CARHARTT SOCIAL PLAYBOOK & CONTENT
THE CHALLENGE
Carhartt was founded in 1889: a time of steel, steam, and locomotives. Founder Hamilton Carhartt & Company began producing overalls with two sewing machines and a half-horsepower electric motor in a small Detroit loft. 134 years later and present day, Carhartt retains its powerful standing as a brand for hardworking people. But Carhartt wasn’t fully harnessing its iconic brand equity in the digital space for its audience, from the trend-seeking consumers to the tried and true core consumers.
In 2021, VML was brought on to partner with Carhartt in organic social media to drive brand relevance digitally and embrace the new generation of customers, continually supporting an evolving definition of hard work.
THE STRATEGY
We partnered with Carhartt to understand their audience targets and develop a strategy and North Star for how the brand should universally behave on social.
Once we discovered Carhartt’s bullseye and radial audiences, we focused on driving brand relevance for that target audience across social platforms. Much Carhartt conversation revolves around the products themselves, and we aim to do so through the lens of brand relevance: conversational in nature, and not measured by purchase conversion. Through community engagement and development, we reward loyalty and advocacy, playing an important role in our fans’ social storytelling, and ultimately, driving more awareness.
THE action
After implementing the new strategic approach, immediate improvements in engagement rate and reach were measured. Meeting the target audience in social and communicating in an authentic-to-platform-manner proved successful and is the foundation to social content planning. We’ve continued to optimize against audience insights and learnings, resulting in new activations, including:
Launching an owned TikTok presence in 2023 has opened the door to a niche community, allowing us to tap into a relevant Carhartt category where our next generation audience is engaged. Follower growth has increased nearly 20% since launching, primarily driven by community engagement.
BREATHING LIFE TO SUSTAINABILITY MESSAGING THROUGH CARHARTT REWORKED
In 2023, Carhartt introduced their sustainability program dubbed Reworked that ensures that each piece of Carhartt is working for the next person. Reworked encompasses three aspects: The repair program where defected and worn Carhartt can be repaired to ensure the life span of the workwear. Trade-in which aims to reward those who donate their Carhartt with a gift card. Lastly is the Shop Reworked effort where people can purchase used Carhartt online for a discounted prices, ensuring that old Carhartt stays out of landfills and on the job site.
stories of work
Wendy Maschino, a key figure at the family-owned and operated lumber mill, Maschino & Sons in Gloucester, Maine, knows the true meaning of grit.
For context: I was fortunate enough to be on shoot with the Carhartt team in November, 2022 where I captured content that would be used for social in the Fall 2023 campaign. This interview was conducted by me with the purpose of building story-telling social content that also brings awareness to women in the trades - a frontline initiative of Carhartt to broaden the audience of their wearers.
Any aspiring metalsmiths out there? Our friend Kaia Poes has 20 years of experience under her belt, and like any good metalsmith–she’s still learning how to master her craft every day.
For context: This piece of content would’ve been a ten-fold of what would end up being published if it wasn’t for thinking outside of the box. Using the same content theme as Wendy’s to the left, I combined imagery, sounds and effects to create a video reel that would be posted on Instagram to help drive the story of women in trades.
the
carhartt
brand
voice
at work
Crafting Carhartt's content strategy involved tailoring a brand tone-of-voice that resonates with the steadfast working-class community while remaining relatable to a younger audience. This unique voice echoed across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, but found its most vibrant expression on the cutting-edge Instagram platform, Threads.
Taking inspiration from the success of text-only posts on Twitter, we seamlessly transposed that energy to Threads, captivating a fresh audience with our distinctive voice. This venture turned out to be a triumph, swiftly becoming one of the most successful additions to Carhartt's social media repertoire.
Since Threads introduction to the world in July 2023, Carhartt has gained a following of more than 210K followers, all through harnessing the brand voice.
BUILDING A Carhartt TIKTOK COMMUNITY
*pun intended
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Follower growth from the period September 2023 - December 2023 grew more than 40%
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In the same period spanning from September - December 2023, reach increased +487%
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Overall engagements increased drastically to more than +7,692%
understanding the force of organic social
Often times, heads of marketing departments with a focus on sales don’t put as much attention to the power of organic social media strategy as they do with paid-social. Relying on organic social channels to push sales is not the recommended approach, and should be primarily reserved for paid-social advertising.
An excellent example of how concrete organic social media strategy can help initiate sales through a non-ad approach is going back to October 31st, 2023 where a viral TikTok exploded, with the help of a clever Carhartt comment.
RESULTS
In comparison to the previous year, the Carhartt Vest's viral success led to:
+12,000% surge in traffic to Carhartt.com
Resulting in a 70% conversion rate
+26% profit increase for Carhartt Vests