Athletes, movie stars, boxers, young TikTokers, the campaign launched by Hugo Boss is one of the most impressive rebranding efforts in marketing history.
Until recently, talking about rebranding meant delving into aspects of communication limited to the graphic or chromatic sphere. It involved reworking logos, rethinking the font used, adapting BTL or web communication to new languages or structures. Of course, all of this is part of a change in brand identity and a different market positioning, but going further as Hugo Boss has recently done is far from any rebranding seen to date.
Those who have a few more years under their belt cannot help but think of the epochal revolutions made over the years by giants like Nike and McDonald’s, the former capable of heavily intervening on the famous Swoosh, the latter called to link its image to the concept of sustainability and environmental awareness, through color codes never used before (one above all, the color green). We have been (and still are) tied to the inspirations given by branding masters like Alina Wheeler with her “Designing brand identity” or the guru Michael Johnson, author of the timeless “Branding. In five and a half steps.”
While there is much discussion about brands that have made their communicative fluidity their success, and while the aforementioned books remain bestsellers, talking about the Hugo Boss rebranding means something else; it means analyzing a “radical rethinking” of a brand that has even decided to reinvent itself and split into two different new brands.
Daniel Grieder: the new and brilliant CEO of Hugo Boss
But let’s proceed step by step. Ten or fifteen years ago, Hugo Boss was a real point of reference in the fashion industry, thanks to perfect positioning and brand awareness that many competing brands envied. In the last six years, due to various revolutions that have swept through this specific sector, but not only, the German brand has lost its appeal.
For this reason, since June 2021, Hugo Boss has a new CEO, Daniel Grieder, with over 20 years of experience at Tommy Hilfiger. From the outset, the objectives are as clear as they are ambitious: to double company sales to 4 billion euros by 2025. To do this, the brand has focused exclusively on mono-brand stores and e-commerce, with a planned marketing budget of over 100 million euros. The start is promising; during the fourth quarter of last year, sales increased by 51% year-on-year. How was all this possible?
One brand, 2 labels: when rebranding makes us see double
The strategic objective was to maximize the brand’s potential and modernize its visual identity, involving different generations and managing to interpret their tastes and needs.
This led to the creation of two different labels: Boss and Hugo.
The differences are not only formal but also substantial; the two labels we are going to examine will only have a more modern graphic design and a more “casual and playful” aesthetic in common, as stated by the German player’s press office. Furthermore, there was a switch to a lowercase sans serif font, a singular choice but studied in the smallest detail if one considers that even prestigious brands such as Saint Laurent and Burberry have made a similar choice.
Boss, the flagship brand with high-quality casual tailoring, evening wear, and athleisure, targets Millennials (between 25 and 40 years old), while Hugo, with trendy tailoring that includes denim, streetwear, and party wear, targets Generation Z (under 25 years old).
Different generations correspond to different campaigns and different media. The former conveyed the #BeYourOwnBoss campaign mainly on Instagram, while the latter, more accessible in terms of price, is constantly present on TikTok with the #HowDoYouHugo campaign.
But the real revolution does not end here. The protagonists of the two different campaigns are a disproportionate number of influencers and celebrities, also very different depending on the label. “Endorsing” Boss are well-known faces including Khaby Lame, Matteo Berrettini, and Kendall Jenner, while Hugo’s testimonials include model Adut Akech, dancer Maddie Ziegler, and the eccentric rapper Big Matthew.
The firepower of influencer marketing
There is a significant piece of data that can attest to the value of Hugo Boss’s investment in influencer marketing. During Milan Fashion Week, Lame, Big Matthew, and model Gigi Hadid were the protagonists of an event held at the Kennedy Sport Center. Furthermore, for the occasion, Boss launched a TikTok dance challenge #BossMoves, creating an unprecedented spectacle capable of registering 4 billion impressions on social media in the first four days.
This number is only part of an analysis of the key campaign indicators whose monitoring, as explained by Miah Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications at Hugo Boss, takes place on a daily basis.
This case history highlights how it is possible to entrust a rebranding to an influencer marketing strategy, making a campaign scalable in the long term. However, it is crucial to study, as in the case of Hugo Boss, the most suitable collaboration methods for the chosen influencers, evaluating, among the many, these three paths:
- Payment based on content and number of posts
- Fixed payment with the addition of an affiliation fee (especially for VIPs and brand ambassadors)
- Transferring company shares, also in the case of longer-lasting collaborations
- Products in exchange for reviews (this only applies to micro-influencers)
In short, regardless of the type of collaboration, it is important to establish stable relationships with influencers, involving them on different channels and starting from a clear and structured rebranding idea in every detail.
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