"Real People" ad campaigns

Have you noticed this trend?  I feel like I'm seeing it everywhere... brands asking blogger-photographers, as well as just normal photographers, to create ad campaigns of "real people" wearing their products.

There's actually no reason "real people" should be in quotations, except that in the case of Tod's and Cole Haan, if you're wearing the shoes on a daily basis, you might be real, but you're not exactly a plebian, so saying "real people" might overextend the point.  So really, by "real," I mean, non-actors/models.

Here, a Tod's campaign by wonderful photographer Eliott Erwitt.

I feel like it's a way of brands attempting to become more real and human to people.  Like the idea of the Creative Director becoming the human face of a brand, or knowing the "story" of a company and its materials, knowing who the photographer is and who the subjects are makes you, as the buyer, feel somehow closer to the brand, like it is more accessible to you. 

Instead of advertising images just appearing like magic on a magazine page, you have a sense of how the image was created, which makes it feel more authentic, and, as a result, leads you to feel that the ad is more believable.

For this Cole Haan campaign, the brand asked Todd Selby, of The Selby, to photograph people who inspire him wearing Cole Haan shoes.

Interesting the way this is bringing the whole photographer-blogger thing full circle, since I guess we wouldn't have really known these photographers in the days before blogs.  

Like Scott Schuman, for example, was already a fashion photographer, but now we know who he is, so now it's like, "Oh look, these brands are using that photographer we like," when really, they're just capitalizing on the fact that we know who they are now by publicizing who the photographer is.  It's working out well for the photographers who have created blogs!!

Trends I'm Loving >> Blazers, Brogues, and Button Ups...

Images from The Sartorialist, Garance Dore, Jak and Jil, Zara, and collage from Nubby Twiglet.

Provenance You Can Believe In >> S.N.S. Herning

Oh how I love a brand with a good story.  Who doesn't, really?  Knowing the provenance of a brand makes all the difference in how you feel about a product, and I think it's actually a brilliant marketing tool. 

With the return to traditional techniques, local materials, handmade, etc., I think people want to believe in what they're buying and are turning away from enormous faceless corporations mass-producing things in who-knows-where.

S.N.S. Herning definitely fits the bill...

According to online boutique Gargyle...
 "S. N. S. Herning was founded by Soren Nielsen Skyt. As a young man he made his living selling knitted garments to the fisherman of Denmark. In the 1920’s he started to explore new knitting techniques that would make his sweaters warmer. He knew that the fisherman of the Danish West Coast were in need of woolen sweaters to help them bear the rough weather at sea.  In 1931 he succeeded in making a sweater that would serve this purpose, today renowned as the Fisherman’s Sweater.

To this day, S. N. S. Herning knits are crafted in the same old manner, using the original machines, in the original factory. Production is very limited, and as a nod to this fact, every item is signed in hand by the artisan who makes it."

 A cross-section of a machine with codes referring to each part in case they need to replace something.  On the website it says, "If we needed, say, a new handle, we would have to ask STOLL in Reutlingen for spare part No. 577.  The knitters use the handle when the machine needs to be started up manually after a halt."

However, may I submit again that the menswear industry is doing a much better job of this than womenswear?  I feel like all the cool brands that are promoting their use of the traditional methods, local materials, etc. are all for men!  Why aren't womenswear brands onto this trend yet?

Maybe it's because menswear has a pretty limited range of actual articles and styles, and so they are more focused on craftsmanship as a means of differentiating themselves?

But still, women do wear button down shirts, sweaters, etc., so I think there is definitely room in the market for a womenswear company that does all these staples well like some of the menswear brands out there... until then, I'm tempted to just wear some of these ones for men.



See also: Apolis Activism and Stanley & Sons for more brands with great stories here , and Madewell for menswear vs womenswear debate here.

S&S Herning website.