Associate Network of Knowledge - Part 2 of Marketing Study of Calvin Klein's CKOne

Note on this Essay: It was published March 26, 2001, for a class on Consumer Behaviour at the Wharton School. This is the second of two parts, click here to access part one. If you find my essay useful, or if you have any comments, please visit my homepage for info on how to contact me.

This diagram lists only a selection of possible knowledge connected to Calvin Klein, and is likely to become even more detailed if specific Calvin Klein products are brought into account. Some of the descriptions will evidently be subjective in nature. The issue of cost, for example, depends very much upon one’s reference price as a consumer. To a consumer with very exclusive consumer patterns, Calvin Klein might actually stand out as cheap because similar brands in the luxury goods industry can be more expensive. Yet, to most consumers, Calvin Klein is likely to be a brand in the upper-level price bracket. Similarly, it will also be perceived to have a rather limited distribution, but it does again become subjective what one thinks about the company’s various marketing campaigns. While some might disapprove of Calvin Klein releasing a gender-neutral fragrance, others will approve and consider it a valid attempt to follow with the times and be modern. Some will argue, though, that apopting images from queer culture is not political. Instead, the motivation and pleasure is in the transgressing, and this seems understandable considering that the term queer itself suggests transgression.

It is worth noting here that Calvin Klein’s CKOne advertisements actively play on the classical conditioning principles originally described by psychologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, as explained by this figure:

There is still some disagreement concerning the usefulness of classical conditioning, and some researchers argue that the method is mainly useful to marketers in low-involvement situations. Most Calvin Klein products are unlikely to fall into the lowest involvement category, but the company does not offer products that demand high involvement, this perhaps with the exception of expensive products as coats and jackets. The above Kate Moss commercial uses sex, a very familiar stimuli in marketing campaigns, to elicit a conditioned response. The latter is, according to the theory of classical conditioning, an involuntary response. Even though most males seeing the advertisement, in this case for Obsession, mentally are unlikely to believe that merely using Obsession will make them more desirable to attractive members of the opposite sex, the goal of Calvin Klein’s marketing staff is to convince consumers subconsciously that purchasing Obsession will lead to increased success on the market of love. Undoubtedly, the market is saturated with fragrances that use explicit sexuality as a marketing tool, often conveyed by suggestive advertising, dark bottles and brand names referring openly to sex. In addition to Calvin Klein’s Obsession, Allure and Passion are other product names known to most consumers. It is generally believed that a company has to play on sex to successfully introduce a new fragrance on the market, but more products than just CKOne has proved this theory wrong.

Estee Lauder, a company regarded to be much more conservative than Calvin Klein, used a very different approach when introducing a new fragrance to the market in late 1998. The Clinque division of Estee Lauder was in charge of the release, and had as other companies in the fashion industry been affected by the negative feedback following Calvin Klein’s advertising campaigns featuring models looking like heroin addicts. Turning around this trend, and rather focusing on the well-being trend of the 90, the company named its new fragrance "Happy", and presented advertisements featuring young women dancing and frolicking. By mid-1999, the fragrance reached the No. 1 spot in the women’s prestige fragrance category. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, Clinique Happy was said to have cannibalized sales of fragrances as Tommy Girl and CKOne, which are generally purchased by women in their 20s. This paper earlier discussed the importance of managing the environment, and both Clinique’s release of Happy and Calvin Klein’s release of CKOne illustrate how companies respond to changes in the environment. Says Susan Akkad, Clinique executive director for fragrance: "In looking to turn the fragrances into classics, you need to be aware of what’s happening around you, because fragrances are often related to social trends."

A potential Calvin Klein consumer will usually have some knowledge on the product, as was earlier shown by the associative network of knowledge. This information is influenced by changes in society though, and it is certain that a fragrance maker has to understand changes in culture and general society to stay atop of the market. CKOne experienced a sharp growth until the mid-90s, but has since then been the victim of a decline as the popularity for unisex fragrances has gone down. Perhaps Calvin Klein would have been better able to reposition the brand if they had used a different marketing mix, but it might also be that the unisex fad was a trend that would have to end. Between 1995 and 1999, the unisex sector experienced a growth of 580.8 percent in Japan, and many Western markets did not lag far behind this number. The one big exception is the United States, where the market for unisex fragrances peaked already in 1996. As to create some new steam in the American market, Calvin Klein released an interesting campaign for CKOne in early 1999. The last part of this paper will focus largely on the relative downfall of CKOne and the original 99Ecampaign that tried to enliven the brand. In addition, a few diagrams that can shed some light on the situation will be presented.

The four major types of promotions are advertising, sales promotions, personal selling and publicity. As earlier mentioned, the latter is used very actively by Calvin Klein. To most companies, negative publicity exists and is purposely avoided, but this is not the case for Calvin Klein. That is why some media pundits believed the kidnapping of Calvin Klein’s daughter was part of a larger publicity scheme. Advertising is evidently also used to the fullest, and does in the case of Calvin Klein usually create free publicity when they happen to feature young children or heroin addicts. Sales promotions are difficult to use, as Calvin Klein does not want to tarnish an image of exclusivity and luxury. Personal selling is another promotion strategy that is difficult to implement, but the 1998 campaign that attempted to revive CKOne showed that personal selling can be implemented also in the modern world.

Calvin Klein usually handles its advertising entirely in-house, but New York based agency Wieden&Kennedy (now known as SHOOT) helped the company develop an email campaign that was to surprise many marketers. The campaign features print advertisements and TV spots of several attractive young models, but the particularity of the campaign is that the email addresses of the models are printed on the advertisements.

The email of the model Tia, for instance, is tia@ckone.com. Comments Calvin Klein in a press release: "What you have is a new kind of intimacy that’s really a paradox Epeople all over the world are more in touch than ever, but they’re doing it one-to-one on email and the Internet. When we take this new campaign to email, it makes it very personal."

The characters in the commercials introduce themselves to the viewers in various ways, and if the consumer responds to the encouragement to contact the models by email, the advertising firm behind the campaign believes a long-term relationship with the customer has been created. Regularly, users will receive periodic emails with updates from the models, responses that evidently are composed by professional copywriters. Some users in the online world do not quite seem to understand the brilliance of the campaign. Writes one young female on her homepage:

The above statement shows that not all consumers will admit to care about the life of Calvin Klein’s CKOne models, but some are sure to get involved. Also, the lady might have misunderstood the reasoning behind the email campaign. By sending out regular emails to users who have signed up, Calvin Klein manages to stay active in the minds of consumers. The following chart might explain the situation as a consumer evaluates what fragrance to purchase at a luxury department store:

The email campaign does in other word help Calvin Klein become part of the consumer’s consideration set, and in that sense the marketing promotion certainly serves a function. As the choice alternatives evoked from memory can be many, CKOne may benefit from having developed a personal relationship with the user. Consumers should also be expected to be more involved in the purchase decision, this as they regularly receive emails from one of the models in the campaign. One problem that may arise, though, is that users get an ambivalent relationship to the brand. Just this seems to have occurred to the above mentioned user, and she even mentions that she has written emails to one of the models without receiving anything in reply. That should not be characteristic of a personal relationship, even though it is a product of the modern world.

Calvin Klein has shown that personal selling can be used with the help of modern technology, though the campaign would be unlikely to work for the sectors traditionally known for personal selling, namely life insurance, the automobile industry and the real estate industry. It is for instance unlikely to imagine anyone being interested in receiving emails from the interesting daily life of insurance salesman Bob. It should, on the other hand, be mentioned that some cosmetics companies have built up entire industries around personal selling, of which Avon and Mary Kay Cosmetics are just two. This just shows that there are many niche markets out there that can be both profitable and viable for long-term marketing.

Some time after having implemented this campaign of personal selling, Calvin Klein will have to evaluate the effect of the promotion strategy. This will probably be done in relationship with Wieden&Kennedy, and the next page presents a model that can be followed to successfully evaluate a strategy.

This paper has given a presentation of Calvin Klein as a company, and also of some of the amazing marketing techniques adapted or developed by the company to achieve success in a very competitive market. As the model on the last page shows, successful evaluations of marketing campaigns are essential after the implementation of a campaign is over. Calvin Klein has shown itself capable of reaching the green star more often than many of its competitors, and that is one of the key reasons the company has thrived ever since its calm founding in the late 1960s.

Little did Brooke Shields know in 1980, as she put on those now infamous jeans, how she should be only the first in a long list of provocative marketing campaigns. Many will say Calvin Klein is founded on scandals, and that the latter are needed to keep the company successful also in the future. The market for unisex perfumes seems to be dwindling, though, and CKOne’s email campaign does not seem to have helped enlivening the segment. The launch of the brand did anyway have a powerful impact on the market. As stated in one magazine: "Never before had a new brand had such an impact, topping the list of men’s and women’s fragrances in virtually every one of its launch markets."

A company receiving that kind of acknowledgement should at least know it is doing something right.

Lamb, Hair and Carl McDaniel. "Marketing." Ohio: South-Western College Publishing, 2000.

Reena, Mistry. "From 'Hearth and Home' to a Queer Chic." Institute of Communication Studies. 2000. 22 February. 2001.
http://www.theory.org.uk/mistry.htm