Diversity adds to a brand

When I lived in New York, Kenneth Cole stores always got a second look from me. Their store windows were usually fronted by short pithy sentences, that – much like another Indian campaign I’m a big fan of, the one for Amul Butter – spoke about their products while drawing from current affairs. Their website, for example, has a video that draws on the American elections this year. Anyway, Kenneth Cole has drawn some positive press of late for their latest video/ad that is part of their ‘We all walk in different shoes‘ campaign. They’ve used a Punjabi Sikh model, which is EXTREMELY rare in the fashion world. To be honest, off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other Western brand that has someone of a different ethnic background as the centerpiece for their campaign (Benetton perhaps, but they focus on a group rather than an individual). I saw an image of a Kenneth Cole store window that features the guy recently, on a friend’s Facebook page. He’s called Sonny Caberwal. Take a look at him (and the pretty deep message he conveys) in this video by the brand: