Carter's New Campaign: What to Tell Your CMO
Truth beats "cute" and TikTok
It’s about that time of the year where marketing teams are stressing over 2025 plans. According to just about everyone I have spoken with in the last 7 months, 2023 and 2024 (so far) have been strange years, due to all sorts of issues1. So, 2025 is going to be hard to plan for. Beyond the basics (lapping your comps, etc) chances are there’s probably a new(ish) CMO walking your halls (if you even have one anymore), budgets are constrained, you’ve probably got a new agency and your team is understaffed. Good times!
Maybe, though, your brand needs a kick in the pants and your team is hoping to re-energize the messaging and in-market work for 2025. And, you want to nudge the key players on your team to think beyond tactics and executions.
Time for a little inspiration from a company founded in 1865, the kid clothing conglomerate that is now Carters. You probably wore ‘em as a kid, you probably buy some as a parent, but you probably haven’t thought about the brand at all. It’s one of those brands that just sort of exists. Like Tupperware (more on them in a future post).
Carters just launched a new campaign, “more than just cute” and, because it’s from Mischief USA, your boss is probably going to hear about it, so you will too, eventually.
You can see the campaign overview and some of the work from Mischief, USA here. And, here’s a nice short interview with Jeff Jenkins the CMO talking about the work.
Here’s what to tell your CMO.
Why it’s going to “work” in the media landscape- Yes, the executions are just excellent on a couple different levels. Great scripts. Lots of six second stuff; Designed for reels, tiktok, pre-roll, etc. All the technical stuff is right on, too: Photography, design, casting, voiceover. They’re funny and knowing, too. Somebody give the writers a hug.
What your team should pay attention to - It’s not a hard-shift for the brand, but a reasonable evolution. They’re still focusing on cute kids as the hero, with the VoiceOver speaking directly to the kids needs and attitudes. They’re taking the needs of the kids seriously, without being heavy about it. And, by implication, they’re paying respect to the smart people taking care of those busy kids, right?In the end though, they’re still talking about features and benefits (e.g. Durable fabrics, stretchy soft fabrics, overlap shoulders)
But the really important thing here is the team - agency, internal team, partners - rallied around a core, honest brand truth: The Brands of Carters deliver durable, high quality products that have functionality that benefits parents and kids.
They’re not trying to be something they’re not.
In other words, there’s a legitimate value story, not just funny spots. The executions wouldn’t matter much if this was a BS brand, if there wasn’t some real truth at the core.
A lot of folks will zero in on the media/influencer strategy here. And, I’m still trying to understand if real, enduring brands can be *built* on TikTok (longer post coming up later), but this is a pretty good example of a “classic” brand fitting into a newer platform without selling out their values to gain exposure.
I’m personally drawn to the shift in brand voice. It’s pretty different from what came before it (which is, to be honest, pretty good. Just different).
And, we’ll see if this work is actually going to turn into a “campaign” or if it’s just a project with some great output that won’t go anywhere. The reality is that most of the target audience of this work will never see the rest of the other, non-mischief brand work. The risk is that the work from Mischief looks like it’s dumped into the middle of their other brand work. At worst, it will clash hard with the soft-focus nature of the other Carters work. Maybe it will just make the rest of the Carters work from the past seem boring?
Finally, and it’s a little inside baseball, but I wonder how Jenkins stewarded this through the halls of the org.
Was it funded “top down”, essentially from the CMO slush fund? Or, did he have to go to the P&L leader to get her/him to pay for this work and take the campaign risk?
Is this good? - How did Jenkins help the internal stakeholders to understand why the work was good, and why it wasn’t “risky” to make a shift like that. Worst case, he may have said “we’ll get people talking about the brand”, best case “We’re speaking in a more relevant way to the next generation of buyers who think Carters is lame” (see his interview for more on this)
Sales channels - How did he have to get support inside the sales org for this? Did the investment serve the purpose of exciting the various channel buyers?
Cool to see old brands taking a big swing, though. But, it’s not very risky when there’s a genuine, deep truth as the foundation
(thanks Rob and Mike for the discussion about this one)
Obviously, this is totally anecdotal, but I’m hearing things like: Our budget keeps changing, “we’re seeing stiff headwinds” in the market, roles aren’t getting filled, “Finance seems to be waiting for a recession to hit” and “it’s an election year”.