Firetrap revamps site with focus on cult icon

Youth clothing brand Firetrap is relaunching its website, with a new focus on cult brand icon Deadly the Gnome, making his debut appearance on the internet.

Designed by new media agency Cimex, the site will be an integrated part of Firetrap’s latest marketing campaign, and will support the opening of its first standalone store later this year in London’s Covent Garden, with a three-dimensional “walk-through” around the outlet.

The site will provide full information on the history of the Firetrap brand, locations of in-store concessions and news about events including short-lived “flash” stores, which are usually only open for a few hours.

Deadly the Gnome, the character that fronts the brand’s “Twisted Thoughts” marketing campaign, is a garden gnome who wears an ice-hockey mask, similar to the one worn by the mass murderer Jason in the cult Halloween films. Deadly figurines are distributed around sites where flash stores are open, with Firetrap aficionados invited to take them home.

Steve Puxley, managing director of Cimex, says that part of the brief was for a site that Firetrap itself could update easily and quickly. “Guerilla marketing is so important to the brand, and its immediacy means that Firetrap may need to update its website on a daily, if not hourly, basis.”

Firetrap is owned by World Design & Trade, which also owns the Full Circle clothing brand and youth sports brand Sonetti. In June, WDT launched a marketing campaign for Firetrap created by Dry, with media handled by Target NMI (MW June 24).