Cypress-based Vans Inc. is returning to this year’s SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
The shoe and apparel brand will sponsor the House of Vans at the Mohawk event March 11 to 15.
The five-day event at the popular Austin venue will feature “some of the world’s best emerging bands and iconic talent,” such as Tyler the Creator, Cities Aviv, Gap Dream, Jacuzzi Boys, Jonny Two Bags and David Hause.
The brand also just released “Living Off the Wall,” a 14-episode documentary series that focuses on the “creative self-expression” of skateboarders, artists and musicians in the Greater Los Angeles area, Russia and China.
“We are trying to build our (brand) value around creative expression, and we think our consumers can relate to that,” Doug Palladini, Vans’ general manager, said in an earlier interview about the brand’s original content marketing strategy. “It’s not traditional advertising, but it’s the way to market to youth culture in this day and age. … We want people to believe in Vans as a brand that allows them to express their creativity, and then when they go into a store and see a Vans shoe to say, ‘Yep, Vans is a brand that means something to me and says something about me as a person.’ ”
The documentaries can be seen on YouTube or the brand’s Offthewall.tv. The company, which recorded more than $1.7 billion in sales last year, doesn’t have an advertising agency of record. It bucks the norm with a 90-member in-house marketing team that produces most of its advertising content on a budget of more than $55 million.
“We look at it as a competitive advantage,” Palladini said, referring to the internal team as “brand experts.” “We get people who believe in Vans to come to work here, and then they eat and breathe and sleep our brand every day.”
Fiery Promo
Mazda North American Operations in Irvine is continuing its Game Changer marketing campaign with a fiery, 30-second TV spot for its Mazda 3 model.
The ad features former racecar driver Bill Simpson, who is credited with inventing a flame-resistant suit.
“Some people go to extreme lengths in the name of safety,” the narrator says as Simpson emerges from flames set up in the test lab, smiling. The video moves on to show a red Mazda 3 navigating city streets as the narrator continues, “Courageous engineering is also the Mazda way.”
The TV spot promotes Mazda 3’s i-ACTIVESENSE, a set of eight safety features, such as energy-absorbing door armrests that minimize shock in side collisions, a lane departure warning system and blind-spot monitoring.
The ad was produced by Mazda’s own ad agency, the Garage Team Mazda in Costa Mesa, and has aired on national networks, including ESPN.
Mazda’s parent company, Japan-based automaker Mazda Motor Corp., spent 217 million on marketing in 2012 in the U.S., according to New York-based Kantar Media.
Tablet News
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. is harnessing the power of viral videos to promote its Windows 8.1 Encore tablet on YouTube.
The Irvine-based consumer electronics manufacturer is broadcasting “Toshiba’s Encore Friday,” a one- to two-minute commentary about the top five videos of the week. The show appears on the brand’s channel every Friday and encourages viewers to watch the recommended videos on their Encore tablets.
One of the videos it reviewed shows an animatronic “devil baby” terrifying unsuspecting New Yorkers that has garnered some 42 million views.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine-based INK Studios added Raleigh Enterprises, RF Surgical Systems and Agile360 to its client roster. … Innocean USA in Huntington Beach hired Chad Saul as its chief growth officer, a new position. … Irvine-based Rhythm Interactive beefed up its Web offerings, hiring Charles Verhoeff as its new SEO strategist; Joseph Mueller and Daniel Miller are its new junior Web application developers, and Josef Kohout is the new front-end developer. … Marshall Toplansky, managing director at KPMG in Irvine, participated in the CMO-CIO Cold War panel discussion at the Tech Marketing 360 conference in Dana Point last month. Other speakers included David Sable, chief executive of Young & Rubicam; Alison McConnell, chief growth officer at Leo Burnett Worldwide; and Stacy Martinet, chief marketing officer at Mashable.
