Townsend & O’Leary’s Orange Zone youth marketing division has picked up the estimated $3-5 million ad account of Clothestime.
The Irvine, Calif., agency won the business in a shootout with incumbent Pasadena Advertising, which the discount fashion retailer hired in 1998 to handle mostly direct mail, outdoor and print advertising.
“The Orange Zone just blew us away,” said Franci Ramynke, client marketing manager. “Their concepts were fresh and on-target, [and] they were able to give street sense to our strategic business goals.”
Orange Zone director and creative leader Mark McVicker, who led the pitch, said the agency conducted focus groups and interviews in the field with the target consumers, women 12-29, to get impressions of Clothestime and test advertising concepts.
In keeping with the focus group findings, McVicker said a campaign now in the works will position Clothestime as the place to find “cute and sexy” apparel for today’s empowered young women. The effort is expected to include print, radio and online components.
“Our job is to get girls who have left Clothestime to come back,” McVicker said.
Some of the concepts that have been tested include in-store materials with taglines such as, “Be all that,” “Live out loud” and “Work it.”
McVicker said the Anaheim, Calif.-based client intends to try its hand at event marketing and hopes to break a national ad campaign in May.
The Orange Zone was given the green light by agency president Steve O’Leary in 1998.
Orange Zone to Dress Clothestime
