The majority of men consider H&M as a place where females shop, they don’t think of it as a destination where they can find great menswear. After decades of building a successful business on being the go-to fashion destination for women worldwide, we had to switch things up to reach the male audience. Our brief was to create a bold global campaign which sparks new curiosity around H&M for men. The objective was to increase awareness, growth and emotionally connect with men in order to be top of mind as their fashion destination.

Clothes don’t just make the man. They make the man feel. The global H&M campaign, ‘Wear that feeling, celebrates the confidence you gain through the clothes you wear. Whether you’re off to the scary dentist, gardening for the first time or just walking down the street with a friend, style makes you confident whenever you need it. To helm the campaign, we didn’t look for an expected fashion icon, we looked for someone who has the confidence to pull anything off… Say hello to Pete Davidson, the man of that moment and the new face for H&M Man.

In order to establish relevance with a new male audience, we recognized the need for a language that resonates with them. Men don’t get their style inspiration from traditional fashion films or runway shows. They get it from watching the things they love. Movies. Music videos. Sketch comedy. That’s where Pete Davidson comes in…

Pete won the world over with his self-deprecating humor and charm. He’s different from the typical fashion icon. With a confidence that is impossible to peel your eyes off of, he was perfect for helping H&M attract an audience that isn’t interested in conventional fashion films and approaches.

Platforms such as Youtube & Instagram were a natural place where people usually find Pete, and therefore didn’t feel unnatural for our audience to engage with H&Ms content. H&M gave our audience content they usually engage with– their favorite comedian being himself with style and confidence.

In a series of films that feel more like SNL skits and less like fashion clips, we place Pete into everyday moments where his outfit is the center of attention. Whether he’s visiting the dentist or hanging out with his best friend, his confidence and style turns heads. That’s what happens when you “Wear that feeling”.

We wanted these films to be infused with lots of humor and stand out from traditional fashion films. Together with director Tim Godsall—who brought his unique style and subtle humor—we created a campaign that speaks a language men are already familiar with.

The films ran across social media, as well as Youtube, OLV and TVC as a first phase for building awareness and PR. Short formats of the films were shown on DOOH, website & the app to get people to explore H&M’s range and drive sales. The campaign ran globally between week 18-22.

The results of our campaign was H&M Man’s most successful to date. Suddenly men started to pay attention to style, and more importantly to H&M. With 1.7M visitors, of which 93% of all traffic to the website were new visitors, we increased the awareness of a new target group for H&M. The campaign also increased brand recognition by +14% for the target group of men aged 18-30. Within selected media channels with a male user base, we also saw the willingness to buy increase by +11%, and the positive associations around H&M as a men's brand increased by +10%P, compared to H&M Man's previous campaigns. The campaign resulted in 180M impressions. With a fourth of them in earned media coming from 350+ articles from 50 different countries, putting H&M Man on the map internationally as a fashion chain for "the many men".