TOMS & Keds branding strategies
TOMS & Keds branding strategies Sara Osama | 22-3907 | Brand Identity | Assignment One
1 Brands’ Stories
Brand Evolution
1960 | Keds were first mass-marketed as canvas-top “sneakers” 1960s and 1970s | keds added to its range of casual shoes a line of athletic shoes called Pro-Keds for more serious use, specifically for basketball Mid 1980s through mid 1990s | girls wore Keds with leggings and over-sized tee shirts, over-sized sweatshirts, or oversized sweaters and slouch socks, with baby doll dresses with bike shorts with or without lace and sometimes slouch socks, as part of a cheer-leading uniform with slouch socks, or in colder weather with leggings and slouch socks. A lot of female celebraties were also wearing keds on TV. Late 1990s | Keds lost popularity, but sales increased in the mid-2000s 2004-5 | In their song Rollover DJ, Jet sang “got your supersonic beats mixing up my Keds”,as part of the song’s tongue-in-cheek attack on DJ culture 2006 | some of the Men’s “Keds Triumph” sneakers were reintroduced, though Keds have always been more popular with women than with men. 2008 | Keds launched the Keds Studio, which allows customers to create custom Keds shoes using images, text, and colors provided by Keds or from the customer’s own files. 2009 - 2011 | Keds launched Keds Green in March 2009. The shoes feature organic cotton uppers, 20% recycled rubber soles, non-toxic inks and dyes, nickel free eyelets, and shoelaces made from 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET). 2012 till present | Keds, along with Saucony, Stride Rite and Sperry Top-Sider, became part of Wolverine World Wide after a joint agreement with Blum Capital Partners and Golden Gate Capital acquired the Performance Lifestyle Group of Collective Brands for US$1.23 billion.Keds collaborated with singer Taylor Swift, who released her own line of the shoes on October 22, 2012.
When choosing a name, the initial choice was Peds, from the Latin meaning foot, but that name was already a trademark. (Wikipedia)
Keds is an American brand of plimsollstyle canvas shoe with rubber soles. Keds were introduced in 1916 by U.S. Rubber (later known as Uniroyal, then Uniroyal Goodrich, and finally acquired by Michelin). The shoe brand was later acquired by Stride Rite Corporation and is currently owned by Wolverine World Wide. (Wikipedia)
History Overview
Reason For Brand Name
Product Width Keds became known as sneakers because the rubber soles allowed sneaking around silently. They have been used by many athletes. In countries like India or Soviet Union, Keds has been transformed into a generic brand and until recently any athletic shoe was customarily called a Keds. Keds are a staple in physical training classes in many school curricula, and students are often required to wear basic white Keds for their classes.
Brand Identity Attributes: Classic old-school trend. simple, minimalist designs. Feature: First sneaker because it was the first shoe to have soft rubber soles that were “So quiet” you could sneak up to your boyfriend. Performance: very high functionality as a shoe Benefits: durable and can weather through frequent use. Offers a huge variety of styles and designs so that a consumer can pick up a design that is suitable to their personality.
Target Market 18 to 35 years old. Men, women and kids. Keds have always been more popular with women than with men.
Tagline Evolution “The original Sneakers.” then they changed it to “Be Cool.” Current tagline is “Find your champion.”
Toms is a for-profit company based in Playa Del Rey, California, that operates the non-profit subsidiary, Friends of Toms. The company was founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie. The company designs and sells shoes based on the Argentine alpargata design as well as eyewear. When Toms sells a pair of shoes, a pair of shoes is given to an impoverished child, and when Toms sells a pair of eyewear, part of the profit is used to save or restore the eyesight for people in developing countries. (Wikipedia) Reason For Brand Name
A History Overview
The company name (TOMS) is derived from the word “tomorrow,” and evolved from the original concept, “Shoes for Tomorrow Project.”(Wikipedia)
Product Width
“ Blake Mycoskie first visited Argentina while competing in the second season of The Amazing Race with his sister in 2002. He returned there on vacation in January 2006, and noticed that the local polo players were wearing a form of shoes called alpargatas, a simple canvas slipon shoe that he himself began to wear. The shoes have been worn by Argentine farmers for hundreds of years and were the inspiration for the classic style of Toms shoes.They are made from canvas or cotton fabric and are now manufactured in many styles including a cordones, botas, wedges, stitchouts, and wrap boots. The sole is constructed of rubber. Later in the trip, when he was doing some volunteer work in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, he noticed that many of the children were running through the streets barefooted. After discovering that a lack of shoes was a wider problem in Argentina and other developing countries than just this one community, he decided that he wanted to develop a kind of alpargata for the North American market, with the caveat that for every pair sold he would provide a new pair of shoes free of charge to the shoeless youth of Argentina and other developing nations. Mycoskie had learned that the lack of shoes was a problem that had a serious impact upon these youth, threatening the ability of the children to go to school, prevent infection, and so forth.The company first officially began selling its shoes in May 2006. The first batch of free shoes were distributed in October 2006 to Argentine children; the number was equivalent to the amount of stock sold: ten thousand.The company was self-financed, as Mycoskie sold his online driver education company for $500,000 to fund the shoe company.” (Wikipedia)
TOMS continues to expand their product line by releasing new seasonal lines, as well as teaming up with different brands such as Disney, Ralph Lauren, The Row, and many more. Aside from shoes, TOMS offers t-shirts, necklaces, and flags available for purchase.
Target Market
TOMS founder & CEO: Blake Mycoskie with kids TOMS current target market caters to men and women of all different ages. It targets fashion-oriented teens and adults with a need for purposeful product. TOMS is found predominantly in the west coast of the United States. However, it continues to expand from coast-to-coast. The TOMS target market looks for a comfortable, every-day shoe that can sustain outdoor conditions. TOMS three major market segments are teenagers, college students, and single men and women who are price conscious. • 13-30 years old, men and women, caucasian and minorities, high school or college degrees. • People who are media-savvy, interested in music or art, involved in social causes and middle class. • People who need fashionable, yet comfortable, every day shoes at an affordable price. (tomsshoesblog)
Attributes: Trustworthy. Social Responsibility.
Performance: meets the needs of consumers by creating not only fashionable shoes, but purposeful shoes as well.
Brand Evolution
Benefits: Fashionable shoes + Charity; “Doing well by doing good.” Made to sustain outdoor environment and conditions
May 2006 | The company first officially began selling its shoes First 6 months | an article ran in the Los Angeles Times, the company received order requests for nine times the available stock online, and 10,000 pairs were sold October 2006 | The first batch of free shoes were distributed to Argentine children; the number was equivalent to the amount of stock sold: ten thousand 2007 | The company launched an annual “One Day Without Shoes” event where adherents do not wear shoes throughout the day in order to raise awareness for Toms’ mission for clothing impoverished children. 2012 | Over two million pairs of new shoes had been given to children in developing countries around the world June 2014 | The company announced that founder Blake Mycoskie was looking to sell part of his stake in the company to investment partners in a move to help grow and expand faster and meet the long-term goals of the company August 20, 2014 | it was announced that Bain Capital had acquired 50% of Toms. Reuters reported that the transaction valued the company at $625 million.
Brand Identity
Feature: Design and customizability. Leather insoles – which improves comfort. Many different style shoes. Reasonably priced
2 Brands’ Analysis
TOMS philosophy
Brand Analysis Strengths • “One for One” message • Innovative options • Price • Offers more than just purchasing a pair of shoes
Tagline
Logo
Brand Personality
“The stripe on the temples represents the buyer; the stripe on the tips represents the person whose sight is being helped, and the middle stripe represents TOMS, which brings the two together.”
Weaknesses • Minimal advertising • Young company • Less extensive perception of brand
TOMS Shoes meets the needs of consumers by creating not only fashionable shoes, but purposeful shoes as well. The shoes available for consumers to purchase are designed for comfort and fashion. These shoes have the alpargata design, and are specifically designed for children’s environment and terrain. TOMS wants to ensure no shoes go to waste (TOMS). The ‘One for One’ mission plays an important role in customer loyalty.
Weaknesses • low level of awareness among young demographic • does not appeal to men • considered “Old fashion” • Products are made of plastic
Redesigning the Logo by Marlene Franco
Current Tagline
Logo
Brand Personality
Brand Analysis
Strengths •long lasting brand since 1916 • the current older demographic is brand loyal since the begining • newer advertising campaigns that are well connecting with the younger demographic • encourages self expression through styles of shoes • Reasonably priced
3 Branding Strategies
1 in 2012, keds decided to re-position itself as the go-to for teen girls. The Keds design team creates content to be spread across the various platforms. And, everyone at Keds helps with social, whether by participating in a contest or sharing content to extend a campaign’s reach.
2 “Keds had been lost in the marketplace and was chasing an aging consumer base.�
1 “the original sneaker,”was the name of the campaign, and a Web site was developed. TheOriginalSneaker.com features an opening page laid out like a monthly calendar that changes daily and features tidbits about the brand and cultural highlights from the last nine decades. 2 Their target consumers in attitude and personality were the 24-yearold millennials who are attracted to creativity, a belief that they can make a difference in the world, openness and multiculturalism.
4 On March 19 2010, Keds revised the description on TheOriginalSneaker.com to acknowledge the earlier use of the term by Boston students, while still including that Keds “took the term ‘sneaker’ to broader heights and established a new footwear category.”
3 Keds have deep roots and history, and the challenge for them was to make that relevant to consumers rather than just be a retro brand. They wanted to tell the story on a platform that’s very today and very relevant and very engaged, and in a way that also highlights more modern times.
A. Early Campaigns
On their official website, keds identity is incoporated in the graphics and style. The Taylor Swift campaign is specially featured on the page. Upon visiting the website, it asks for feedback. Keds has a two way communication open for it’s customers which is a good way to have an insight on how the customers percieve the brand.
B. Official Website
Keds expanded from Facebook to other social platforms by first looking to see where teen girls were sharing and interacting with products. Instagram was an obvious platform, where teen girls are constantly sharing and engaging with brand content.
Keds started with Facebook. They had to go after building their audience in a block-andtackle kind of way, and had a lot of success with engagement contests. Once this engagement-centered strategy really got off the ground, they combined the organic posts with Facebook advertising targeted to girls most likely to be Keds fans. Keds went from 173,000 likes in October 2012 to over 936,000 likes in March 2014.
Keds then expanded to twitter, pinterest and youtube as well.
C. Social Media
Keds target audience reads magazines, so keds feature their brand in publications such as Cosmo, Vogue and Elle.
D. Printed Ads
E. “How do you do?” Campaign The campaign is intended to reach millennials, who are generally in their 20s, by taking the shoebox on wheels on a cross-country tour of college campuses. One of the goals of the campaign was to “awaken people to the fact that it is an iconic brand.” Keds has also joined with the Whitney Museum of American Art on the Keds Whitney Collection, where artists created limited-edition designs of the canvas sneakers, which were sold in Bloomingdale’s in New York City. The company also created the online Keds Collective, where artists and designers could create their own versions of Keds to be sold on the company Web site. Users can also design their own Keds sneakers by customizing each of the 15 parts of the shoe, including details like the tongue binding, eyelets and laces. “How Do You Do?” campaign, which will encourage the target audience to create and collaborate, and emphasizes the idea of Keds sneakers being a canvas used to express that creativity. The mobile shoebox will stop at college campuses in nine cities across the nation during the South by Southwest music festival and the Fashion Institute of Technology and Pace University in New York. Inside the shoebox, visitors will find two touchscreen maps of the tour where they can watch videos about the local artists, retail outlets and charity organizations that Keds is working with in each city. On another wall, users can see a gallery of Keds shoes inspired by each city on the tour schedule. Outside the shoebox, visitors will see activities that expand on the “How Do You Do?” campaign slogan. For a section called “How Do You Do Keds?” students will be able to customize their own sneakers using a touch-screen kiosk, and can purchase the sneakers from the shoebox. The kiosks will also promote a shoe-design competition called “How Do You Do Your City?” The winner of the competition will get a $1,000 prize and a $5,000 donation to an arts-based charity. Keds is also sponsoring a segment called “How Do You Do Charity?,” where users will be asked to post messages on Twitter, using the symbol #HDYD, describing what inspires them about their city. The company will donate $1 per post to a local arts-based charity in each city, up to a predetermined maximum.
A fashion show hosted on a blue Keds carpet, called “How Do You Do Fashion?,” will feature local models wearing Keds shoes and clothing from designers in each city. A segment called “How Do You Do Music?” will feature performances from local bands and disk jockeys. To help find local talent and generate interest on each campus, Keds joined with Mr Youth, a company that creates experiential and interactive marketing campaigns focused on young people.
F. Taylor Swift & Bravehearts Campaign Keds landed Taylor Swift as a spokesmodel. Swift has incredible sway over the pre-teen and teen girl demographic, and has been able to attract new likes and followers. Girls are discovering the brand because of Taylor, but they’re staying because they love the product. The wildly successful songbird is launching a new campaign, targeting a young female audience and encouraging girls to be “brave” and stay true to themselves.
“If you›re lucky enough to be different from everyone else, don›t change to be the same.,”Taylor Swift in one of the Ads.
“Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself,” she inspires in another. “Be brave and you›ll have the time of your life.”
The Keds Tumblr, called Bravehearts, is a source of style inspiration and acts as a place where girls can make and post their own content using Keds’ Tumblr tools. Keds partnered with digital agency Firstborn to create the Tumblr account, where girls can create their own “brave goals,” check out Keds’ spring look books, or check out an inspiration wall that includes Taylor Swift GIFs. The program’s goal is to equip young women with quick bits of information and resources that build their selfesteem, which is why it was likely developed for mobile. There’s also a website dedicated to the inspirational ad campaign that encourages young women to share their brave moments, complete with a video from Swift, who reveals her own bravest moment: “Moving to Nashville.” The microsite is a part of the Million Brave Acts campaign that fits into a bigger program called Keds Brave Life Project with nonprofit Girls Leadership Institute. Keds Brave Life Project also includes a summit with nonprofit and female leaders, and the shoe brand will donate $50,000 in grants that are distributed in 2014.
“Brands often align themselves with charities or causes that resonate with their brand image and target audience. Empowering women is part of a broader movement that many brands have been latching on to including Pantene and Gucci.” There is a section on the site where consumers can create and upload a customized photo that represents one of their goals for 2014. Keds is giving away 1,000 pairs of shoes to participants with the best photos that depict brave goals such as traveling to a different country or making new friends.
G. Showrooms Style and colors and brand identity is incorporated in both the design of the showrooms and the different products.
Shoe Sole
Tag on Shoes
H. Products
1 TOMS brand identity is incorprated in every touch point and one unified message is always being sent: it’s more than a fashinable shoe, it’s a lifestyle of “giving” back to the people. Myosckie, TOMS founder and CEO never fail seizing the opportunities. He has done it repeatedly and successfully over the past seven years, orchestrating Toms’s rise into the top flight of fashion and establishing it as a new kind of business. What makes TOMS specially unique is how they integrated the oldfashioned, for-profit company with a new wave of heart philantrophy, they bonded moneymaking and giving in an unprecedented manner. Toms has trademarked the tagline “one for one”—that it’s often mistaken for a charity. 2 TOMS is also doing right with the “one for one” marketing strategy, since they are still coming up with new plans to further expand their product line and reach more customers. There are now more varieties and styles of shoes, including dressier shoes and even wedding styles. TOMS has also taken the opportunity to branch out into producing sunglasses as a new product and expanding they products’ width. And it has spawned buy-one-give-one copycats offering everything from dog treats to cups of coffee. “The one for one” is more than just a tagline, it’s a conceptual business model. The company uses wordof-mouth advocacy for much of its sales, centering its business focus on corporate social responsibility. Part of this model originally involved a nonprofit arm called “Friends of Toms” that recruited volunteers to help in the shoe distributions in foreign countries.
4 The company’s shoe distribution partners have focused on distributing shoes in areas where the health and social benefits of the shoes would be the highest. For example, in Ethiopia the shoes are intended to help prevent a soil-borne disease that attacks the lymphatic system and which largely affected women and children. Toms sunglasses are sold with the One for One model, however it does not necessarily provide glasses only to citizens of developing countries. The One for One model includes putting money towards medical treatment and eye surgeries, in addition to prescription glasses.
3 Author Daniel H. Pink described the company’s business model as “expressly built for purpose maximization”, whereby Toms is both selling shoes and selling its ideal; creating consumers that are purchasing shoes and also making a purchase that transforms them into benefactors—a company goal if it is not a consumer goal. Another phrase used to try to describe the unique business model has been “caring capitalism”. Part of how the firm has developed this description is by incorporating the giving into its business model before it turned a profit, making it as integral to the business model as its revenue generating aspects. However, TOMS uses the thought of “if I can’t fix all the problems, what is the one problem I can fix?” They may have done market research to find out that people here in North America would actually buy shoes and glasses, so those would be the better money makers, and thus the better fundraisers too. If you think about it, they could have started selling T-shirts next to help clothe poor African orphans. But they didn’t. They chose shoes and sunglasses, and there has to be a reason why. And this shows TOMS is not only a charity-focused organization, but they are a real business with a profit objective, and that works for everyone. Lots of companies write cheques to charities and put charity logos on their websites when they’ve done so, but not many companies have grown and formed entire product lines around the concept of giving back. 5 Toms has received criticism from the International Development community, who have charged that Toms’ model is designed to make consumers feel good rather than address underlying causes of poverty. Criticisms have also included whether or not the shoe donation is as effective as a monetary one to other charities. Tom’s founder Blake Mycoskie responded to these criticisms in November 2013, saying “If you really are serious about poverty alleviation, our critics said, then you need to create jobs. At first I took that personally, but then I realized that they were right... using our model to create jobs is the next level.” The company has announced it plans to have one-third of all its shoes produced in countries receiving aid by 2015. 6 Toms’ marketing has involved fashion shows, high profile events, university campus marketing, social media, and temporary pop-up stores. Products have been created to fit with different environmental ideals as well, including the creation of shoes that adhere to vegan product restrictions in their product lines. The popular ideals of the company have led the company to becoming involved in cross-company advertising campaigns, including a commercial with AT&T that filmed one of Toms’ shoe drops in Uruguay.
7 A major strength for this company is the emotional impact that is attached to buying their product. Making a charity is accessible to young people without making it feel like a sacrifice, through TOMS. Buying TOMS does not just appeal to people who want to make a difference and who care about helping the less fortunate, but it also appeals to people who want to be cool and trendy too. TOMS uses an “experience marketing” technique that plays to people’s emotions. Buying this product makes people feel even better about their purchase because they are also supporting a good cause.
A. Official Website The very first touchpoint, is the company’s official website. Once i visited the page, a pop up came up asking me if “I love companies that give back” or not. Upon choosing “I agree”, another pop up came up telling me that with every product i purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. “One for One.” TOMS message is direct and clear, they are not just selling shoes, they are making people’s lives better.
B. The Products The very first touchpoint, is the company’s official website. Once i visited the page, a pop up came up asking me if “I love companies that give back” or not. Upon choosing “I agree”, another pop up came up telling me that with every product i purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. “One for One.” TOMS message is direct and clear, they are not just selling shoes, they are making people’s lives better.
From the price tag and until the packaging, TOMS has maintained a unified style that makes it stand out from other similar shoes. However different the product designs are, but the mother main style (patterns, colors, etc..) can still be noted to come from the same family.
Price Tag
Packaging
Brand Name on Shoes
C. Internal Customers
“We’re about empowering people, inspiring people, helping them to see the life they could live differently. We’ve changed the way people think about consumption.” Awad, the retail marketing head.
TOMS knows the importance of internal customer’s in building a brand identity. Employees at TOMS are a family, and they are given the space to grow and innovate. When employees feel happy at the workspace it is reflected in two ways on the brand; 1. a better experience and quality is delievered to the customers which builds brand loyalty and equity. 2. all employees statements to media contain a unified message, the whole company is one family with one most imprtant goal to achieve and that is reflected in all their talks, which again helps the company send a clear message to customers.
“I want to show people that one-for-one is not just for the lifestyle-fashion space. It can even be everyday products.”, Mycoskie.
To Mycoskie, Toms will be a failure if we keep appending the word shoes to the company name, because he’s thinking much bigger and for the long term. Even now, if you type tomsshoes.com into your browser, you’ll be redirected to toms.com. “I’m going to say this as humbly as I can: I believe what we›re doing is affecting the way businesses will be built for hundreds of years to come.You stay true to what you believe, and what your message is, and then you let the chips fall where they fall.”, Mycoskie. “Toms is upgrading the quality of its manufacturing jobs. He rattles off a list of improvements: higher wages; tutoring for workers, children; companyprovided take-home meals for working moms; financial education; an on-site preschool at a Kenyan factory where Toms hopes to begin production later this year. The jobs we help create should be in line with what Toms stands for.”, Head of giving Sebastian Fries.
Others say Toms addresses the wrong issue. Scott Gilmore, CEO of the not-for-profit Building Markets, which works to boost local economies in post-conflict countries, says the problem of persistent poverty is “not a lack of shoes, but a lack of opportunity and a lack of jobs.” While he concedes that Toms has helped to build awareness of poverty, he argues that its success really shows the power of monetizing white guilt. “How can we make ourselves feel better?” he asks. “This is the power of self-congratulatory smugness, of saying, “I’m better than you because I’m helping somebody. But the people who lose out are ironically the ones they say they’re trying to help.” Criticisms have been growing in number, especially on the Internet. But Toms has declined for years to address its critics publicly, giving the impression that it is ignoring them. Mycoskie explains that he has chosen not to engage, in large part because most of the grievances have been broadcast online: “It’s a debate you can’t win in that medium.” He expresses doubt that many of Toms’s detractors genuinely want dialogue, and fears “that they’ll just take that one sentence out of context.”
Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project | Toms partnered with it to create limited edition shoes, using the profits to benefit education and medical support to remote areas of Africa suffering from AIDS outbreaks. The Movember Foundation | Toms has also produced shoes with a handlebar mustache symbol in place of the traditional Toms symbol. Charity: water | Toms partnered with ot over several years, including its WaterForward project, aiming to bring clean water to underdeveloped countries through giving on behalf of one’s friends. FEED | whereby when a consumer purchased a pair of shoes the company would donate twelve meals to poor schools in addition to a pair of shoes for impoverished children.
Charlize Theron and Ben Affleck | Toms has identified likeminded, high-profile influencers, who collaborate on limitededition lines and appear at Toms events to promote the brand and their own causes. Olivia Wilde and Passion Pit | it has heavily courted young, trendsetting actors and musicians, hoping that they’ll be photographed in and tweet about their Toms. (The company says these unofficial brand ambassadors occasionally receive free products but are never paid.)
Corporations
Opinion Leaders
Partnerships
Response to Critiques
TOMS market place | each of the TOMS Marketplace partner brands has a meaningful story and shares TOMS’ commitment to giving to those in need, spanning a wide range of causes and geographic areas of impact.
The Toms story has also been magnetic to big corporations, which have integrated the brand into major ad campaigns and saved Toms the expense of advertising. After an ad exec saw an item about Toms on a video screen in the back of a New York taxicab, Mycoskie and Toms were featured in TV commercials for AT&T. Microsoft, American Greetings, and AOL have promoted Toms in digital campaigns.
D. Publicity
E. Social Media One brand identity and one unified message always delievered through different social media platforms. Social media opens for a 2 way conversation between customers and company, and always TOMS to promote it’s brand identity and also benefit from customers’ insights.
The video spot for this campaign is inspiring. The music is playful that build-up your joy and happiness which makes it emotionally powerful. Dancing with the music are small snowflakes to play on the holidays while symbolizing how each person (i.e. snowflake) working together can make a difference (snow). Sometimes, video can make things complicated. TOMS, on the other hand, is not complicated. It’s simple, understandable and approachable. The video has two goals: 1) to explain TOMS’s social mission (one-for-one) and how they create impact (prevent foot disease) and 2) to encourage you to get involved. The spot illustrates how buying one pair of TOMS Shoes can have a chain reaction — preventing foot disease for children around the world. The narrator is not a man or a woman. It’s a child name Ronnie. Ronnie tells you, the parent, friend or family member, how you can make an impact. Humans have a soft spot for children around the holidays, so why not let a child tell the story?
“Water For People” Campaign
Choose Shoes this holiday
Overall, TOMS has strayed from typical holiday brand advertising. There are not any loud, ringing bells, nor are there flashy pricetags and deep discounts. TOMS has illustrated what the holidays are truly about: giving.
TOMS partners with Water For People, an innovative water organization, to provide one week of water with every bag of TOMS Coffee purchased. Together they design and build, or repair, the needed water system so that every person in the community can access water for generations. Emotions are the key factor in the ad.s footage.
“One Day without Shoes” Campaign
F. Advertising
TOMS partners with Uber in fighting podoconiosis, the smartphone app that connects riders with a driver at the tap of a button. For every new Uber user who enters promo “shuberX”, $10 will be donated on their behalf to TOMS shoes. The ad. is simple and is narrated by uber’s designers and TOMS founder and it explains how reducing carboon foot print can be done when sustainability is mixed with technology and communication.
“Shuber X” Campaign
“One Decision” Campaign
TOMS newesr campaign explains how decisions shape both our life and the world. How one small decision can cause a big change. One decision campaign aims at encouraging people to make decisions that cause big changes. Of course, buying a TOMS product is one of these decisions as it will change the life of another person.
TOMS Eyewear Design Director, Darrin is the video narrator and he goes on to explain how he’s inspired by much more than the craftsmanship of superb eyewear design, t’s the stories behind each frame that truly drive him. In each pair, two worlds are connected, and a customer changes the future of a person in need with the gift of sight. It’s how an elderly woman like Nyamambara, a grandmother in Tanzania, received free eye surgery, allowing her to see her four-year old grandson clearly for the first time in years. The campaign is again simple with a clear message and goal. Emotions are the main factor in the video, as you see how the woman gains back her sight. “The fact that we’re designing eyewear not for the sake of design -- it changes the premise of everything.”, Darrin.
“Restore more than sight” Campaign An awareness campaign by TOMS that encourages everyone to go without shoes one day out of the year. For this campaign TOMS has created a separate website, onedaywithoutshoes.com, with a countdown until the day and allowing customers to register to participate. As part of this campaign in 2010, TOMS partnered with Microsoft Advertising and developed a multi-screen campaign that allowed TOMS to connect with its target market whenever they were living their “digital lives.” On the computer, mobile, television and Xbox, TOMS advertisements ran through MSN. With this campaign, TOMS was able to reach 55% of their target market online (Microsoft Advertising). The event awareness increased with each channel of advertising.
The same style that is used in the products is used to showcase them. One message is always being sent through the same visuals.
G. Showrooms
In conclusion, TOMS and Keds both have creative brand strategies and strong brand identities. TOMS uses social responsibility as the primary drive beyond it’s different campaigns and branding techniques. TOMS is always sending out the same message, it’s letting it’s audience know, it’s more than just buying a pair of shoes. It’s a lifestyle. A lifestyle of giving and helping the less fortunate. Keds on the other hand, is an iconic brand, that used it’s history as the very first sneaker for it’s branding. However, keds did not have a “cool” factor to connect with it’s target audience of young people, who did not necesserily grow up with the brand. A lack of familiarity was the main issue of the brand. Keds then teamed up with taylor swift to be the opinion leader in their campaigns. Bravehearts is their latest campaign, in which they target a young female audience and encourag girls to be “brave” and stay true to themselves. Along with that, social responsibility is also featured in their campaign, as it’s a part of the Million Brave Acts campaign that fits into a bigger program called Keds Brave Life Project with nonprofit Girls Leadership Institute. Keds Brave Life Project also includes a summit with nonprofit and female leaders, and the shoe brand will donate $50,000 in grants that are distributed in 2014. With TOMS, social responsibility is the main key used in building the brand identity, but with Keds, using an opinion leader as “Taylor Swift” is they key factor.
4 References
For TOMS shoes: http://www.sparxoo.com/2009/12/11/brand-advertising-review-toms-shoes/ http://www.toms.com http://www.joycegrace.ca/2013/07/toms-shoes-charity-marketing-strategy/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_Shoes http://www.fastcompany.com/3012568/blake-mycoskie-toms http://www.accessoriesmagazine.com/82933/toms-marketplace-debts-latest-socialentrepreneurship#.VHTZG5OUdss For KEDS: http://marlenefranco.com/Keds http://incitrio.com/an-insiders-view-of-keds-social-media-strategy/ http://www.nytimes.com/22/03/2010/business/media/22adco.html?_r=0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keds_28%shoes29% http://www.keds.com/en/home http://www.nytimes.com/23/02/2011/business/media/23adco.html?_r=0 http://uk.eonline.com/news/381795/taylor-swift-teams-up-with-keds-for-bravehearts-ad-campaignencourages-girls-to-be-different http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/content/17241.html http://bravehearts.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/trangphan09/kedsplan