By Malay Desai
From:New York, by Anomaly
The american shoe company’s flagship film of a new global campaign divides the world into two – the one which wears shoes and another, sneakers. By interspersing the things that shoe-wearers do with those that sneaker-wearers do, the spot defines the personalities of both. In between these two approaches is copy on a black screen – ‘shoes go running at dawn’; ‘sneakers go home at dawn’; ‘shoes party’; ‘sneakers after-party’ and so on. the film ends with the campaign’s tagline and the brand logo.
Why we like ?
We seem to be growing a soft corner for global accessory brands which have been around from before most of our grandparents were born. After Lacoste’s splendid animation that celebrated its 80 years, here’s Converse, a brand name you might not recall on the fly but will certainly say ‘Oh, of course’ on spotting a shoe. No wait, a ‘sneaker’, we mean.
Drawing a clear dividing line between your brand and target audience’s personality and that of the next-best ‘uncool’ option is a simple concept. Alcohol brands do it all the time – pitch drinkers of poison A against those of B and win loyalties of their target groups. Martini did it in a spectacular split-screen effort in 2011 and Blackberry did it too, even at a time when it was being trumped by cooler phones.
The pre-requisite an agency needs for such a campaign is definitive info on the TG, its habits and attitudes. Converse, with over 100 years of experience had oodles of it but thankfully didn’t harp upon its legacy to prove this point. The one-minute film is an energetic delight, driving up its zing by quicker cuts and a soundtrack that goes well with the skateboarding/partying generation.
The shoe-wearers here are being made to do mundane, correct things (jog, cycle, hail a cab)while the sneaker-ers are getting obvious brownie points by being shown as the noisy, nuisance-making, outrageous beings. The acts in the latter – diving off a cliff, getting cosy in a supermarket, after-partying et al are bold, careless and hipster material.
There is a clever condensation at shoe-wearers here, and it’s safe too, for that universe is homogenous. (Not something an alcohol brand can easily do!) Besides, the other advantage of using this approach of advertising is, the brand can invite non-participants into its groove by being aspirational. (Um yeah, being a ‘cool’ nuisance is that, if you’re 21.)
That said, the bit which we’d all see but not notice quickly? The keyword here, ‘sneakers’ isn’t the brand. How many brands back here can advertise boldly for their segment itself? Ponder that while we Flipkart ourselves some bright sneakers for this summer.
To watch the ad, log on to Vimeo.com/62457855
