Campaign Spotlight: Spring 2024
A beautiful, cool woman in bed with denim.
This year, that setup became a signature of Frame’s seasonal campaigns. It defined the spring 2024 campaign featuring Gisele Bündchen and the summer 2024 campaign with Amelia Gray. And, according to co-founder and creative director Erik Torstensson, brand followers can expect to see it “again and again.”
The look and feel of the images and videos fit Frame’s aim to further elevate the brand. That push has included updates to its stores and a collaboration with The Ritz Paris, for example. Plus, in Torstensson’s experience, versions of the formula have proven effective.
“Adding talent that is part of popular culture to a brand is literally my career,” said Torstensson, whose background is heavy in creative director roles, largely at agencies he established. Before launching Frame with Jens Grede, the duo founded Industrie Magazine, Saturday creative agency and the fashion marketing-focused Wednesday Agency Group.
Torstensson recalled a popular Calvin Klein ad he worked on in 2017 which remade the brand’s iconic Mark Wahlberg campaign with Justin Beiber as the talent. “It was the right person at the right time,” he said.
In early 2024, the same applied to Bündchen, who was returning to modeling. Torstensson had an existing relationship with Bündchen and booked her for the campaign via three text messages, he said. He described her as “the Frame woman personified,” in that she’s multi-faceted — on top of being “the most iconic” working model, she’s a mother and a businesswoman.
Similarly, he booked Gray after sitting next to her at a dinner and realizing her interests, work ethic and Frame alignment — for one, both she and the brand are based in L.A. “My gut feeling was that she would be the next big model,” he said. Shortly after, she was named the Daily Front Row’s Model of the Year.
Along with Torstensson’s network, his skillset and hands-on creative process work to Frame’s advantage. As a 14-year-old, medium-sized brand, Frame neither has the organic buzz of a new-to-market brand nor the funds to support “500 billboards, ads in magazines and [campaigns featuring] Rihanna,” he said. He typically shoots three monthly campaigns, each focused on a different product or collection, with one model in one 10-hour day. The fact that he serves as the art director, the client and the photographer allows for speed on set. And he has a knack for drawing attention to a project.
“I always think about the headline,” he said. “It’s, ‘Gisele comes back for Frame,’ or ‘Gisele drops all for Frame.’ We [secure] that earned media, and then we always host a dinner [around the campaign] — that travels, as well. It’s all about the story and keeping the conversation going.”
The dinner celebrating Bündchen’s campaign was held during New York Fashion Week and attended by “it” girls including Poppy Delevingne, Jenna Lyons and Sarah Hyland. The Frame denim jacket Bündchen wore to the event — as a dress, sans pants — sold out, according to Torstensson.
Meanwhile, Gray’s campaign also drove expected headlines, with many focused on the fact that she’s shown “drenched” in Frame jeans, versus wearing them.
“Brand marketing is not: ‘Buy this jean,’” Torstensson said. ”The brand marketing we do says, ‘Hi, I’m hot and interesting and lovely, and you should talk to me.’ It’s the first flirt — the swipe-right. You just have to look fucking hot. … And then you have to do that again the next time, and continuously move with the times.”
In September, Frame will roll out another campaign featuring an iconic woman in bed, but you won’t see it coming, Torstensson said. “When we can take someone unexpected and put them through our DNA and aesthetics filter, and then they come out as a Frame icon, that brings energy to the brand,” he said.
He added, “You have to bring newness all the time to be top of mind and a hot brand. And almost nothing cuts through the noise today. It’s very hard.”
