In answering the usual product brief, we saw an opportunity to make a very unusual statement for the Fruit of the Loom brand.

Fruit of the Loom is a 160-year-old maker of quality underwear, but it’s only known for one thing: plain white briefs, AKA tighty whities. In reality, the brand has always been innovating stylish underwear. It just needed a fashion makeover of its own. And the typical “TV spot/media buy” wouldn't do that.

It started with a product demo: “Show how the legs of our boxer briefs don’t ride up.” This was brought to life using Fruit employees strutting around in clear test pants. Knowing people would react to the see-through pants, it became a launching point, for a response campaign from Fruit to itself, using a faux fashion brand, PLASTIQUE.

PLASTIQUE was the brainchild of designer Frank La Rant, who fell in love with Fruit’s plastic pants and created his own transparent line. It’s perhaps the first non-traditional campaign “inspired” by a traditional ad.

The content was designed to engage fashion influencers. With tongue firmly in cheek, PLASTIQUE was as true to fashion conventions as possible: a documentary film about the collection, a Soho billboard, video teasers to the site (where you could order the pants and boxer briefs), a LookBook, promoted tweets with fashion influencers, appearances in fashion districts like Rodeo Drive, even a rap video.

All while highlighting what was underneath the plastic hype: Fruit of the Loom’s colorful and stylish boxer briefs.

We invented a high-end fashion line of clear pants, Plastique, along with their high-strung creator, Frank La Rant. The launch borrowed cues from classic fashion brands: a fashion documentary following Frank’s process from inspiration to launch. Outdoor in the fashion mecca of Soho. Web videos and online banners on top fashion sites. Frank and PLASTIQUE became active social media users—tweeting, posting and connecting with the fashion elite. Everything drove to a website where people could shop the Plastique collection and download the season’s LookBook. In New York and LA, people were spotted wearing the pants in popular areas, and images of them soon appeared on fashion blogs and other fashion sites. And each time these plastic pants hit the scene, they clearly showed the underwear underneath – Fruit of the Loom. Because as Frank would say, it’s what’s underneath that counts.

The integrated campaign was incredibly successful, driving conversation about both PLASTIQUE and Fruit of the Loom. When all was said and done, we turned a $100,000 experimental budget into nearly a half million dollars in media value. And with over 10 million social impressions, and 800,000 video views and counting, it added up to an engagement rate that was double the category average. And this engagement changed the perception of the brand. For target customers, the campaign achieved two things: a recognition that Fruit of the Loom makes better Boxer Briefs. but more importantly, that Fruit was an innovative, relevant brand.