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Pitching for pants

I’ve been asked to help a startup recruit a PR agency partner. Here’s the brief. Let me know if you can help.

UK PR Agency Brief
Skidz: Uber for men’s underwear

About the company

Skidz is the Uber of men’s underwear. We are a marketplace with global ambition for the supply of male undergarments including briefs, boxer shorts and traditional Y-fronts.

Our founders are committed to supporting male mental health initiatives. We are keen that this is reflected in our PR campaign. Life doesn’t have to be pants.

Brand promise and purpose

The purpose of Skidz is to empower men to lead healthy lifestyles and realise their full potential. We’ll achieve this by promoting positive underwear wearing habits and selling fancy pants.

Our goal is to disrupt the market for male underwear and become a global brand within three years. We believe that we have the potential to become the UK’s next unicorn.

About the market

There are 20 million men in the UK. Skidz estimates that men change their underwear every two to three days, making the market approximately 60 million pairs of pants per year.

Women may also wear men’s underwear. This is a niche but unaddressed market opportunity. Limited data is available.

Men and women in a relationship are likely to be important influencers in the underwear purchasing process. We’d also welcome thoughts on the role of mothers in the underwear buying journey.

Competition

Skidz is entering a competitive market. We’re a disruptive Uber-like platform for underwear.

As a direct to consumer marketplace we’re both a partner and a competitor to any underwear manufacturer.

Objectives

Skidz has bold ambition. Our objectives are set out below.

  1. Build brand awareness: when people think pants they should think Skidz

  2. Educate the market of the benefit of frequently changing underwear: we want to grow the pant market in the UK

  3. Influence the influencers in the underwear buying process: we want Caspar Lee and Joe Sugg to unbox our briefs

  4. Drive purchase intent and traffic to the Skidz marketplace: profit isn’t an immediate priority but huge turnover is essential

  5. Capture 30% of the market for men’s underwear within 18 months: we’re prepared to invest and wait a further year to capture the remaining 70%

  6. Create a global community for Skidz building on our previous Instagram campaign #underwhere

Audiences

  • Men and women who wear men’s underwear

  • Men and women who influence underwear purchasing decisions

  • Children who will grow up to be men and women who wear men’s underwear

  • LGBT+ audience?

Channels and tactics

  • Mainstream media: national, lifestyle and technology

  • Social media: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

  • YouTube channel: underwear.tv

Metrics

PR activity will be benchmarked against other activities in the marketing mix. Skidz PR Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are as follows:

  • Reach of 180 million people per month

  • Advertising Equivalent Value (AVE) of £172 million per month

Budget

Skidz does not have a budget earmarked for PR activity. We’d like an agency to recommend the budget that we need to invest to meet our objectives.

Skidz is seeking to work with an agency that is willing to invest in a long term relationship and grow with us. As the UK’s next unicorn, we’re taking a big risk by placing our brand and growth in your hands.

We’re open to innovative remunerative models such as payment by results - or pants.

Agency relationship

Skidz is seeking a creative agency that is prepared to challenge our thinking. We’re expect to have direct and tough conversations with our PR agency partner. We want to be surprised and delighted. We want a pro-active, can do agency. An agency that chases and harries us.

Timeline

Brief sent to agencies
24 February

Proposals to Skidz
28 February

Pitches (Skidz office)
3 March

Agency appointed
10 September

Post script

If you’ve read this far you’ll appreciate that this is a satirical post and a bid to poke fun at daft briefs. I added this post script for the people on Facebook and Twitter that didn’t. The internet lost its sense of humour some time around 2010 but that’s another story.