• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 13, 2018

If connected sweaters sound like a bad idea to you, Izod hopes you’ll cozy up to its new spots starring “Saturday Night Live”’s Colin Jost and NFL legend Aaron Rodgers.

Jost kicks the spot off mispronouncing the brand name, then gets to wear a Fair-Isle-patterned Izod sweater that laughs at all his jokes, as a tuxedoed Aaron Rodgers plays piano in a cocktail lounge. It ends badly all around: Putting the sweater away turns into the breakup we’ve all been through, and the eye-rolling Rogers discovers Jost is a lousy tipper.

The holiday-themed spots are the second phase of the campaign that began back in September, with Jost and Rogers spoofing as many manly ad clichés as they could in 60 seconds. That resonated so well with its target market that Izod parent PVH felt it had to do a follow-up.

“Social media sentiment has been off-the-charts positive about this campaign,” says Mike Kelly, CMO for PVH Heritage.

Besides running that campaign heavily on broadcast, digital and out-of-home, “we leaned heavily into social content around the fall creative, cutting new snippets, GIFs and stills,” linking them to the start of the NFL season and to Jost co-hosting the Emmys. “The authenticity and 'meta’ humor we put forward in the creative really works,” he tells Marketing Daily via email.

And while the sweater can’t really talk, it is the star of the campaign. Because many people associate Izod with warm-weather sports like boating, golf and tennis, this campaign “is designed to help us transform it into a brand with a year-round presence,” Kelly says. 

He adds that the wise-guy combo of Jost and Rodgers “serve as aspirational, but authentic, figures for our core male audience, which is the angle we took for the fall campaign. For holiday, we are appealing to the buying power of women, particularly around gift-giving; and the wit and charm of our talent lend itself well to that effort.”

PVH, which also owns brands Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, says its in-house agency created the ads.