Wrangler Poised To Benefit From Favre's Return To Playing Field

Wrangler Believes Favre Will Help Generate Attention For Brand

Wrangler thinks Vikings QB Brett Favre signing with the team right around the release of the company's "You Can Count on Wrangler" campaign "will likely generate more attention for its budget denim brand," according to Sarah Mahoney of MEDIAPOST. The campaign supports two different jeans lines and is scheduled to have ads, via Toth Brand Imaging, "run throughout the fall, generating an estimated 3.4 billion media impressions, especially in general news and sports media." Print ads are "slated for 'Sports Illustrated' and 'Popular Mechanics'", and online ads will run on SI.com and Yahoo(MEDIAPOST.com, 8/22). Meanwhile, SI.com's Peter King writes Favre is in a "great Sears commercial" about him being "unable to make up his mind about a big electronics buy." King: "The kid waiting on him tells him about the wafflers who come and can't decide whether to buy what they really want. 'Those guys drive me crazy,' he says. Art, or something, imitating reality" (SI.com, 8/24).

CALL TO ATTENTION: In St. Paul, Sean Jensen reported the Favre signing has "meant a flurry of activity and a slew of possibilities on how to market the perfect drawing card for [the Vikings] at this time." MainGate Inc., the Vikings' exclusive retail and merchandising company, after the signing "immediately contacted partners to start producing everything from earrings to pennants to Brett Favre mini-footballs." MainGate President & CEO Dave Moroknek said that Favre jerseys are "going to be shipped to all 50 states" and DC. Meanwhile, execs at Reebok, the NFL's exclusive apparel maker, "immediately advised their two plants to prepare cranking out" Favre jerseys (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/22). But Jensen today notes Reebok "didn't mass-produce in advance a No. 4 Vikings jersey bearing Favre's name." MainGate received "advance approval for many graphics in anticipation of Favre possibly joining the Vikings and assigned a stock-keeping-unit for various items before" he signed last Tuesday (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/24).