Calvin Klein Concept Puts Men's Underwear on the Super Bowl Stage
Calvin Klein's Concept campaign is the brand's Spring 2013 global men's underwear campaign, created by Baron + Baron and launched in the United States in February 2013, marking the first time Calvin Klein broadcast a commercial during the Super Bowl.
The campaign centred on a 30-second film that aired during Super Bowl XLVII on February 3, 2013, reaching audiences across CBS, ABC, and ESPN simultaneously, as reported by rbr.com. The commercial introduced the Calvin Klein Concept men's underwear line, distinguished by its 360° seamless technology, which the brand publicly unveiled on January 31, 2013, according to senatus.net. The United States served as the primary launch market, with the campaign subsequently scheduled across 19 international markets including Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Korea, per clapboard.com. Ford model Matthew Terry appeared as the face of the campaign, as documented by fashiongonerogue.com and thefashionisto.com. The entire production was shot in New York City, as noted by clapboard.com. With its Super Bowl placement, Calvin Klein converted one of American television's most commercially competitive stages into a vehicle for premium men's innerwear, signalling a deliberate elevation of the category and an assertion that men's fashion advertising belongs at the centre of mainstream American culture rather than at its periphery. The campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100.
Calvin Klein made a calculated decision to enter men's underwear into one of the most competitive advertising environments in the United States. The Super Bowl placement was not merely a media buy but a strategic declaration about the seriousness of the men's apparel category at a moment when that segment was expanding. Men's clothing sales in the United States increased approximately two to three percent in 2012, according to Art8amby Wordpress, providing commercial justification for increased investment in reaching male consumers through high-visibility media. PVH Corp, Calvin Klein's parent company at the time, reported approximately $8.2 billion in annual revenues, according to roic.ai, underscoring the financial scale behind the campaign's ambition.
In the United States, the men's underwear segment had long been dominated by functional, commodity-driven competitors such as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom, whose messaging prioritised comfort and value over aspiration. By choosing Super Bowl XLVII, Calvin Klein positioned its Concept line explicitly against that commodity framing, asserting through media context alone that men's underwear could command the same cultural attention as automotive or beverage brands. The 360° seamless technology at the heart of the product gave the campaign a rational anchor — a genuine product innovation — to accompany its aspirational visual language. This dual architecture, combining hard product differentiation with an emotionally charged broadcast moment, reflects the brand strategy that Calvin Klein and Baron + Baron had refined across decades of provocative advertising in the United States and global markets.
Fabien Baron directed the Concept commercial, bringing his long-established creative partnership with Calvin Klein to bear on the brand's most visible American media moment to date. Baron, consulting creative director at Baron + Baron, conceived and directed the 30-second film, while photographer Steven Klein contributed to the broader campaign's visual identity, as documented by senatus.net and clapboard.com. The collaboration between Baron and Klein represents one of the more sustained creative relationships in American fashion advertising, defined by a photographic grammar that is simultaneously austere and charged with physical tension.
The film centres on Ford model Matthew Terry, whose physicality is foregrounded with the deliberate economy typical of Baron's directorial approach. Shot in New York City, the production employs the kind of controlled, high-contrast visual language that has characterised Calvin Klein's advertising since Baron's earlier work with the brand in the 1990s, as noted by thefincheranalyst.com. The 30-second format, constrained by broadcast conventions, demanded that the creative team compress the brand's signature aesthetic into a duration suited to commercial television rather than editorial or long-form cinema. The result is a work that functions simultaneously as advertising and as a continuation of Calvin Klein's broader visual legacy in the United States. The seamless underwear product itself becomes almost architectural in its presentation, framed not as a commodity but as a designed object deserving the same visual attention the brand has historically given to fragrance or denim.
No verified third-party performance data for the Calvin Klein Concept campaign — such as post-broadcast sales lift, earned media valuation, or recall scores — is publicly available. Assessment of the campaign's effectiveness therefore rests on structural and contextual analysis.
The decision to broadcast on CBS, ABC, and ESPN simultaneously during Super Bowl XLVII on February 3, 2013, as reported by rbr.com, represents a media investment of exceptional scale for a men's innerwear product. Super Bowl XLVII drew approximately 108 million viewers in the United States, according to En Wikipedia, making it one of the most-watched television broadcasts in American history to that point. For a 30-second spot running across three networks simultaneously, the reach achieved by the Concept campaign would have been structurally unmatched by any prior Calvin Klein television placement. The campaign's subsequent rollout across 19 international markets, per clapboard.com, further amplifies the broadcast's foundational role: the Super Bowl film served as the creative anchor for a genuinely global launch rather than a standalone domestic activation. The involvement of Fabien Baron and Steven Klein, two of fashion advertising's most credentialed practitioners, lends the campaign a reputational weight that extends beyond any single broadcast metric. Within Calvin Klein's own advertising lineage, Concept marks a threshold moment — the point at which the brand asserted that men's fashion belongs in American popular culture's most competitive commercial arena.
Calvin Klein Concept is the brand's Spring 2013 men's underwear campaign, created by Baron + Baron and launched in the United States in February 2013. It introduced the Calvin Klein Concept line featuring 360° seamless technology, with a 30-second film that marked Calvin Klein's first-ever Super Bowl commercial, airing during Super Bowl XLVII on CBS, ABC, and ESPN.
Fabien Baron directed the Calvin Klein Concept commercial. Baron, consulting creative director at Baron + Baron, conceived and directed the 30-second film shot in New York City. Photographer Steven Klein also contributed to the broader campaign's visual identity, as reported by senatus.net.
Ford model Matthew Terry is the face of the 2013 Calvin Klein Concept campaign. Terry appeared in the Super Bowl commercial and broader campaign materials, representing the Calvin Klein Concept men's underwear line, as documented by fashiongonerogue.com and thefashionisto.com across the brand's United States and international market rollout.
Calvin Klein's first Super Bowl commercial aired on February 3, 2013, during Super Bowl XLVII. The 30-second Concept film broadcast simultaneously on CBS, ABC, and ESPN, as reported by rbr.com, making it the brand's most expansive single television placement in the United States up to that point.
The Calvin Klein Concept campaign ran across 19 international markets, according to clapboard.com. Following its United States Super Bowl launch, the campaign extended to markets including Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Korea, establishing the Super Bowl film as the creative foundation for a coordinated global campaign.
The campaign promoted Calvin Klein Concept men's underwear, distinguished by 360° seamless technology. Calvin Klein publicly presented the product on January 31, 2013, according to senatus.net, positioning it as a design and engineering innovation within the men's apparel category rather than a conventional underwear commodity in the United States market.
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