Mugsy Jeans

Helping guys find confidence and comfort anywhere.

Project Overview

ENJOYING COMFORT ANYWHERE.

Mugsy, a Chicago-based men’s apparel brand, was tired of jeans that left men feeling constricted, overlooked, and underwhelmed. So they designed pants with a proprietary stretch denim, providing freedom without sacrificing style and function. Guys everywhere, rejoiced.
As they expanded into new categories Mugsy needed help fortifying their brand positioning, voice, strategy, creative and marketing processes. Knucklers was brought on as a strategic partner to design and roll out the new brand operating system.

BRAND OPERATING SYSTEM

Brand Identity

Brand Therapy | Brand Playbook

Brand Strategy

Growth | Media | Community | Creative

Brand Implementation

BRAND IDENTITY

We conducted a two day *Brand Therapy* session with the Mugsy leadership team that included a preliminary Brand Homework. The goal of *Brand Therapy* was to discuss and solidify the following for Mugsy:
Core values and Golden Circle
Mission Statement
Brand positioning
Core Customer
Voice and Tone

BRAND STRATEGY

Over the previous 3 years, Mugsy had driven growth by pursuing a traditional paid media strategy and sponsoring select shows and podcasts. Unfortunately, they had begun to experience diminishing returns because of audience fatigue and increased competition/costs. Instead of trying to ‘pick winners’ we needed to build a plan to de-risk the business and unlock efficiency.

THIS PARADIGM SHIFT INCLUDED:

Applying the new brand positioning across all customer touch points (pre to post purchase)
Constructing a content creation process that would output high quality and volume assets to test
Redesigning Mugsy emails and injecting them with the new tone, voice, and photography
Revamping all product photography for a more professional site experience to increase CVR
Reconfiguring the site to increase speed and reduce friction to purchase
Refreshing email flows and logic
Creating win/win relationships with Mugsy’s brand partners
Hiring performance marketers who were expert digital media buyers and could hit aggressive KPIs
Working with leadership team to define roles and responsibilities across the organization

All of this had to be achieved without an internal marketing team and on a lean budget since the brand had already committed to legacy sponsorships and media buys.

BRAND IMPLEMENTATION

For our first branded execution, we wanted to emphasize Mugsy’s mission of “Comfort Anywhere” and contrast it against its arch-nemesis of tight, uncomfortable jeans. We enlisted the help of two nostalgic recliners and a cast of fun-loving guys to shoot a boatload of assets for new and existing products.

Real F&*king Comfortable Jeans

There are comfortable jeans, and then there are Mugsy jeans. We wanted to test hyperbolic expressions of the Mugsy comfort value prop through an even more comedic lens.

240%

Increase in Ad ROAS

315%

Increase in Ad Conversion Rate

70%

Decrease in Cost Per Click

Partnerships

Mugsy x Old Man Saxon

Our team collaborated with hip-hop artist Old Man Saxon to deliver a song about stretch jeans that would make Hulu commercials a little more tolerable.

Mugsy x Barstool Sports

Mugsy had a longstanding partnership with media company Barstool Sports, primarily advertising on Barstool’s podcast network.

In 2021 that partnership would expand into a product collaboration with Pardon My take and bigger content productions. We were tasked with developing the creative and managing the production of three major initiatives.