Take a style-conscious guy named ‘Ike.’ Add a red-hot rapper and his hit summer song. Mix in Vine, Instagram, and Twitter, and shake it up to #OwnTheSummer in the first-ever socially curated hip-hop music video turned virtual fashion show.

That was the plan for national urban apparel and footwear retailer Footaction’s summer campaign. The brand knew its target consumer well. An 18-year old African-American male from the city who sets the style trends on the streets. Footaction affectionately refers to him as “Ike.” And while Ike wouldn’t respond to traditional marketing tactics or predictable big-budget advertising campaigns, he would respond to a program that fused together two of his most intense passions: the latest hip-hop hit streaming on his mobile phone and curating the coolest head-to-toe look for every occasion.

“Own the Summer” tapped into Ike’s propensity for creating and sharing content with his peers. The PR driven concept, the first socially curated hip-hop remix video featuring rapper ScHoolboy Q, relied heavily on a strategic mix of media relations outreach to music and urban publications, a social media plan that leveraged talent channels to engage fans, and an organic network of Footaction influencers who drove participation.

The “Own the Summer” program gave Ike an unprecedented platform to engage with the brand. The music video quickly surpassed 1M YouTube views thanks to 140,000 online engagements, and 150 media stories that generated 85.5 million impressions. Most importantly, the summer season was integral to a record-breaking sales year for the Footaction brand.

The goal of “Own the Summer” was to deliver a platform that would spark social sharing and drive consumer engagement in an authentic way. A closer look at our target showed that 60 percent followed between 1-5 brands on social networks, and more than half interacted with entertainers online (Mintel, 2014).

Research also showed that nearly one in five target consumers spent more than 10 hours daily online on mobile. Of those, 80 percent considered themselves social “sharers” and 70 percent labeled themselves social “creators” (Global Web Index, 2014), solidifying our approach to run the campaign exclusively online.

Footaction delivered record-breaking sales in 2014 – including double-digit gains in Q3 – by driving engagement with thousands of “Ikes” to cement itself as the authentic destination for (summer) street style.

The music video alone surpassed 1M YouTube views thanks to nearly 4,000 tweets mentioning “Footaction and ScHoolboy Q” or “Footaction and Own the Summer” in the campaign’s first week. An influencer engagement strategy tapped brand ambassadors as promoters, co-creators and participants, triggering 140,000 online engagements. In all, more than 150 media placements in targeted, vertical outlets like Billboard, VH1, BET, Vibe, Complex, and XXL generated 85.5MM impressions directed at our target audience.

As further testament to the program’s reach and relevance, the campaign captured the attention of SONY Music executives who approached Footaction to partner on a content-driven activation featuring rapper T.I. The result was a video engaging “Ikes” to the tune of 70MM digital impressions and 1.5MM views.

Our program ran precisely to plan. In June, we released a consumer call-to-action featuring ScHoolboy Q asking fans to show off their summer style and be featured in the video remix of “Man of the Year.” Our brand posted behind-the-scenes content to spark the conversation online.

Footaction.com/OwnTheSummer, an interactive hub to host submissions, launched shortly thereafter, and we developed messaging that would come to life in July across Footaction.com, the brand’s owned social platforms and across hundreds of Footaction’s retail locations.

Our ambassadors shared the news via social, and we kicked off a media tour where ScHoolboy Q visited Complex, Slam, XXL, Billboard, Vibe, Fuse and more.

For two weeks, we compiled consumer footage and meticulously edited, produced and released the remix. With placements in top-tier media, a social media push, and support from our ambassadors, we successfully launched the first-ever consumer-curated rap video remix – and owned the summer.

Footaction needed to compete during the summer sales period without the benefit of its competitors’ big-bucket advertising budgets. Their core target also presented challenges – namely, our muse, an 18-year old African-American male from Houston, Texas named “Ike”, did not consume traditional media. Nor did he respond favorably to brands dictating style to him or pushing overtly-branded content at him. A successful campaign needed to tap into influencers that resonated with Ike and do so via content and engagement strategies that empowered him to co-create and feel a part of the experience. Only then, would Ike be inspired.

The program needed a face (and sound) that our consumer would recognize and had a unique style sense. C&W identified rapper – and self-proclaimed style hippie – ScHoolboy Q as the perfect fit.

Our program tapped into his celebrity – and the explosion of user-generated style content shared via social platforms like Vine, Instagram and Twitter – to entice our audience to participate in the first socially-curated remix video. ScHoolboy’s hit “Man of the Year” was our strategically-chosen track, a beloved celebration of summer style.

The engagement and distribution approach was built on an extensive influencer network curated by the PR team. We used those organic brand ambassadors to star in our video, tease the content and later amplify the music video release.

The final pillar of our plan was recognizing those “Ikes” whose style was ultimately showcased to deliver brand credibility and respect while further fueling the social storm.