About three years in the past, David Lafitte surveyed the web site, social media, and marketing content material from Tecovas, the Western attire model he leads, and realized that the messaging had develop into “very diluted.”
So the Austin-based firm determined to ascertain a company-wide OKR—the goal-setting framework it makes use of, quick for “goals and key outcomes,”—that targeted on storytelling.
Tecovas introduced on extra inventive sorts who experimented with totally different messaging, together with long-form commercials, and issues began to click on, Lafitte mentioned throughout a dialogue on the Fast Company Grill at SXSW.
“I believe everybody embraced this storytelling idea as a result of we’ve got to speak concerning the supplies, the product, however doing it in a approach that drives an emotional reference to the buyer,” Lafitte mentioned.
One of many model’s early storytelling successes got here in 2024 with a brand new, 30-second industrial that aired through the remaining recreation of the 2024 World Collection.
“The response was completely unimaginable,” he mentioned.
THE LONG GAME OF LONG-FORM CONTENT
Essential to the success of this storytelling initiative, Lafitte mentioned, was hiring a workforce of creatives after which letting them mess around in a proverbial sandbox.
On the helm as inventive director is Scott Ballew, who spent practically a decade heading up content material at Yeti Coolers. Whereas placing collectively the corporate’s first-ever industrial for this yr’s Tremendous Bowl, Ballew got here up with one other concept.
That concept, “Love Letter to Texas,” is a brief movie that debuted over the weekend that includes a number of Hollywood heavyweights. The movie is emblematic of the corporate’s philosophy of engaging prospects via a gradual burn fairly than a fast, onerous promote, as Lafitte shared.
“It’s actually not meant to be a commercial,” he mentioned. “It goes hand-in-hand with the craftsmanship pillar that we’ve got on our product and plenty of the issues we do.”
Any such long-form content material technique requires extra persistence, because it focuses extra on brand-building than producing a direct bump in web site site visitors, Lafitte mentioned.
And there’s a steadiness to be struck in messaging that resonates—each with current prospects and individuals who’ve by no means placed on a pair of cowboy boots earlier than, he added.
“We now have to type of thread the needle of getting extra individuals within the tent,” Lafitte mentioned. “However on the identical time, it needs to be achieved in a approach that the group that bought us right here and the individuals whose life-style is Western would view us and be happy with it and never embarrassed by it.”
