Every year, sneaker retailer Foot Locker holds a weeklong celebration of sneaker culture called The Week of Greatness. For sneakerheads, it’s a can’t-miss opportunity to get their hands on some of the year’s most exclusive sneaker releases.

The ultimate goal of the campaign was to spike interest in and cultural relevance for the Foot Locker brand with our core sneakerhead target. As tastemakers of sneaker culture, getting on the radar of this important consumer has historically led to increased sales both online and in-store.

The campaign set out to increase purchase intent by more than the 5% Kantar retail store benchmark and deliver a return on advertising spend over the benchmarks set in 2019 on key social platforms ($10 on Snapchat and $10 on Instagram/Facebook).

Sneakers are unquestionably loved by sneakerheads. Almost any hardship or obstacle will be endured to get the sneakers they want. Whether it’s endless lines, pouring rain, refreshing websites at 3am or the apocalypse, the newest release will always be obtained, and the biggest drops of the year are released during Foot Locker’s weeklong celebration of sneakers called The Week of Greatness. So, for this year’s Week of Greatness, a campaign was created to demonstrate sneakerheads’ undying dedication. What if The Week of Greatness was held during the worst week ever: a week when aliens invade, zombies roam the streets, monsters wreak havoc and meteors rain down from above? Would sneakerheads still get the drop? The answer was found in our film.

Sneaker culture thrives on social media, and this is where our target spends the most time for both discussion and discovery of their favorite footwear. Our strategy to speak to them took our creative idea and optimized it across Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to make sure we got on their radar.

We kicked off the campaign a couple of weeks before release with teasers featuring all of the influencers in the film. This included a “Zaza ZaZombie” dance challenge, a ComplexCon x Converse event, the “Get My Name Right” teaser with Alex Morgan and DaBaby, social engagement polls, faux newscaster reports, and Concrete Sneaker Box Seeding Kits.

This was followed by our launch phase, which included influencer movie posters, the hero spot, and unique extension videos based on different consumer/viewer categories. Lastly, for our consideration and conversion phase, we posted motion graphics and GIFs of our influencers with Week of Greatness products. These assets were posted across Instagram/Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, Undertone and Pinterest, on a timeline beginning on 10/2, with the last content piece being posted on 12/2.

With a total Instagram following of 108,206,000, we achieved some amazing results as far as our campaign’s reach. We had a total of 59,598,568 engagements, giving us an earned media value of $5,600,000. Rounding out with 2,929,724 total engagements, our social following spiked with the release of the spot.

The campaign’s impact in sneaker culture was instantly apparent on social, with near 100% positive sentiment across channels; so positive in fact that net sentiment scores outpaced competition, with significantly larger spend during the campaign period. Although the product selection had less inherent demand, the campaign’s impact on social drove up to a 2x return on advertising spend (ROAS) across platforms. Further, the campaign lifted purchase intent by 11%, significantly more than the 5% benchmark for retail campaigns.