Lindsey Bosway, a Midwest mom of three with 120,000 followers on Instagram,postedover the weekend, showing off her outfit, that she was heading back to her alma mater for a football game. It was a paid partnership, but it wasn’t sponsored by Celsius or Home Depot or any of the other big brands going on a college football marketing blitz this year. Rather, it was sponsored by Lands’ End.
Lands’ End is doing a concerted marketing push around college football this fall, as part of its quest to introduce the brand to more people. Last month, the company launched a clear tote bag, a twist on its canvas tote bag, designed to adhere to the bag policies of various sporting events.
The brand is also hosting what it’s calling a “Tote Tailgate Tour” on game days in three college towns — Bloomington, Indiana; Ann Arbor, Michigan and Oxford, Mississippi — in partnership with Hilton’s line of Graduate Hotels. The Tote Tailgate Tour will “feature curated on-site experiences with Graduate by Hilton, including Poindexter Coffee Shop takeovers (with complimentary coffee for guests), customization stations, and collegiate-inspired product displays to preview essentials in each school’s signature colorways,” according to a press release.
Lands’ End Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Sylvester, who joined the company a little over six months ago and is the brand’s first CMO in nearly a decade, painted Lands’ End’s college football marketing strategy as an effort that addressed multiple priorities for the brand. Lands’ End is trying to introduce itself to a greater variety of shoppers, beyond those who only know the brand for its best-selling canvas tote bag or have subscribed to its catalog for years. The brand is also increasingly focused on meeting consumers more in person.
“What I love about game day is it is a multi-generational event,” Sylvester said. “I think that was a really guiding filter for us, because that is something we can do really well, supporting all the generations under your roof or in your family.” She added that the brand is also experimenting more with marketing tied to iconic sporting moments that might make sense for Lands’ End. For example, it released an unofficial Olympic-themed collection in the winter.
Sylvester said the college football marketing efforts were built out of conversations with the merchandising team. As the merchandising team shared what products they had in the works for the fall — a clear tote bag, new colors of its classic rugby shirts — she thought her team could spin up something around college football and the emotion of game days. She had a connection who worked at the Graduate by Hilton team, and the two organizations decided to partner on the pop-up events.
“I like to be a little bit more planful and get ahead of things,” Sylvester said. But, she said, as she was coming up to speed as CMO, “this one came together a little bit quicker, probably in about two to three months.”
“It’s nice to give yourself more like six months, but there’s a fine balance of being super strategic and planful, [and] then also seeing a good idea and just moving fast to make it happen,” she said.
Sylvester likes to think of Lands’ End as a “solutions-oriented brand” — swimwear and outerwear are its two biggest categories. So, when it comes to deciding what marketing moments to invest in, she said she wants to focus on moments “where we can really focus on providing the right product for you at the right moment when you need it.” For example, earlier this summer, Lands’ End teamed up with Wawa on atote bag for beachgoers designed to fit the chain’s Shorti hoagie.
Overall, Lands’ End is in a period of transformation. The company also just named a new CEO, Charlie Cole, who started around two months ago. Lands’ End started in 1963 as a catalog business, “and now, 63 years later, that is still a part of our marketing mix,” Sylvester said. For the past couple of years, the company has been focused on investing more in tactics like performance advertising and in-person activations to build a more modern marketing operation, one that values both performance and brand.
Influencers, for example, are “table stakes” now as part of marketing,” Sylvester said. So, as part of the Tote Tailgate Tour, Lands’ End is partnering with a few influencers in each city that it will be popping up in. Lands’ End has been focused on finding “authentic” partners for each city. Bosway, for example, is an Indiana University graduate and posted about going back to campus for game day with one of her best friends.
As Lands’ End prepares its marketing plans for the fourth quarter, showing up in real life will remain a big focus, Sylvester said. “We are working toward an experience to continue to allow people to experience Lands’ End in real life, that we can then also use as content to kind of help fuel the holiday season,” Sylvester said.
