‘Oh my God! Mark’s has khakis!’ Those were the words reportedly overheard in the parking lot of a Mark’s Work Wearhouse store in Calgary, by an account director from local agency Watermark Advertising Design. A patron had spotted ads for khakis in the window of the store, and had some apparent difficulty wrapping his head around the notion.
True story. Or so claims Charles Blackwell, vice-president and creative director at Watermark, the agency of record for Mark’s.
Variations on this incident have happened to just about everybody at the agency who works on the Mark’s account, Blackwell says. Mention at a party that the clothing chain is a client, and people automatically assume that you’re doing ads for industrial work boots.
‘We figured that after all the advertising and everything else, people would know,’ Blackwell says. ‘But they don’t.’
In the six years since Mark’s Work Wearhouse first set out to reposition its brand, considerable headway has been made. But there’s clearly still some work to be done before the Calgary-based retailer fully sheds its old image as a provider of industrial work wear.
A new television campaign for Mark’s, which draws inspiration from the kind of incident described above, is intended to take the store another step in this direction.
The campaign, which consists of three new 30-second spots, launched nationally this fall in all provinces except B.C and Quebec (where the chain still has relatively few outlets). The scenario of each commercial involves the revelation of some ‘surprising’ information about Mark’s.
While the ads communicate the same branding message that the company has employed for the past several years – ‘Clothes that work’ – they are also direct propositions, intended to increase store traffic.
In one spot, for example, a motorcycle cop cleverly rigs a tri-board ad for Mark’s three-in-one jackets to lure drivers into running a stop sign.
Another features a young man trying his luck at a sidewalk shell game. Spotting a bus ad for Mark’s khakis, our hero exclaims, ‘Mark’s has khakis?’ – momentarily distracting the con man, and giving himself the opportunity to sneak a peek under the tins.
The third ad in the series begins with a parcel-laden woman climbing into the back of a cab. Initially, she intends to go only a few blocks – but after spotting a Mark’s flyer on the seat, she asks to be taken to the store, even though it’s a good deal further. Only then does the viewer notice that the cabby has a whole stack of the flyers, which he is clearly using to get larger fares.
‘We wanted to give that short, sharp retail message, couched in a branding sensibility,’ Blackwell explains.
A little background: Mark’s has been around for almost two decades now. For most of that time, it has been known primarily as a seller of industrial boots and outerwear.
In the last several years, however, the company has been trying to get consumers to think of it as the place to go for ‘casual work wear.’
Mark’s will always carry clothing for Canada’s industrial workers, says chief operating officer Paul Wilson. But to create real opportunities for growth, the store needed to broaden its target market.
As Wilson defines it now, the Mark’s customer is just about anybody who doesn’t wear a suit and tie to work – an increasingly large segment of the population, as casual day becomes a five-day-a-week affair in many workplaces.
The company is currently in the process of transforming most of its 160 stores across Canada into big-box superstores, and extending their product selection.
Television campaigns have been launched every fall for the past three years. The goal: to brand Mark’s as a casual wear destination in the Eddie Bauer mold (without alienating the outdoor workers and adventure-seekers who represent the traditional core customer). ‘It was our opportunity to position ourselves with a customer who would never have seen us in that light before,’ Wilson says.
While the advertising has been successful to some degree, Wilson still isn’t convinced that the average non-Mark’s shopper knows just how wide a range of casual wear the store offers.
Hence the increased urgency of this year’s TV campaign, he says. Unlike the spots of years past, which simply introduced consumers to the ‘new and improved’ Mark’s, these have the very specific intent of driving traffic into the stores. ‘It’s just a case of getting that customer to give us a try,’ Wilson says.
At present, the Mark’s core customer is skewed male, 25-45. But that, too, is something the company is trying to change. Women’s wear has been introduced in recent years, and now commands approximately 20% of the store’s total floor space.
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