Ken Bone's Fifteenth Minute x IZOD
Services: Community Management, Digital Strategy, Reactive Social Strategy
During the second Clinton-Trump debate in 2016, Ken Bone stood up and asked a question that would make him internet famous. It wasn’t just his question, but his overall demeanor as a truly concerned, voting citizen. Little did Ken know, his impression would start a bigger conversation and bring my client, IZOD, along for the ride.
Ken’s cable-knit quarter zip sweater along with his question went viral and when we saw the boom in our digital community and sales, we knew we had to take hold of this opportunity. Our team decided to reactively leverage Ken’s fame and make it into a PSA on the importance of voting. We adopted the anecdote, “15 Minutes of Fame,” and gave just that to Ken.
Our message was so simple and well-received by our community: VOTE! We don’t care who for, we just care that you vote. We managed to use a political topic to be socially relevant, while remaining neutral and not forcing PVH Corp. to take a side. We started a bigger conversation for our fans, something more meaningful than what color chinos they should wear to their homecoming weekend and it sparked a whole new interest in our fanbase.
The campaign wasn’t without some challenge. A section of our fans were either angry IZOD was riding the wave of internet fame or they just did not resonate with Ken Bone. Our response was neutral and simple, “We appreciate your feedback and value your opinion on this matter. We hope you will still support the brand and our overall message to vote this Election Day!” As a CM, I saw these comments and shared them with the team so we could continue to refine our strategy and plan.
The campaign increased our social media engagements by over 55% in 12 hours from the video’s publication. We saw most of the action on Twitter, which allowed fans to retweet the video 4,340 times with 9,703 likes. A follow up tweet featuring Ken Bone’s, “Town Hall Look,” was retweeted 250 times with 367 likes.