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In the latest of its underwear campaigns featuring the buzziest stars du jour, from Bad Bunny to Jeremy Allen White, Calvin Klein tapped a fresh face: British footballer Jude Bellingham.
The video advertisement opens with Bellingham in a pair of the brand’s jeans and a simple white tank, and switches to a montage of the athlete in a variety of Calvin Klein boxers and briefs. The campaign was shot in Madrid, where Bellingham plays on the Real Madrid team.
“What we’re trying to do is create a cultural moment that we can convert into commercial advantage,” said Calvin Klein chief marketing officer, Jonathan Bottomley. “How do we make Calvin feel as relevant as it possibly can in the culture today?”
With Bellingham posing in his Calvins, the brand is betting on his skyrocketing relevance. Following this summer’s World Cup, Bellingham has gained visibility among a broad swath of consumers, not just football fans, with nearly 57 million followers on Instagram. Bellingham is also no stranger to fashion, having been featured in campaigns for brands including Louis Vuitton and Skims — his first underwear modelling moment.
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It’s part of a longer-tail strategy for Calvin Klein, which has been tapping football players alongside ambassadors from the worlds of music and film for the past several years. In 2023, footballers Virgil van Dijk and Son Heung-min appeared in the brand’s underwear spots, as did Bellingham’s Real Madrid and England teammate Trent Alexander-Arnold.
With any of its ambassador choices, the brand aims to spotlight someone with “real cultural velocity,” said Bottomley. “This idea that they’re moving and growing quickly in terms of influence and relevance.”
Smart timing is part of the brand’s strategy. Last year’s spot featuring Bad Bunny was pegged to the musician’s halftime performance at the Super Bowl, while the brand’s 2024 campaign starring actor Jeremy Allen White was released two days before he took home a Best Actor award at the Golden Globes, dressed in Calvin Klein. The White campaign drove a 30 percent year-over-year increase in underwear sales for the brand in the week following the ad’s release.
In addition to rising stardom, the brand aims to showcase talent in ways that audiences may not have seen before so campaign imagery feels fresh and exciting — while still ensuring they’re an authentic brand fit.
“That’s what creates that sense of engagement, that pop, a sense of virality,” said Bottomley. “[With] algorithms flattening the culture, what we’ve pioneered is this ability to find the right person to create the right character to create content that people really want to spend time with.”
That earned attention is where the brand can translate a buzzy cultural moment like the Bellingham campaign into commercial insights. Once tens of millions of people have engaged with the video, said Bottomley, Calvin Klein can more easily retarget the right shoppers — many of whom are new to the brand — with its paid media dollars.
“We couldn’t afford to pay for that reach,” said Bottomley. “No brand could. But we can definitely then work towards monetising that reach with a more targeted approach to follow-up messages.”
The campaign follows Calvin Klein Collection creative director Veronica Leoni’s departure from the brand in October. Parent company PVH saw a 7 percent decrease in revenue for Calvin Klein in the second quarter, in part due to wholesale shipment issues, but highlighted early fall momentum driven by positive customer response to the brand’s denim campaign featuring musician Tate McRae. PVH shares rose three percent the day the Bellingham campaign was released.
