• by Karl Greenberg , February 1, 2011

Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), the second largest apparel and footwear brand in the world and owner of brands like Calvin Klein, Izod, Tommy Hilfiger, Van Heusen and Bass, has taken an approach to fashion marketing that diverges from the traditional static approach of showing guys wearing stylish clothes and cavorting with stylish women.

Particularly for its Izod and Van Heusen brands, the company is using sports as a passion point. Izod, for example, became IndyCar title sponsor in 2009, and Van Heusen is in its second year of sponsoring the Pro Football Hall of Fame and is also an NFL sponsor. With Super Bowl XLV coming up next weekend, the brand is therefore very busy.

What Van Heusen is not doing is joining the scrum of brands advertising during Fox's national broadcast of the game. But it is marketing just about everywhere else, partly because of the serendipitous timing between the game and announcements the day before of who makes it into the Hall this year.

Says Mike Kelly, EVP of marketing for PVH: "What we are doing as a corporation is moving spend from pure fashion to the sports space because we are finding an emotional connection there. What we are learning is that what's fun about sports is that you are going into a space where people are passionate and they talk. But you have to do the right thing in those spaces. People don't want shirts shoved down their throats but they do realize the teams need brands."

Efforts range from activations tied to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Fan's Choice campaign to a new multi-platform, multi-year campaign starring Hall of Famers Steve Young and Jerry Rice. And Van Heusen will be the presenting sponsor of the first-ever NFL Super Bowl App, "The Super Bowl XLV Official Guide Presented by Van Heusen," and the official Super Bowl Game Program App. Both of the apps will be free to download.

The brand will sponsor the official Pro Football Hall of Fame announcement show, "Road to Canton," airing on the NFL Network Saturday night, during which Steve Young and one fan will reveal the Fan's Choice for the Class for 2011.

During the show, Van Heusen will also air the first ad in its new campaign, "Van Heusen Institute of Style." Kelly says the spot is "one part 'Hard Knocks' mixed with 'Men in Black' mixed with 'CSI'." He says the ads feature a futuristic "Institute of Style" in which "professors" Young and Rice take young guys dressed like bums and make them stylish.

"The inspiration came when my wife and I were in Miami taking a rare vacation. We were at the W Hotel, staying for a week or so, and at one point I was watching all these couples coming to the W to party. The women looked amazing, and the men -- they looked like schlubs, in T-shirts and jeans. We are in one of those fashion cycles where women look great and men look terrible. So this ad takes this two guys [Young and Rice] with great chemistry and puts them in this lab, where they are training guys how not to be schlubs."

Kelly says the day after the Super Bowl, Van Heusen will have a billboard in New York's Times Square as well.

The Van Heusen-sponsored Super Bowl Game Program App, which navigates to events surrounding Super Bowl, is at the App Store (on iOS devices), iTunes and on the Android Marketplace, offers a "Shop Van Heusen" feature with a tab that will direct searchers to the closest JCPenney location.

The company is also sponsoring the first-ever digital version of the souvenir program, optimized for a tablet. The program will chronicle the road to the Super Bowl for the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers and recaps key moments from the 2010 season.