Our idea: The Coolest Suit on the Planet

We dressed a weatherman for the ultimate heat-seeking mission: to forecast, fly to, and report from the 4 hottest places on earth over 2-weeks, all while keeping his cool in M.J. Bale suits.

The audience back in Australia would interact with Alex through Facebook Live by ‘treating’ him or ‘torturing’ him with hot or cold challenges, determining how he’d conclude live broadcasts. Australians could even test the actual temperatures he was experiencing in real time at ‘Hottest Change Room on the Planet’ - saunas set up in M.J. Bale stores that served as product demonstrations where the public could road test the Cool Wool suits to the same conditions as Alex.

Every day, Alex did a weather report via Facebook Live and Instagram stories, proving it wasn’t staged. He would predict where the hottest place in the world would be the following day.

Viewers were invited to engage in our content by ‘liking’ to reward him with cool treats like an aircon SUV or ‘laughing’ to torture him with spicy hot foods and gruelling camel journeys through the desert.

In Australia we invited media, influencers and consumers to come have a fitting in an MJ Bale store. We then challenged them to torture test their Cool Wool suit in the ‘Hottest Change Room on the Planet’ where the temperature was set in real time (in a purpose built sauna change room) to the heat that Alex was facing in the hottest places on the planet.

This experience was then shared out across the social channels of influencers, consumers and the brand.

Even our biggest sceptics became believers….

852% increase in search volume for M.J.Bale suits

13.4% of all sales during the campaign period were across the new ‘Cool Wool’ range against a target of 8%

57% increase in foot traffic in-store during the campaign period

11200 suits sold during Spring/Summer – 145% of our target achieved.

Delivered a return on investment of 7:1

PR & Social Stats :

Coverage in tier one media – Fairfax, News Corp, Huffington Post, GQ, Mashable

Over 95 pieces of editorial coverage - achieving a reach of 20,350,596

Social engagements increased by 250%

Over 500K social video views and 8500 engagements with social content.

Total social reach was 1.4m, the successful of any campaign to date

And of course, one slightly broken weatherman – who never lost his cool

How do you convince the men of Australia that a wool suit can keep them cool in the harsh summer heat? This was the challenge faced by Australian menswear brand M.J Bale.

Simply showing them was never going to be enough to break deeply held beliefs, we needed to find a way for Aussie men to experience the cooling power of a good suit under extreme heat.

Using a camera crew, a weatherman, plane tickets, social media, and the world’s first real-time in store sauna - ‘The hottest change room in the world’ – that is exactly what we did.

Perception data painted a clear picture of the challenge we face: 82% of Australians believe wool is a winter fabric and not appropriate for summer.

But the facts said otherwise, 100% Australian Merino Wool is a fine, highly breathable fabric making it perfect for keeping you cool in warm weather.

Our job was clear then – demonstrate to Aussies that a wool suit could help you keep your cool no matter how much the weather heated up.

Our strategy was to address this perception by performing a bit of judo, turning our challenge into our benefit by tapping into a simple truth that impacts the lives on everyone on the planet – the world is getting hotter.

The ultimate heat-seeking torture-test: a weatherman would be our guinea-pig, meteorological data would provide our pathway, and we’d let the clothes do the rest.

Our brief was to launch M.J.Bale’s new ‘Cool Wool’ suiting range, and to sell 8000 suits during the Spring/Summer season.

We faced one major challenge: Summers in Australia are getting hotter.

2017 was a global record, with temps 1.2deg Celsius above pre-industrial records. On top of this 82% of Australians think that wool is a winter fabric, and not suitable for summer.

Objectives: Drive sales of the new range of M.J. Bale Cool Wool suits in the lead up to the spring/summer racing season by demonstrating that wool is a breathable fabric that can be worn in summer just as it is in winter.