New Work: Saks ‘Think About…’ Campaign

For the past three years—or six seasons, in fashion time—Saks Fifth Avenue has used the theme “Want It!” in the promotional campaigns for its stores. However, in today’s fragile economic climate, this declaration seemed perhaps a bit “too aggressive,” according to Terron Schaefer, Saks’ group senior vice president for marketing and creative. Something more suggestive seemed in order.

So for this spring’s campaign, Saks introduced a new tagline, “Think about…,” a playful suggestion that shoppers consider new ways to play with their personal style via various items found at Saks. The tagline is finished with amusing statements about fashion and style: “Think about…belting a new tunic with your husband’s old tie” and “Think about…making your creative side your outside.” If the tone seems a little familiar, it should: the campaign was inspired by the maxims published by legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland in her “Why Don’t You…” column for Harper’s Bazaar magazine.

Michael Bierut and Jennifer Kinon have designed a witty visual corollary for the campaign. The “Think About…” logo complements the black and white squares of the Saks Fifth Avenue identity, as well as the right angles and modularity of its grid-based design. Each of the ten letters in “Think About…” is given its own block in the logo. These in turn correspond to ten individual printed catalogs, each in the shape of its block.

The letters on the catalog covers are reversed out of fun, simple black and white illustrations of collected items, like shoes (the “B,” for “Think about…Banning Boring” catalog), watches and jewelry (“K,” for “Think about…Karats”, and buttons (“O,” for “Think about…Occasionally Outdressing Others.”) In the stores, the graphics have been applied to displays that replicate the “Think about…” covers in three-dimensions—as buttons mounted on a wall, for example.

The campaign has been a hit for Saks, which has seen its sales figures steadily rising as the economy improves. Interestingly, the work has also inspired some unauthorized knockoffs, one of which is shown below.

The catalogs have been issued in order throughout the spring, with the last of the series—the final “T,” for “Think about…Transcending the Token Tie,” focusing on gifts for Father’s Day—mailing this week.