Toronto-based online cufflink site cuffwear.com is reaching out to professionals via ‘cuff-vertising,’ paper inserts placed into the French cuffs of 25,000 shirts sent to the dry cleaners. Shaped like cufflinks designed to hold the cuffs together, the cards reading ‘Get your shirt together’ were tucked into shirts at high-end cleaners in Mississauga, Oakville, Georgetown and Brampton starting in early December and wrapping up this week, with plans for a second phase in downtown Toronto in the near future.
‘Our target is males 25 to 45 who are professionals,’ says Dave Douglass, convergent creative director at Cossette, which created the campaign with Cossette Media and Statements Media. ‘Usually they’re getting their shirt dry cleaned if it’s a French cuff shirt, so it lends itself perfectly.’ The inserts were supported with in-store signage, window decals and messaging on the garment bags.
The campaign also includes a bar component in several upscale spots on King Street West in Toronto. Clubgoers were stamped on the wrist with an image designed to mimic a cufflink and including the site’s URL. Cocktail napkins, business cards and cutlery wraps that look like cufflinks also drive to the site. NewAD washroom posters feature three-dimensional fold-outs of shirt cuffs with the slogans ‘Get your shirt together’ and ‘Relax, it’s your cufflinks he’s looking at.’
Cuffwear.com considers the campaign a success so far, with December sales up 16% from the previous year.
