Male Gen-Z, Millennial Opps: Dickies launches new ad campaign amid digital display ad spend boost

In its first global marketing campaign, America's heritage workwear brand Dickies features creatives and working people wearing its items. Its DIY spirit, influenced by pandemic-related restrictions, "United by Inspiration, United by Dickies" uses images shots via Zoom video and film tech.

According to iSpot, the brand hasn't invested in national TV since spending around $729.8k in H1 2020, targeting male sports enthusiasts, particularly millennials and Gen-X, with top targeted shows including College Football 150: The Greatest, Fast N' Loud, XFL Football, College GameDay and Championship Drive. Dickies's full 2019 spend declined significantly to $5m from $12.2m in 2018.

Adbeat reports the company's YOY digital display ad spend is on the rise; it stopped utilizing this channel in April 2020 due to the global pandemic but returned in September 2020. Out of the estimated $2.2m Dickies allocated toward this channel from September 2018-2020, 73% ($1.6m) was allocated from September 2018-2019. Most of the past year's spend went to programmatic ads placed via Google DV360 ($1.3m) onto sites such as dailymail.co.uk ($374.6k), yahoo.com, gocomics.com, nickiswift.com and nexusmods.com.

Dickies targets blue-collar workers ranging from Gen-Z to Gen-X, especially men, but its sharply increased digital display ad spend reflects the importance of Gen-Z and millennial audiences. Pathmatics reports the company also invests in Facebook and Instagram ads; per Kantar data, local broadcast is also in the mix.

Agency & martech readers - Sid Lee was named Dickie's creative AOR earlier this year, so prospect elsewhere for creative work. Note, however, that media AOR Starcom has been on Dickie's roster for at least four years, putting it just over average agency tenure (three-and-a-half years). Reviews tend to follow one another closely, so keep your eyes peeled for a possible media review in the next year.