer Park Jong Ha. The talent and the craft are done really well.

The ads were always culturally significant and this new work connects with TikTok, as the place culture increasingly gets defined.

Anthony’s Take:

The story of K-pop is one of the most culturally important trends of the last few years. The rise of Korean pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have made the singers behind these bands some of the world’s biggest ‘influencers.’ For brands, picking the right brand ambassadors to represent their companies requires an understanding of who best appeals to the youth.

Jung Kook comes from BTS, the Grammy-nominated K-pop group that headlined Coachella in 2019 and became one of the globe’s biggest bands. Jung Kook has started focusing more on his solo career and Calvin Klein announced Jung Kook as their newest global ambassador last month.

The TikToks we see from Calvin Klein are, as Simon says above, indicative of how we have seen the brand express their previous relationships with brand ambassadors. You see slick videography highlighting Jung Kook posing in Calvin Klein denim and talking to the camera answering basic questions.

If you look into the comments, you’ll see the fanaticism of the Jung Kook fans, who are very much composed of ‘ARMY,’ the colloquial term used to describe BTS fans from around the world. It’s hard to compare Jung Kook’s fanbase with Marky Mark’s in the 90s, but Kpop fans are well known for being extremely passionate.

And Calvin Klein is aware of this. Other ambassadors featured on their TikTok profile include Jennie from BLACKPINK and Mark Tuan from Got7, two other massive Kpop stars.

It’s a classic strategy from Calvin Klein, but also emblematic of what modern influence means today. In contrast to some of the other content we have seen, Calvin Klein takes a well-trodden approach of high production quality video content that can likely live across different platforms. While their content is not highly specific to TikTok, it still works when they have such a powerful brand ambassador.

Simon usually covers TikTok in his Fix email - see the archive and sign up here.

These notes are from his latest edition:

Well they are still here and despite an extended pile on for their CEO, TikTok are trying to run business as normal - sharing a comprehensive myth busting document with advertisers.

Research firm Disqo have a new report on Driving TikTok Ad Effectiveness.

TikTok are launching a Creative Agency Academy and they are promoting their Effect House Branded Effects.

We looked at Saudi mega project Neom and how they use Twitter in the latest Good TikTok Creative.

People are finding super inventive ways to use the platform - here using a AR filter to measure push ups by the user.

But TikTok admits it banned former NBA player critical of China.

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