After 5 years of slow decline in sales (2015 to 2020) due to a perceived aging image of the brand (considered by many as a “mom brand”), the largest brand in the Tapestry group undertook a major strategic restructuring effort to reach Gen Z.

The collections are being redesigned, the portfolio of ambassadors is being rejuvenated, and a new brand platform has been launched: Courage To Be Real. A new platform that aligns with the aspirations of a generation that seeks to constantly experiment with identity, gender and style. The platform encourages them to pursue being themselves, despite living in an ultra-normative society.

The brief was to push the boundaries of craft and storytelling to crash-test the Courage To Be Real narrative.

Our objectives were to increase Coach's consideration among Gen Z by re-energizing the Courage To Be Real narrative.

Everyone has the power to be themselves, but not always the courage to do so. So our campaign advocates for young people to find their courage. This was done with our story’s main character “Imma” who is a virtual social media influencer. She’s not human but in our story told over a series of five films she’s looking for the Courage To Be Real. As Imma meets our supporting cast of international characters Lil Nas X, Wu Jin Yan, Youngji Lee, Camilla Mendes, and Koki, she begins to find her courage and learns what it means to become real.

This campaign combines virtual reality, the internet, celebrity, technology, and the quintessence of humanity. It serves as a counterpoint to the prevailing discourse around reality, truth, and the realm of what is possible.

Today, Gen Z customers have a hard time fully expressing the many versions of themselves: from their own inner critics, to the expectations of others, to societal norms, to feeling paralyzed in the face of too many possibilities, to having too few possibilities. But online spaces like social media and video games are different. They offer them a sense of liberation, allowing for a freer expression of their identities. However, this freedom raises a crucial question: is our online existence truly real?

With this campaign we aimed to address this question by using a virtual influencer that’s struggling with what our audience is struggling with: reality.

The project involved a lot of CGI. Even from its conception we worked using photoshop and mid journey to create visual references for the worlds. Since the main character was a virtual social media influencer, we had to work very closely with her large team of creators that were responsible for everything she is and does. On set her team had a stand in for Imma. In post production using CGI Imma was brought to life.

When filming we shot our actors on sets that ended up being a ratio of 20% real life to 80% CGI. This meant we filmed across a plethora of blue and green screens to later create the films and stories in post production.

The music was created by visionary electronic musician Apparat. He was specifically chosen because his music is made digitally and was the perfect compliment to the story but also added another blurred line between reality and virtual reality.

The cast was carefully picked from a world of Coach ambassadors to not only resonate as globally as possible, but to tell the story of finding courage with real insights from the personal histories of each of the talents. Each ambassador’s story was told using their real superpowers that make them who they are, allowing us to be true to their real lives and create a rich story in conjunction with our virtual influencer’s virtual life.

The worlds that were created also reflected the design and color palette of each of the handbags that were featured throughout the five films. This was another key way to differentiate the product and tell the story as our main character navigated it.

In the first quarter of the campaign’s launch, before all the films came out, it attracted 20% more new Gen Z customers globally, and 36% more in North America.

Search results for the Tabby handbag had more than doubled and sales accelerated with over 16% of new customers buying Tabbys. Gen Z customer acquisition grew 25% compared to last year.

In North America, video views and engagement on the content exceeded expectations by 16%. YouTube masthead placements drove lifts in purchase intent. And on TikTok, campaign content drove an 8 point lift in unaided ad recall.

Total Impressions: more than 60.2 million

Total Video Views: more than 44 million views

Total Engagements: more than 1.2 million