There were US FTC restrictions around potential false advertising and misleading the consumers or the press that Plastique is a real brand. We had to carefully walk the line by demonstrating a connection to Fruit of the Loom within the content and disclosing that our content was advertising. We were not allowed to reach out to people as the brand Plastique or interact with them the way a normal brand would. We had to bait the hook and wait for them to reach out to us. As the connection between Plastique and Fruit of the Loom became more obvious, we broadened our outreach but we were required to disclose Fruit of the Loom was behind the content in our pitches to media, influencers and within our AP wire photo captions.

To promote Fruit of the Loom’s innovative boxer briefs, they became a crucial component of another fashion label: PLASTIQUE—a faux brand created by Fruit that featured a collection of clear plastic pants. They were fashion forward and also did a great job of highlighting what was underneath: Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs.

The collection was the brainchild of Frank La Rant. A designer of exacting tastes, the brand had to be as stylish as he. Fruit designed PLASTIQUE from the pants up, making sure every touch point had a high-fashion aesthetic. It used the proper fashion cues for inspiration, but also injected a subtle humor that made the parody clear. This balance between premium and absurd guided the logo design, the visual identity, the Look Book, and the advertising.

The photography was inspired by other luxe fashion brands, as were the details of the online and social experience. Even the Plastique pants were made to look and feel like they just came off the couture runway.

All while giving a fashion halo to the master brand, Fruit of the Loom, and highlighting what was underneath the plastic hype: their colorful and stylish boxer briefs.

Fruit of the Loom received a tremendous amount of positive buzz and media coverage from this activation and product launch which included over 700 million total earned media impressions. The event was even a topic of discussion on GMA Live! and CNN. The event contributed to over 23K social posts about Fruit of the Loom during the Boxer Brief launch, an increase of 10K year over year. The Naked Cowboy social posts had a higher than average participation rate and the post-event video resulted in 1.3 million additional impressions.

Crimson Hexagon’s social media analytics demonstrated that we not only got more people talking about the brand but that the Naked Cowboy and newly reinvented products made up a significant share of posts in May. Ultimately, Fruit of the Loom experienced positive share growth for both the new boxer brief and ladies underwear in 2014.