Agencies line up for Wrangler Euro task

by Noel Bussey, Campaign 29-Feb-08

Wrangler, the VF Corp-owned jeans brand, is holding a pitch for its pan-European advertising account.

The company, which did not advertise in the UK last year, is reviewing
its ad strategy in a bid to rejuvenate the brand and lose its "dad's
jeans" tag.

The company has a heritage of strong, generally western-themed creative

work, and it picked up a silver Lion at Cannes in 1998 for Abbott Mead

Vickers BBDO's Spike Jonze-directed "rodeo" ad.

The agency held the account from 1996 until July 2003, when it resigned
the business over creative differences.

AMV's last advertising for Wrangler appeared in 2002 and was a
pan-European cinema and TV campaign based around a spoof western.

BSUR Concepting in Amsterdam, the incumbent on the business, won the
account in August 2004 after a year-long, 12-way pitch. The agency is
understood to be repitching.

Its last campaign for the brand was a pan-European push that ran in 2006
backing Wrangler's sponsorship of Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash
biopic.

As well as a TV and cinema execution, the campaign also included events
in Barcelona, Berlin and London where bands were invited to play their
own interpretations of Cash songs.