October 2008
Brooks Brothers is running ads in newspapers that reprint a 1942 pitch about the retailer’s suits. “It pays to buy at Brooks Brothers,” the vintage ad said, because the most economical clothes “are those that are made to last.”
“Just as our ad stated in the 1940s,” the current ad declares, “during these uncertain times, Brooks Brothers is still the investment you can trust.”
Marketers outside the financial services industry have been running campaigns for several months that are inspired by the faltering economy. Those ads present products as smart buys because they offer value for money, but do not refer directly to why shoppers may be pinching pennies.
The new ads, by contrast, invoke news headlines in a tactic that is known in marketing as borrowed interest, which hopes to gain attention by riding the coattails of important and topical events.
Ads that play off the financial news can be risky, because the losses involved — of retirement nest eggs, money, jobs — are no laughing matter.
“It’s a fine balance,” said Dean Crutchfield, a branding consultant in New York.
On one hand, “people are having difficulty,” Mr. Crutchfield said, but on the other, “it’s too big an opportunity to miss.”
The best approach is to “find out if it works with your target audience” before producing the campaign, “otherwise, it can blow up in your face.”
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