NEW YORK — Calvin Klein Inc. is collaborating with Amazon Fashion to bring a digital experience to life in New York’s Flatiron District and on college campuses across the U.S.
Following the success of last year’s holiday retail experience, the Calvin Klein x Amazon Fashion NYC Market will be an interactive brand event at the Flatiron Plaza on 23rd Street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue. It opens to the public on Friday for a three-day event. The idea is to immerse visitors in a physical market with a series of digitally enhanced experiences driving to Amazon.com/mycalvins, where Calvin Klein Jeans and Underwear for women and men are sold.
Amazon has sold Calvin Klein Jeans for 10 years, and Calvin Klein Underwear for eight years. (Interestingly, Calvin Klein Jeans and Underwear are also sold on walmart.com under the Lord & Taylor banner).
Last year, Calvin Klein released women’s and men’s product from Calvin Klein Jeans and Underwear exclusively through Amazon before being available in department stores. Calvin Klein partnered with Amazon to create holiday pop-ups in New York and Los Angeles from Nov. 16 through Dec. 31.
The Calvin Klein x Amazon Fashion NYC Market will bring to life the Calvin Klein Jeans fall ad campaign through interactive stalls that integrate product and technology. The experience will feature the “Together in Denim Billboard” as seen in the campaign, allowing visitors to re-create the campaign shoot, complete with a photographer to capture photos.
The Calvin Klein Jeans fall billboard campaign.
Willy Vanderperre
Visitors can play games with a chance to win prizes, including Amazon devices, Calvin Klein Underwear, Calvin Klein Jeans products and accessories, and other exclusive merchandise available only at the activation. Limited-edition water boxes featuring artwork from the latest Calvin Klein Jeans campaign will be given away through vending machines housed in a larger-than-life water-box installation. At the #MyCalvins Campaign Shop, guests will be able to try on styles from Calvin Klein Jeans and shop the product via the Amazon app.
In the Amazon Alexa Jukebox Lounge, visitors can use a jukebox upgraded with Amazon Alexa to control the music and lighting with their voice and interact with the music on digital screens. Further, at the Popcorn Stall, guests can pose for photos in a one-of-a-kind booth with floating popcorn, designed to re-create the Calvin Klein 205W39NYC fall runway show, which featured a popcorn-covered runway. Amazon SmileCodes throughout the space are designed to create a seamless shopping experience to the dedicated Calvin Klein digital store on Amazon Fashion.
Calvin Klein brand ambassadors, among other personalities, will be visiting the market throughout the weekend. The company declined to divulge which ambassadors will be attending.
“The continued collaboration with Amazon Fashion allows us to reach new and existing consumers through a youth-targeted marketing approach,” said Marie Gulin-Merle, chief marketing officer of Calvin Klein Inc. “By joining Amazon Fashion’s digital expertise with Calvin Klein’s physical presence, we are creating a ‘phy-gital’ experience in the middle of New York City, reinforcing our commitment to a consumer-first strategy.”
Asked what she hopes the immersive event will do for the Calvin Klein brand, she said, “We expect the event will create an emotional engagement with Calvin Klein, a key priority for us as we evolve from being a famous brand only to also being a favorite brand. We are prioritizing an always-on, digital-first marketing strategy, which is where the link to the Amazon digital experience came in. The immersive event experience is a way to bring the Calvin Klein Jeans fall campaign, ‘Together in Denim,’ to life in an inclusive and participatory way. We are especially excited to celebrate the fall collection as it is the first Jeans collection designed wholly under the creative direction of Raf Simons.”
Discussing whether these immersive experiences are more valuable than online experiences, Gulin-Merle said, “The immersive physical experience and the digital experience are a great complement to one other — O2O (online to off-line) is where the magic happens. Consumers today want the flexibility to shop whenever they want, however they want.”
The Calvin Klein x Amazon Fashion NYC Market will be open to the public, Friday from 5 to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free. At present, there are no plans to take this event to other cities.
As part of the event, Calvin Klein will, for the first time, offer a limited-edition product drop: the Calvin Klein Jeans “A$AP Rocky Trucker Jacket” exclusively to Amazon Fashion. This jean jacket, created for the artist, will be available for customers to purchase for $129 on Amazon Fashion at amazon.com/mycalvins, beginning Friday. An in-person product giveaway of a limited number of the jackets will take place at 7 p.m. at the Flatiron Plaza.
The Calvin Klein Jeans “A$AP Rocky Trucker Jacket.”
Courtesy of Calvin Klein
In a related move, Calvin Klein and Amazon Fashion have collaborated with Prime Student Ambassadors at college campuses across the country, driving the #MyCalvins movement and introducing #MyCampus, an opportunity for college students to interact with the brand on their campuses. In August, Calvin Klein-branded Amazon lockers were opened at select colleges and universities across the country, advertising the brand’s availability on Amazon Fashion.
Global retail sales of Calvin Klein brand products exceeded $9 billion in 2017. Calvin Klein is a wholly owned subsidiary of PVH Corp.