Work and Business

Dirty Clothing Line Cleans Up

The most a plumber normally shows of his butt is the top part of it, but one U.K. clothing line is marketing their work clothing by dropping the handyman’s pants entirely.

Scruffs, a brand of workwear for tradesmen in the U.K. construction industry, has grown tremendously through a successful marketing campaign that uses double entendres and soft-core sex. Launched in October 2003 by Birchwood Products, a company previously known for its industrial construction tools, the clothing line has become a wild success. Sales rocketed to roughly $9.5 million (£5 million) in their first year, and about 2,500 Scruffs dealers have sprouted up across the United Kingdom. And although the clothing does not have many special traits, the advertising campaign does.

The campaign targets 16- to 35-year-old builders, plumbers and electricians with a flare for stylish and functional clothing. Advertisers set Scruffs apart from fashionable workwear labels like Carhart by building a campaign that emphasizes the clothing’s sex appeal. The national campaign kicked off in September 2004 and ended three months later, but many aspects of it are still visible online.

“We wanted to create a cheeky brand image for Scruffs,” said Marketing Manager Chris Mellor-Dollman. “The ‘It’s Gonna Get Dirty’ strapline has given us some fantastic artistic license regarding double entrendres.”

Those turns of phrases are particularly obvious in the campaign’s television commercials. Though banned from British airwaves, they are still available through streaming video on their Web site, www.scruffs.com. Although the site contains many aspects of the campaign, the highlight of the site is a four-and-a-half-minute-long film that advertises the clothing in action through the taboo sexual exploits of three construction workers.

The movie short begins with three men sauntering into a construction site, decked-out in Scruffs clothing. Distracted from their responsibilities as construction workers, they are each seduced into performing their respective trades on various women at the site. The electrician figuratively checks the wiring of an attractive receptionist, the builder cements the deal with a sexy co-worker and the plumber — well, you get the idea.

The spots don’t skimp on skin either. One showering woman’s breasts are briefly visible, and pants are dropped lower than usual to reveal more than the average worker’s plumber-crack.

Scruff’s marketers hope Web surfers will find the ads and like them so much that they’ll e-mail the link to friends, extending the life of the campaign. The more buzz they from the controversial ads, the more free word-of-mouth advertising.

The films are only one small portion of a larger advertising push that hits consumers from every angle.

“We’ve tried to cover every potential touch point,” Mellor-Dollman said. Scruffs is reaching out to customers at “newspapers, magazines, trade and sporting events, the pub toilet, even his girlfriend or wife’s lifestyle magazine. There’s no way you could miss Scruffs.”

And marketers hope they’ll score with consumers by luring them with racy content and taglines. The tagline on their Action Trousers poster, for example, reads, “Well equipped and long lasting.” A print ad for their Safety Footwear workman boots has a similar tongue-in-cheek tone. It reads, “Always wear protection, in case you spill your load.”

But the main thing overflowing right now is cash registers, brimming with money from Scruffs consumers who shell out roughly $76.20 (£39.95) for the brand’s most popular item, the Twister 2 boot. The appeal of the mid-ankle boot and other items in the clothing line has reached well beyond the initial market of construction tradesmen. Landscapers, gardeners and transport drivers are just some of the many other groups who also like wearing clothing that promises to increase their chances of being seduced by beautiful women.

“The campaign has been a runaway success, exceeding our wildest expectations,” Mellor-Dollman said.

Those expectations could soon shift to include targeting other men in the 16- to 34-year-old demographic. The company doesn’t have any immediate plans to market the clothing as functional streetwear for reluctant male fashionistas, but they haven’t ruled out the possibility.

And it doesn’t really matter what a man’s line of work might be, since pants with quick-release belt loops could come in very handy on Saturday nights.