Cotton Incorporated, the brand that represents America’s cotton growers and is responsible for increasing the demand for and profitability of cotton, had a perception problem: younger consumers perceived cotton as the “socks and sweats” fabric. To be relevant with millennials and maintain future market share, it needed to change this. To change perception, we turned the magic of one of its key attributes–versatility–into an experiential innovation: the world's only 24-hour runway show for a truly 24-hour fabric. Featuring 70+ retailers, 1,440 looks and a model per minute, Cotton’s 24 Hour Runway Show engaged consumers live, digitally and at retail.

The loyal fashionistas and lucky passersby who saw the live event in Miami, and the 678,562 online viewers who watched a live stream broadcast on the homepage of People.com, made #Cotton24Hours a trending topic on Twitter. By partnering with People StyleWatch and top fashion bloggers to rally regional participation in a pre-promotional style competition, we built excitement through social media across the country. The campaign continued post-show with an online “Shop the Runway” initiative.

This campaign was fundamentally a reputation management program that required a PR solution. We invented an owned media idea that was by definition—relatable, scalable, and promotable. “Cotton 24-Hours” authentically engaged young fashionistas across the country through the street-style competition. We further engaged loyal fashion fans through our partnership with seventy retailers who contributed their hottest cotton looks to our runway show and provided a special promotional discount to our online viewers.

The campaign began with a four-month, promotional competition. Fashionistas submitted photos of their cotton style to an interactive photomap and voted on their favorites from the 4,000 submissions, sending America’s best-dressed on a trip to the Runway Show in Miami.

The Runway Show:

Thousands gathered at the 24-Hour Runway Show stage—where every minute, a model sported a unique cotton look curated from 70+ retailers for a total of 1440 looks. DJ’s and celebrity emcees sustained the hype for the entire 24-hours.

The experience reached beyond the live crowd—online, viewers watched from our microsite and on social media, millions were reached with runway content.

The microsite provided a rich interactive experience, allowing visitors to browse through the show’s 1440 looks, share their favorites on social, and purchase apparel. Although driving purchase was not a client emphasis of this campaign, we tested it for future iterations and had a tremendously positive response.

Cotton’s 24 Hour Runway Show culminated in an online audience of over 600,000 viewers and dominated Twitter as fashionistas across the country buzzed about Cotton.

• 678,562 total web views on People.com/Cotton24Hours.com,

• 8% increase in Twitter followers

• 780 Instagram followers added, 121% increase in followers

• 77% More likely to consider Cotton products to be high-quality

• 75% were more likely to consider Cotton products to be stylish

• 70% were more likely to recommend Cotton products to others

• We dominated Twitter as Cotton trended with 15,000 hashtagged tweets during the show (10 tweets per min)