Teijin, a Japanese fiber producer, designed an eco-friendly fabric made from recycled plastic bottles. Teijin partnered with Bagir Ltd., an Israeli manufacturer of men’s tailored apparel to create a collection of suits from this revolutionary polyester blend fabric. The textile innovation, branded as EcoGir, was applied to the Covington Perfect Wardrobe men’s line marketed in the United States by Sears.
Both Teijin and Bagir made big investments in the commercial success of the Covington EcoGir rollout and hired Fineberg Publicity to conduct concurrent campaigns targeting consumer and trade audiences to promote the suitings line and the EcoGir recycling process equally.
Our Solution:
The EcoGir line was originally test-marketed in select Sears stores and we secured coverage from the eco-focused media as well as consumer media in the markets where the suit was sold. When its distribution was expanded, Fineberg Publicity executed a media campaign that generated yet more coverage from national outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and The Miami Herald.
For Teijin, we staged a seminar-style press conference presented by a company executive to an audience of trade and business publications, securing the company extensive coverage for their plastic bottle recycling process. As word of the EcoGir suits quickly spread throughout the fashion world, the initial wave of national publicity was followed by a host of coverage in consumer-oriented and eco-themed web sites, blogs and magazines; a highlight of this coverage was Bagir’s inclusion in Apparel magazine’s list of top innovators.
Capitalizing on the enhanced media interest in eco-friendly products during Earth Day, Fineberg Publicity secured high-profile segments for Bagir and Teijin on CBS’s The Early Show and Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet. The Early Show produced a light-hearted segment in which its hosts discussed the fact that the suits were made of recycled plastic bottles, while Daily Planet aired a seven-minute mini-documentary showing its viewers how Teijin produced the eco-friendly fabric using polyester fiber derived from the recycled bottles at its facilities in the Far East.
