Where the boys are

Brandweek, April 13, 1998 by Becky Ebenkamp

At a recent concert in New York's Roseland rock club, Joseph Janus used the F-word to impress some teenagers. Hitting the stage in baggy pants, sneakers and baseball cap, he followed a typically foul South Park episode that aired on a big screen, which was preceded by a punk band that used more scatological references than Howard Stern at a John Bobbitt convention.

Janus, the director of advertising and marketing for funky apparel brand JNCO, was there to fling T-shirts, backstage passes, phone cards and other branded merchandise into the packed crowd, but not until they screamed for it. "Can you say f***ing JNCO?!" he yelled. They could, and did, loudly.

Most companies would balk at the four-letter-word-as-marketing-tool idea, but a different set of rules applies for hip, edgy brands that mostly target 12-17-year-old guys.

First, you have got to be where the boys are, so JNCO sponsors events like SnoCore, a 30-date winter music tour that, New York City's Roseland date aside, reaches the snowboarder crowd at winter resort towns. Second is to speak to them directly and, preferably, in their language. But rule No. 3 is probably the most important: listen to what they have to say in return.

The grass roots approach has long been used by JNCO, the brand that gave new meaning and proportions to the term "wide leg" in the early 1990s. As with other fashion brands without big marketing budgets, or even marketing departments, JNCO sold itself by creating a presence in nightclubs, handing out its product to DJs, musicians and other style leaders to gain credibility.

Since many of JNCO's styles are designed with the "extreme" sportsman in mind, the company also began sponsoring BMX and skateboard teams, and aligning with music and sports themed events. Along with Sno-Core, the brand's logo can be seen at the summer Warped Tour, Board Aid, Boarders for Breast Cancer and others.

But anyone can slap their name on a tour. The key has been to have a real presence at each venue.

"We're there with our team riders. We give stuff away, set up shop and hang out with kids," Janus said. "The whole success of JNCO is we're in touch with the youth culture, and to be in touch, you have to be a part of it."

These efforts also double as a marketing tool. Part of being the teen's best friend is knowing his or her likes and dislikes, so the company is all ears. In dance clubs, JNCO's "professional raver" gives out merchandise, but, in turn, gets feedback that could be used in future designs and marketing. Kids offer information about what they would change about the jeans, such as, perhaps, altering gigantic pockets to prevent stuff from falling out when they dance.

Interacting with kids is a crucial concept to Janus, having come from an environment where he didn't feet he was speaking to the person who actually wore the jeans.

A five-year stint as director of retail marketing for a Guess? licensor was frustrating because he butted heads with everyone from his bosses to Guess? president and ad chief Paul Marciano about how to market to boys. His ideas, like putting a skateboard in a kid's hand in the advertising creative, were shot down.

"I was trying to make Guess? more hip to a kid," Janus said, but he couldn't cut through what he referred to as the Guess? mentality of selling rehashed sexuality across all lines.

"A little boy doesn't want to see a kid with puckered lips and no shirt [in an ad]. He's uncomfortable seeing himself naked," Janus said. "That doesn't sell jeans to a boy."

The experience gave him a tough skin, and the impetus to look for a company that he saw as more aligned with youth culture.

"I felt I was in touch with what was out there, and I wanted to work for a company that did too," said Janus, who joined JNCO six months ago to spearhead marketing.

JNCO plans to keep grass roots efforts going, but also fold more mainstream media buys into the mix, with Janus working with an in-house group of illustrators, clothing designers, graffiti artists and promotion experts that serve as an ad-hoc ad team to ensure the look and feel of advertising will be anything but traditional. Before, the company dabbled in print, with ads in action-sport niche magazines like Thrasher and Warp. Now, less skater specific and more mainstream appeal ads are running and lifestyle magazines,like Men s Health, Detour, Spin and Teen, TV advertising, which would also be produced with the in-house ad team, is also being discussed.

As JNCO talks the talk about listening to kids, this point is reflected in how teens have helped direct how the brand is communicated through advertising, Take an effort for JNCO's newer juniors line, a 10-page comic book-inspired ad in which a female dynamic duo captures an evil genius who stole the supply of jeans.

"We put out a call on our Web site asking juniors what they would want to see," Janus said. Their answers included words like independent, smart, cool, not passive girls waiting by the phone for boys to call.

"All the adjectives they gave me, I turned into the ad," Janus said, resulting in strong and sexy heroines. "Not sexy like a model in a CK ad, but sexy in the way they carry themselves; they're secure. I don't want to ram the ideal person down everyone's throat."