Merrell, a world leader in hiking boots, struggled to break into the US trail run category with their Merrell Test Lab (MTL) line of competitive trail runners. Despite over 5000 hours in product testing, several product launches and having a world class athlete roster winning international trail run races, Merrell couldn't breaking through in the run category. What made this challenge even harder is that most people who have heard of Merrell thought of the brand as their dad’s “dorky” hiking shoe which was confirmed time and again in research. This was the starting point for our brief. A challenge to reposition Merrell as a new innovator in trail run, shake up the category and reverse the brand’s historic lackluster sales performance. With an innovative new product introduction planned with our MTL Long Sky 2 and MTL MQM shoes, we knew this was our chance to reset the brand perceptions.

Merrell’s Same is Boring integrated plan was a digital-first approach that used connected TV and streaming video to tell a complete story around the joy of the trail and build broader reach and awareness of Merrell. “Same is boring” was the call-to-action and was intended to get runners to reflect on why they are accepting “sameness” as their reality. This statement also became our internal guide. It forced us to interrogate the creative and our plans to make sure they were not falling into category tropes.

This was complemented by a robust PR plan hitting influential outdoor gear publications who set the standard for excellence in the category. To drive consideration, we leaned heavily on digital and social ads as well as athlete advocacy to showcase the technical best-in-class features of our new products. Finally, from a conversation perspective, we created a new Merrell Test Lab social and ecommerce experience.