Calvin Klein CMO on capturing the zeitgeist and the staying power of desire

The campaign, which sees the actor strip down to his skivvies, smolder into the camera and flop effortlessly onto a couch on a New York City rooftop, is emblematic of the brand’s ambitious vision to become, in chief marketer Jonathan Bottomley’s words, “one of the most aspirational brands in the world.”

Bottomley, who previously served as CMO at Ralph Lauren and has also held influential roles at Meta, Vice and other brands, took the post in mid-2022. Since his appointment, he’s been laser-focused on deepening Calvin Klein’s place in the cultural zeitgeist.

In a series of interviews with The Drum last year, the executive spelled out this vision – and the marketing strategy driving it.

A brand on the pulse of culture

Calvin Klein’s vision today is, in short, to build on the brand’s legacy as a pillar of American fashion while finding new relevance in culture.

And this starts at the highest level. “I truly believe in the transformative power of brand,” Bottomley tells The Drum. In a crowded market, where competitors are competing for eyeballs via Google, Meta and other giant platforms, “brand is how you differentiate,” he says.

For Calvin Klein, a key tactic for achieving this goal of reinvigorating an iconic brand is employing bold, entertainment-focused creative work with influential brand ambassadors – like White.

But it’s not all about the sheer power of celebrity or about sex appeal. In its search for brand ambassadors, what Calvin Klein is relentlessly looking for is cultural cachet. It’s seeking figures who “live up to [the brand’s] idea of confidence and sensuality – [people] that feel empowered,” says Bottomley.

As he explains: “Calvin freed people back in the day – he allowed them to express themselves. So we want people who seem to naturally do that on the stage – the metaphorical stage.”

What this means in practice is that Calvin Klein is seeking a mix of high-visibility celebrities and more niche influencers.

“We’ve worked with people who’ve represented the brand for a long time, like Kendall Jenner, like FKA Twigs. And to complement [that approach, we’ve sought out] people who are not just shaping the culture generally but are specifically doing things right now,” Bottomley says. “So, you know, Kid Cudi [had] music coming out … Alexa Demie is one of the hottest social influencers and actors from Euphoria. Back in spring [of 2023], we very deliberately worked with Michael B Jordan around the launch of Creed.”

The brand executes this strategy across the globe with regional campaigns. In Korea, for example, the brand has found great success with partners such as singer Jennie Kim and soccer star Son Heung-min.

“It’s about those characters,“ Bottomley explains, “that represent the brand but who also have things that are important in culture for our audiences in different markets.“

Sex (still) sells

Of course, sex appeal is also a big part of the formula. “Desire is a lever to create value for a business like ours,” says Bottomley.

He argues that many luxury brands are selling desire and a kind of dream lifestyle more than they’re selling products.

It’s why many of Calvin Klein’s iconic campaigns – from the controversial 1980s ads featuring 15-year-old Brooke Shields to the topless embrace of Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss in 1992 – are so overtly sexual.

Marketing this lust gives the brand greater power in the marketplace, according to Bottomley. “There’s an idea or a dream that you’re creating in someone’s mind that drives demand and commands pricing power.”

But this approach has also gotten the brand in trouble time and again. A 1995 investigation by the US Department of Justice was launched over concerns that minors were being used in suggestive ads – a claim found to be false.

But the brand has found itself in hot water as recently as this week. On Wednesday, a Calvin Klein ad depicting FKA Twigs sporting a draped, barely-on denim shirt was banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority for presenting her as “a stereotypical sexual object.” The British singer protested the decision, arguing that regulators were enforcing a “double standard” in light of the positive reception of a nearly nude White in ads for the same brand.

Despite the blowback, Calvin Klein has continued to push the boundaries with sexuality. It has, however, made concerted efforts to embrace more positive messages and expand the scope of the kinds of sexuality it depicts.

The brand’s latest campaign with White nonetheless evidences the staying power of the age-old wisdom: sex sells.

Getting social

With its campaigns, which have famously decorated billboards in New York and London, Calvin Klein is now seeing growing success on social media (as evidenced by the virality of the new campaign with White).

The content has performed best on Instagram and TikTok, where image- and video-centric interfaces generate high engagement.

TikTok in particular, says Bottomley, has been a valuable forum for the brand’s smaller, more niche influencers. “It’s often those mid-tier talents that don’t necessarily end up on billboards but who have that ability and that credibility on the platform to [drive] engagement, which is what’s so important. It’s not just about reach – it’s about, ‘How are the users of those platforms engaging? Are they sharing? Are they commenting? What are they saying about you [and what’s] the sentiment of that?‘ We’ve been good at figuring that out.”

In the first half of 2023, Bottomley claims that Calvin Klein gained over a million new followers on TikTok.

Creating a more connected funnel

While the high-level focus on brand is a driving force of Calvin Klein’s marketing strategy, Bottomley never loses sight of the rest of the funnel. In many ways, the hype of a Jeremy Allen White campaign, for example, is only the first step.

“Once you have that engagement [from the brand campaigns,] it’s about really driving the full funnel by being clear about the product message that you want to land with the consumer. [We want to] take them from that world of entertainment and engagement straight down to the opportunity to buy into the dream.”

To get them to that point, Calvin Klein wants to keep consumers engaged and create “elevated,” personalized experiences across the buying journey. Bottomley says the brand focuses on making the value proposition tangible down to the product level. Consumers are meant to understand, he suggests, that “we sell iconic products, we sell essential products.”

But converting social media fans, say, into customers isn’t always easy. It requires a deep focus on the consumer as an individual, Bottomley suggests, to create personalized messages and ensure the value proposition remains front-and-center.

Luckily for Calvin Klein, its direct-to-consumer selling platforms, stores and network of wholesale retail partners across the globe have given it access to a great amount of both first- and third-party consumer data. With this data – and a robust customer relationship management platform – the brand is able to practice custom audience segmentation and craft highly targeted, personalized messages.

Developing loyalty is a key focus, too – and one the brand is able to accomplish with the help of its rich stores of data. “It’s not just that one hit of, ‘Come in and buy what you might have seen today or this week,’” says Bottomley. “It’s about retargeting them with other products like [the ones they like] and building a relationship over time.”

He goes on: “It might be about giving them [a new] opportunity through paid social or social commerce to come in and buy. It might be about directing them to our stores. It might be about co-op marketing campaigns that we do with our wholesale partners around the world.”

In short, Bottomley says, he wants to ensure “that that whole funnel is super connected.”

He also believes that his guiding ‘brand-first’ principle can – and should – infuse the whole customer journey, down to the product level. “Brand isn’t just big-picture and old-school advertising. If you work in a fashion business, brand is everything. It’s what you receive in the box when digital commerce arrives at your door. It’s what the associate in the store says. It’s the hang tag. It’s the way the clothes feel.”

Legacy meets modernity

Bottomley’s mission now is to fuse the timeless elements of the Calvin Klein brand – its ideals of individuality, confidence and sensuality; its strategic focus on image-based storytelling; and its visual language of sharp minimalism – with the cultural currency of today.

To do so, the brand is increasingly leaning into entertainment and image-focused storytelling, he says. In a modern Calvin Klein campaign, “there’s [the talent] and there’s Calvin – and there’s the collision of those two things in a positive way,” says Bottomley.

It is, in many cases, a melding of legacy brand elements with the power of real-time, uber-contemporary culture. “Consumers respond really well to that. They feel rewarded because there’s something there that feels new.”

Bottomley says that the brand “benefits from” the timelessness of its core identity. “It’s now about, ‘How do we make that feel relevant and right for today? Who are the people that are representatives of that today? What’s the image and aesthetic that does that in an appropriate way for the culture today?‘”

With the success of any campaign – Jeremy Allen White-fuelled virality or not – Bottomley suggests the brand won’t soon be seen resting on its laurels. “We want to move upwards and we want to get more aspirational over time.”

Additional reporting by Gordon Young and Hannah Bowler.

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