This is a paper sculpture created to resemble an industrial setting before it was set afire for a video ad for the Bulwark brand of flame-resistant clothing sold by the VF Corporation.A division of the apparel giant VF Corporation is taking an unconventional tack by devoting a big chunk of its marketing budget to a video ad.
The division, Bulwark FR, sells fire-resistant clothing worn by miners, utility workers and oil-rig workers. Pitches for Bulwark FR are typically in the traditional realm of business-to-business advertising like print ads aimed at safety engineers, catalogs and trade shows.
But now, Bulwark FR and its agency, Fitzgerald & Company in Atlanta, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, are adopting many of the trappings of mainstream marketing in an effort to stand out and make an impression. It is another example of how the business-to-business advertising field is changing as it begins to use the tactics of business-to-consumer advertising.
The video, which runs almost eight minutes, shows a paper sculptor, Jeff Nishinaka, building an elaborate facsimile of a busy industrial setting, complete with towers, factories and workers. The finished paper sculpture is placed in a quarry and set afire.
Mr. Nishinaka’s work of art is soon reduced to nothing, collapsing in an inferno. The video ends with the words “Because people aren’t fireproof” on screen.
The title of the video ad tips off the plot. It is called “451°” — after the temperature at which paper burns.
“We are one of the unheard-of brands of the VF collection,” said Stan Jewell, general manager for Bulwark FR in Nashville, referring to the company’s other labels like Lee, Nautica, Timberland and Wrangler.
“Being a business-to-business brand,” he added, “we don’t have that commercial familiarity.”
But with Bulwark FR becoming “the fastest-growing brand” within VF, Mr. Jewell said, “we’re trying to capitalize on that” by “dedicating a huge part of our marketing spend to greater visibility.”
About 60 percent of the brand’s estimated $2 million budget is being devoted to making the video ad the centerpiece of the marketing for Bulwark FR. The video can be watched on a section of the Bulwark FR Web site, where there is also additional content like stills, time-lapse video and a shorter version.
The video is scheduled to be introduced on Monday, said David Crace, vice president for marketing at the VF Imagewear division of VF, also in Nashville. It is to be shown at a conference in Denver, he added, sponsored by the American Society of Safety Engineers, and subsequently “seeded on different video sites.”
“We are all in on this,” Mr. Crace said. “It goes as wide as we can push it.”
Marc Lineveldt, executive creative director at Fitzgerald, said the video was “a year in the making.”
The idea initially was to dramatize the theme “Because people burn,” he added, which ended up being expressed as, “Because people aren’t fireproof.”
“If the world was made out of paper, it would strike home the idea of how flammable we are,” Mr. Lineveldt said, and, by extension, how useful the work clothing made by Bulwark FR can be.
Asked if the video runs the risk of being too ethereal or abstract, he said he did not believe so, adding: “The reason we’re excited about it is because it is pushing, it is challenging. If it misses, it’s in the pursuit of doing something worthwhile.”
“Business-to-business is traditionally old-school,” Mr. Lineveldt said, but “speaking to people a little differently” — more like the way they are spoken to in business-to-consumer campaigns – is “something fresh.”
“B-to-b is dead,” he added. “Long live b-to-b.”