Recent statistics show 29% of New Zealand young people live in low-income households*, with 13.6% below the poverty line. Thousands are unable to join their peers in playing sport, or dancing, or getting active, because they don’t have shoes.

To improve their quality of life, 12 year-old Maia Mariner founded Lazy Sneakers—a charitable sneaker bank whose mission is to give them the shoes they need to play, participate and reach their potential.

Lazy Sneakers accepts unused or ‘lazy’ sneaker donations from the community and distributes them free to thousands of children, student athletes, families and social services without access to quality footwear.

With a limited budget, we needed to raise awareness of Lazy Sneakers, and attract donations of quality sports shoes to empower disadvantaged young people all around New Zealand.

* 2020 Technical Report from the Child Poverty Monitor

To raise awareness of Lazy Sneakers and attract sports shoe donations on a limited budget, we needed cut-through.

So to get the attention of sneaker lovers (as well as the nation, and sports shoe brands) we took to the streets with aspirational posters that evoked the logos of some of the world’s top brand name sneakers - but were actually the names of young people who needed shoes.

Photography featured local kids, in the local streets, wearing thrifted gear and donated shoes, participating in the activities they loved - from basketball and skating to dance.

We drove people to lazysneakers.co.nz to find out more and donate.

On a limited budget, we wanted to get the attention of sneaker lovers who were likely to own multiple pairs of sports shoes, with some laying around, spare and unused.

We knew that sneaker lovers were always on the lookout for new brand launches from their favourite brands: we wanted to catch their eye by creating aspirational posters that at first glance looked like they were sports fashion ads - but actually featured local young people, in the local streets, wearing thrifted gear and donated shoes.

At the same time, by cheekily co-opting the logos, we also wanted to get the attention of sneaker companies themselves, and the nation - to raise awareness of the sneaker bank charity, and the potential of the worthy young people who needed their shoes.

In April 2022, we took to the streets of the national capital Wellington with street posters in high traffic locations (20,000+ pedestrians).

Wellington is a pedestrian-friendly city, with many people walking to work in sneakers.

15 sites targeted city workers and inner city dwellers.

All posters drove to lazysneakers.co.nz