The agency worked out that Geox’s brand values aligned perfectly with 2 huge global trends: The desire to collect experiences, and the importance of life balance and wellbeing. The time was right to position Geox uniquely at the intersection of fashion, technical innovation and smart, healthy living.

The creation of the #STARTBREATHING hashtag was both the campaign line and the call to action. It aimed to educate consumers about the benefits of Geox’s breathable soles, while encouraging them to move more, see more and ultimately live more.

To enforce this strategic shift and open up the brand to a new audience, world-renowned fashion photographer Rankin was commissioned to reposition Geox as a modern, premium lifestyle brand. Photography and film captured the movement and dance of models wearing Nebula product as they embodied the essence of #STARTBREATHING.

The campaign officially launched on 29.02.16 across all online platforms with the unveiling of the #STARTBREATHING directors cut video by Rankin. The music was exclusively recorded by internet sensation Nicole Paris who literally brought #STARTBREATHING to life and further helped drive PR.

By associating the brand with striking, avant-garde forms of movement such as dance the video gave expression to the exciting possibilities that can happen when you #STARTBREATHING. It also demonstrated the core functional benefit of Nebula, with the breathable sole that enables and encourages you to move. The art direction and music took the brand in a bold new direction that would grab the audience’s attention and got them thinking about Geox in a new way.

This video alone reached over 5 million people on Facebook and was the campaign’s highest ranking piece of awareness content. It also received over 2 million views on You Tube.

• 250,000 pairs of Nebula sold in the launch period (500,000 total sales target)- a 650% increase in year-on-year sales.

• 7.5m people reached on Facebook

• 25,631 new (net) fans on Facebook over two months with no dedicated investment for fan acquisition

• Geox community grew with an average of 427 daily new likes, versus 51 pre-campaign

• 846,298 engaged viewers of video content on Facebook (+10 seconds)

• For every 1 content post on Instagram there was an average of 17,231 actions

• +2 million views on You Tube

• 78,712 social media shares across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

• 137,203 link clicks across all social channels

• Social channel fan growth of +30,860

• Average of 2.5million visitors to the Nebula microsite per month