How Dockers Rediscovered Themselves

What does it take to keep an iconic brand iconic, but more importantly, relevant? That’s the question the Dockers global marketing team asked Seed.

The answer was a deep dive into every aspect of what made Dockers tick in order to rediscover their voice and their consumers’ as well.

The work involved multiple levels of research and collaboration. It began with a qualitative analysis of the Dockers target audience that included in-home interviews throughout Europe and North America.

The study revealed several identifiable needs and wants. Conversely, it also showed that Dockers core customers were passionate about the brand. The opportunity was to show how Dockers has evolved along with them. This led to the development of a new and clearly defined understanding of the Dockers target, what he was looking for, and how clothes helped define him.

Once the target was identified in ways that were previously unexplored, a new equity positioning was developed.

“All of the work came from one-on-one interviews we conducted around the globe,” said Sean Smyth, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Seed. “We were able to identify what was important to him in ways you might not expect.”

After all of the key stakeholders were aligned to the new positioning, a look, tone and feel were developed, along with a new tagline and print campaign.

The new tagline for Dockers is “Yes, They’re Dockers.”

“It really comes from a place of pride,” says Smyth. “The line itself comes from a scenario we kept experiencing for ourselves when people asked us about Dockers. They were almost in disbelief in our response. We realized it would make a great rallying cry.”

The new positioning, look and tagline made its public debut in a series of national magazine print ads in November 2015, including Sports Illustrated, People and Esquire. To rediscover Dockers for yourself, go to Dockers.com.