J.Crew’s rollneck sweater was everywhere this past autumn — and its omnipresence was by design.
The brand made the sweater, which it relaunched this year, the centrepiece of its September campaign — its first time highlighting a singular product to such an extent in its advertising. In “The Next Rollneck Generation,” a varied cast of Gen-Z-friendly stars, including comedian Benito Skinner, actor Rome Flynn and the musician Maggie Rogers, wore the sweater in a variety of prints and colours in content that ran across social, email and on the brand’s website.
The approach paid off: though J.Crew has sold the sweater on-and-off since 1988, the campaign led Google searches for “J.Crew rollneck” to spike by 900 percent, and new online customers grew by 40 percent compared to the previous week, according to the brand’s new chief marketing officer, Julia Collier.
For brands fighting to be top-of-mind for consumers, focusing on a specific product can be a strategic way of cutting through the noise. After New York-based denim label Still Here centred 2023 campaigns on its Cool Jean, a waistband-less pair with a toggle tie, it sold out six times in its first year on the market. When it launched its Sport Jean style in July, it followed a similar approach, seeding the product to a number of influencers. As part of parent company Calzedonia’s broader US expansion strategy, Italian intimates line Intimissimi also went all-in on a campaign around its ultralight cashmere top, spotlighting the product across social media, the New York City subway, tactile billboards highlighting the top’s soft fabric and more.
“There are so many brands, so many products, so much content, so many campaigns in your face all day,” said Eliza Rolfs, head of brand at Still Here. “These single product launches are … so much more digestible than an entire collection.”
At their best, single-product campaigns tell a story that ladders up to the brand as a whole. But they should serve as an entry point into a brand’s broader world, rather than the final destination.
“If you want a profitable business with good retention, you should also be building a core business in the background,” said Meaghan Cox, managing partner at advisory and investment firm Westview Ventures, and former chief brand officer at Jenni Kayne, warning about businesses that are overly reliant on drop models focused on just a few key products.
Why Brands Lead with Product
Not all products can carry a campaign — and brands should think strategically about the item they choose to spotlight.
The right ones are wearable for the everyday but have a special twist, according to Cox. In addition to their core benefit, she said, they should have emotional appeal and cultural relevance. She gave the example of Chloé’s Paddington handbag, launched in 2005, which has had a resurgence surrounding its 2025 relaunch as the cultural pendulum swings away from quiet luxury.
Still Here, for example, zeroed in on the Cool Jean because it offered features — namely, its drawstring waistband — that were new in denim. Similarly, J.Crew chose to centre on the rollneck as the brand launched the sweater in an updated silhouette for the first time. Reintroducing the sweater was a bit of a nostalgia play — Collier looked to the J.Crew archive in concepting the campaign — but it also enabled J.Crew to showcase the product through a contemporary lens, said Collier. And in choosing a versatile, time-tested and reasonably priced item (its base price is $98) like the rollneck, it’s also a way for the brand to communicate value to its consumers.
“You want to feel good about what you’re buying, and pieces like the rollneck, for us, transcend time and trend, it’s consistent,” said Collier.
For newer — and pricier — brands, leading with product can also be a way of establishing themselves. Swedish brand Toteme, for instance, was able to build a years-long whirlwind of attention among fashionistas around an embroidered jacket with a built-in scarf that launched in 2021 through word-of-mouth and consistent editorial and influencer partnerships.
As “it” items become instantly recognisable to in-the-know shoppers, “You want to be part of that group, and it becomes a status symbol,” said Cox.
Some brands, like Intimissimi, go all-in on highlighting a garment’s physical attributes. It’s important, however, to bring some sort of storytelling in around the product — in the J.Crew campaign, for example, the images ran alongside both quotes extolling the garment’s virtues as well as ones from the stars sharing their earliest memory of J.Crew.
“If you focus on something, and you stand for something, and you show that you believe in it as a brand, other people will believe in it too,” said Collier.
Getting the Timing Right
Brands also need to think about how they can evolve their hero strategy over time.
For Still Here, recontextualising the Cool Jean throughout the seasons helps them keep the product feeling fresh by telling new stories with it. Six months after the style’s initial launch, for example, the brand kicked off a “Cool Campaign” — its second for the style — featuring 14 influential women, including Laura Reilly and Kai Avent-deLeon, who represented the denim style in their own ways, and saw a spike in sales.
And while products can be brought to life in new ways, brands can’t focus on one item for too long. It’s a matter of ensuring consumers don’t get fatigued by seeing too much of the same content once it’s hit a viral peak.
“You have to be careful about murdering your own mystique,” said Cox. “As soon as, or ideally before, you start to see the declining trend, you’re already focusing on the next hero.”
While building a franchise around a hero item can be highly profitable — even when sold at a more accessible price point to welcome consumers into the rest of the brand — brands can’t rely on these alone. Instead, they need to consistently build a desirable brand world and broader collection to support the garments that might initially draw customers in.
“We need both,” said Still Here’s Rolfs. “We’re wary to lean too far in one direction. They complement each other really well.”
