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ClickZ Underwear | Calvin Klein Reinvents Shapewear as a Statement Piece
Plus: Wartime scarcity sparked the bra revolution—what can marketers learn today?
Sophie Bruxner-Randall
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
Welcome to ClickZ Underwear, your essential newsletter for underwear eCommerce professionals.
Editor’s Pick 🌟
Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.
At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.
In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:
⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.
🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.
🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.
BRAND ENDORSEMENT STRATEGY
adidas has named 22-year-old Arsenal and Italy defender Riccardo Calafiori as its first-ever underwear ambassador for the launch of the 'Active Flex Collection,' spotlighting athlete authenticity and lifestyle appeal. This move reinforces adidas’s push to capture the premium athleisure segment, blending performance-driven features with minimalist design. For marketers, this signals a shift toward integrating athlete-driven narratives with everyday functionality in product campaigns, enabling deeper audience connection and brand differentiation.
SUPPLY CHAIN IMPACT
Trump’s tariffs are forcing American-made lingerie brand Cantiq to confront mounting production costs, as 145% import taxes on Asian fabrics threaten both profit margins and local jobs. For marketing professionals, this underscores the risk tariffs pose to brand value, supply chain resilience, and ethical employment narratives.
BRAND INNOVATION
Calvin Klein Shapewear reshapes category expectations by merging visible branding, fashion-forward design, and customizable compression features, reflecting evolving consumer preferences for self-expression and multifunctional apparel. For marketers, this line signals a shift in shapewear from an undergarment to a statement piece, unlocking new consumer engagement opportunities.
FASHION INNOVATION
Mary Phelps Jacob’s 1914 bra patent marked a turning point, but it was World War I’s disruption of traditional gender roles and the war-driven metal shortage that propelled bras to mainstream adoption, fundamentally shifting women’s undergarment preferences. For marketers, this evolution demonstrates how societal upheaval and regulatory influence can rapidly reshape consumer demand and spark billion-dollar industries like today’s $36.3 billion global bra market—an instructive lens for eCommerce and product strategists analyzing adaptive consumer behavior.
STRATEGIC PRICING INITIATIVE
Mack Weldon’s price lock on underwear amid tariff uncertainty demonstrates how brands can leverage pricing stability to build trust and acquire new customers during periods of economic volatility. By referencing the Mens Underwear Index and offering time-limited discounts, the brand capitalizes on consumer anxiety and positions itself as reliable. Marketers should note the strategic value of transparent communication and tailored promotions to address shifting consumer behaviors in uncertain markets.
WOMEN'S HEALTH SOLUTIONS
With up to 75% of women over 65 experiencing incontinence, incontinence underwear presents a strategic opportunity for brands to address a large, underserved market with differentiated offerings spanning function, comfort, and design. Product innovation, medical endorsements, and targeted messaging are essential for gaining consumer trust and loyalty.
📲 Like what you’re seeing?
Influencer Corner 📣
Optimization Hub ⚙️
SEARCH INNOVATION
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.
DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION
TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.
INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES
Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.
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