3. The Setup
• Famous Footwear had a fantastic tagline “Victory
is Yours” & some great TV spots
• Looking for video that told the Famous Footwear
story independent of a specific shoe brand
• The content had to create an authentic emotional
connection with viewers
• Initial release and promotion timed with the lead
up to mother’s day
4. The Execution
Content Creation
• Famous Footwear crowdsourced
submissions from 18 filmmakers from
all over the country - from West
Chester, PA to Los Angeles, CA.
• They were asked to draw on their
diverse backgrounds and social
networks to tell stories from their
lives.
Performance
• Zero negative sentiment in the
week leading up to Mother’s Day
• Mom focused Pinterest board
featuring quotes from the spot
increased followers +2100
• 224,400 total views on YouTube
(most viewed in the channel)
• “Nurture” email sent to the
database, not expecting any
sales, ended up generating $20k
6. The Insights
• Have a plan
• “Make sure to know HOW you want to use your video and what resources
you’ll put behind it. Otherwise, you could end up with a great video and
not know what to do with it. Have a strategy for creating the video.”
– Amy Rose, Director, Integrated Media @ Famous Footwear
• Offer something back to your audience
• Social Capital
• Cultural Touchstones
• Emotional Content
• Relatable, Authentic Stories
• Ask your customers to help tell your story
Editor's Notes
This question is my proxy for “Do you love your mother?”
TV spots sold shoes, they wanted a video to sell FF.The key line from the brief that we feel sums up the success of the assignment is "We'll use the video to create an emotional connection with new and existing customers…". That type of thinking, a focus on why viewers would have any interest in your video beyond the standard punchline or over-the-top shock of "viral videos" is an honest-to-goodness intelligent way to make engageable content (two super-hyphenated words in one sentence, win!). The heartwarming emotional trigger associated with our moms paired with the social trigger associated with the timing of the video (right around mother's day) set your project up for success before the project even started.
The method of crowdsourcing as a way to tap into a pool of real, authentic cast, crew, and creative. The basic strategy was a solid one, but we feel that what really enabled the final creative to shine was the fact that the creative problem was given to a diverse group of filmmakers (from Athens, OH to West Chester, PA and of course, Los Angeles). The fact that with each of those filmmakers you get a separate set of life experiences, skillsets, and social networks for casting gives you a better chance at getting either one thing that works very well or a number of spots that speak to specific marketing niches.
Play video “A Letter to Mom” 1:04 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJH4NZ8joSw)
It’s important to have a holistic view of what success looks like before you start laying out any strategies. Here we started with an understanding of wanting to generate a meaningful emotional reaction around the idea of mom’s. This allowed us to strategize around a cultural touchstone in the form of Mother’s Day, the social capital gained by recognizing your mom or wife (“what a good son, daughter, hubby, etc.), and emotional trigger (nostalgic and heartwarming attachment to mom)A simplified version of Jonah Berger’s STEPPS (Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories)No one knows why your brand is meaningful to your customers better than your customers.
