Situation: Vans was founded by a skater seeking a better shoe, and has grown into a street culture icon. But in a saturated market flooded with unique drops, Vans faced strategic challenges. How could they excite audiences with their sneaker customization offer, connect with Gen Z's multimedia sensibility, and reignite their association with art?

Brief: Create a fresh "Off the Wall" approach to reignite interest in Vans Customs and appeal to Gen Z's collaborative spirit.

Objectives:

Raise consideration for Vans sneakers by increasing engagement with the Vans Customs offer and delivering traffic to its ecommerce platform.

Secondary: increase Vans association with art and creativity and support the brand mission to enable Off The Wall creative expression in ways that resonate with the collaborative multimedia sensibility of Gen Z.

Idea: Vans Customs Sessions - a participative and interactive experience on Twitch, bringing together Vans, one host, three illustrators, and thousands of sneakerheads to co-create three pairs of one-of-a-kind Vans, together in real-time.

In a series of livestreams, viewers were able to collaborate with Vans at every stage of the creative process for the first time, directing the artists’ every move by inputting suggestions, questions and reactions through Twitch’s poll and chat functionality. Our charistmatic host, gaming personality Alhan Gencay made sure the illustrators stayed informed and the viewers stayed entertained, maintaining a captivating experience for well over an hour, and breaking conventions of branded content. At the end of each stream, a QR code in Twitch directed viewers to the Vans Customs tool, where they could seamlessly purchase the kicks they’d co-created.

Vans’ creative platform “Off the Wall” is a rallying cry for self-expression. From art and music to skating and surfing, the brand’s mission is to inspire creativity, authenticity and passion.

The activation was designed with the Expressive Creator in mind, Vans' primary target audience. These individuals are digitally connected to the creative culture of the moment and are passionate about action sports, music, travel, and art. They're difficult to reach with traditional marketing messages, so we needed to create a participative experience that would offer cultural credibility and creative novelty.

Twitch, the live-streaming and social media platform, was the ideal place to host this activation. Twitch already has active niche communities for action sports, gaming, music, and art, areas where Vans plays strategically. Twitch's democratic, two-way communication channel allows for more intimate, participatory, engaging, and authentic experiences, with no need for high production value.

Vans Customs Sessions on Twitch allowed viewers to participate in the creation of a custom Vans shoe design in a unique and collaborative way. With the use of interactive chat and poll functions, the audience voted on different themes for the illustrators to draw, resulting in the first-ever shoes collaboratively and democratically designed live on Twitch. The experience was designed to tap into the native codes of Twitch and keep the entertainment factor high, with a charismatic host keeping the banter going throughout. The activation was supported with Paid Media and content on the Instagram profiles of Vans Europe and featured personalities, hyping the stream and encouraging viewers to tune in. Precision casting of the host and illustrators was key to creating a truly Off the Wall experience. One of the special drops even went on to become one of the most ordered models in Vans' custom tool's history.

Vans Customs sessions delivered on every target.

600K views on Twitch - successfully generated awareness and consideration for Vans Customs offer.

2.3 million minutes total watch time & average of 4.3 minutes watched per viewer - we captivated and held the attention of our notoriously hard-to-pin Gen Z audience.

2x traffic visits to the Vans Customs tool – we converted audience attention to deliver traffic to Vans owned platforms where they could explore further and shop Vans products.

3 pairs of iconic Vans kicks unlike any other - a truly special ‘special drop’, and a pure embodiment of Vans’ mission to enable Off the Wall self-expression, through creativity, authenticity and passion.

Surpassed Twitch platform benchmarks with 79% higher unique views and 83% more minutes watched than the average 2-hour stream.

Reached customers in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and beyond, increasing the brands strategic association with Art.