The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2023
MTTR ships its printed CTLG catalogue in every jean instead of buying paid social
Denim startup MTTR makes the product the media channel: every pair of jeans carries a back-pocket-sized printed catalogue, keeping the brand off paid social.
MTTR
What it had to solve
There is a growing environmental argument that brands should get out of the catalogue business, but MTTR disagreed: in an increasingly divisive digital world it believed good, responsible print would become more powerful and more necessary. MTTR also did not want a penny going to 'Zuck' or Musk and towards spreading misinformation about the climate crisis and democracy.
How it works
MTTR is a denim brand built on the question of whether the world needs more jeans. Its answer was that anything it made had to make a difference — and that included how the brand communicated, not just what it sold.
The conventional answer to a growing environmental argument against catalogues would have been to go digital. MTTR went the other way: it believed good, responsible print would become more powerful in a divisive digital world, and it refused to spend customers' money on platforms run by 'Zuck' or Musk.
So every pair of MTTR jeans ships with the CTLG, a free printed catalogue designed to fit the back pocket and fastened with detachable buttons that come with the jean. The catalogue became how the brand talks to its community, replacing paid social as the channel. The work is archived in D&AD's awards archive.
Why it lands
- Delivering the catalogue with the product turned every purchase into a media distribution event with zero advertising spend.
- A back-pocket-sized object attached to the jeans made the brand's channel physical and personal in an era of feeds, giving the catalogue an audience that chose to own the product.
- Refusing paid social was a positioning statement in itself: customers who shared the brand's distrust of the platforms got a brand that put its money where its mouth was.
- A free catalogue 'not given away freely' framed the object as something with values, so the medium communicated the brand's point of view before a single word was read.
What it did
The jeans themselves became the distribution system for the brand's own media: a catalogue reached every customer at the moment of purchase with no ad spend, making paid social unnecessary. The work is archived in D&AD's awards archive.
What you can take
When the objection is where the ad money goes, put the media inside the product: an owned print object delivered with the goods can replace paid social for a small brand with a strong point of view.
Since then
The CTLG became the cornerstone of how MTTR talks to its community, a recurring print object rather than a one-off stunt. The work was catalogued in D&AD's awards archive as an example of a brand choosing owned, responsible print over the paid platforms.
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