vans campaign extension
ADVT 2550 - Creative Strategies for Advertising
November 2021
For a Creative Strategies for Advertising course, I was tasked with extending a campaign that was currently running from a brand of my choice. We were asked to evaluate the current state of the campaign, create a creative brief, and flesh out the campaign a bit further with our own executions.
Although I’ve recently moved on to shoes with a little more support, I was a big fan of Vans at the time. They had a really interesting campaign going on called “These Projects Are Ads for Creativity”, which I chose to extend for my project, creating two print ads, a webpage redesign, and a social media execution.
All of the research that went into creating my executions is at the bottom if you’re interested in seeing my justifications - just thought these were a little bit more interesting :)
My primary goal for the campaign extension was to make the current campaign more interactive. Vans are well-known for being great, customizable shoes, but the current state of the Creativity campaign didn’t encourage consumers themselves to be creative! I opted to introduce a giveaway for fans who were willing to submit their creatively made custom Vans, offering a free pair of Vans as well as the chance to be featured throughout the campaign. Not only would this create shareable organic content for the brand, but would increase engagement across all social media platforms.
long FORM PRINT AD
SHORT FORM PRINT AD
WEBSITE UPDATE
Since the campaign is ongoing, I felt it was important to give the campaign some real estate on the home page. Clicking through would lead the website viewer to a page to submit their hand painted Vans, as well as provide a list of all of the collaborations that Vans has done with artists and their estates.
social media executions
With the giveaway ongoing and organic content plentiful on its own with the popularity of hand painted custom Vans, Vans will begin resharing organic content onto their Instagram and TikTok.
By reposting content from consumers, more will be encourage to create their own projects that are ads for creativity on behalf of the brand.
Creative brief
Vans has been a long-time leader in the active footwear market, with its roots in 1960's Southern California skate culture. Known for their classic skate shoes, Vans has 340 retail stores in the United States, as well as 22 stores in Mexico and nine in Canada. In 1966, Paul and Jim Van Doren opened a small rubber company that would both create and sell shoes in-house on the same day. By the 1980's, Vans had grown incredibly popular amongst skateboarders and grew in popularity when their classic checkered slip-ons when featured on Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Vans remains an incredibly successful shoe and fashionwear company, maintaining its roots in skateboarding and pop-punk culture.
BACKGROUND
Vans' primary objective with the “These Projects Are Ads for Creativity” campaign is to tap into the artistic nature of the subcultures that Vans represents to remind consumers that it's more than just a shoe, it's part of their sub-culture.
ADVERTISING OBJECTIVE
Vans' main goal is to welcome themselves back into the Millennial and Gen Z market, playing off of Millennial's nostalgic attachment to the brand and Gen Z's affinity for retro fashion. Within this age range, Vans would like to appeal to a broader audience than their typical “skater” consumer, and tap into the sub-cultures that millennials and Gen Zs love — their art and music scenes.
target market
By purchasing Vans shoes, you are taking part in a historical aspect of modern art culture, and carrying on traditions and legacies that other successful artists and musicians have forged before you.
advertising promise
Converse: Brand leader in the skate shoe scene, and seen by consumers as Vans most direct competition. Vans and Converse both take between 11-12% of the sneaker market share amongst men and women, with Converse falling short of Vans by <1%.
Nike: Leader in overall sneakers, with extreme brand recognition amongst all demographics.
Adidas: A large retailer in leather athletic shoes, with extreme brand recognition amongst all demographics.
competitors
Historical: Vans has a long history of being part of the art and punk communities, while other shoes do not have the same artistic cultural roots.
Customizable: Vans are unique in that they are fully customizable, either through their online customization portal or by hand, and this appeals to artistic people looking to put their own unique spin on things.
Nostalgic: Consumers in this demographic likely already have an already formed attachment to the Vans brand, possibly through Vans Warped Tour or from famous films.
Affordable: Being an artist or musician and spending a ton of money on shoes don’t go hand in hand. Vans offer a stylish shoe that appeals to artists and musicians at a reasonable price point.
key consumer insights
Current executions
website
At the time, the home page of the Vans website was not promoting the “These Projects Are Ads for Creativity” campaign, and was instead promoting the “Vans-tastic Holiday Extravaganza” holiday campaign, effectively halting a large amount of promotion towards their overarching campaign.
In January of 2022, the home page returned to the promotion of the Creativity campaign. Given that the campaign was still running, it could have been beneficial to maintain a part of their home page with information about the original campaign by linking to their YouTube, where the majority of the campaign was being run.
Their homepage layout at the time made it difficult for consumers to navigate to the point of purchase, with multiple elements that create a slow-loading page which was tested on multiple different computers and phones at varying levels of internet connection.
Information could be found for the Creativity campaign underneath the “News” section of the website, which is a blog style area of the website. This means that as new information is posted, older information is pushed down. The section of the website where one could find any information about the campaign had been buried underneath sports information, as Vans frequently covers skate and snowboarding news on their website.
video executions
This ad contains a stop motion animation, a very difficult form of art that requires precise photography and drawing skills.
Vans uses this broadcast ad to exhibit to consumers that you have a wide range of artistic options with their shoes, whether you customize them by hand or online with their customization option on the website.
social media executions
Vans utilizes Instagram’s paid advertising feature to promote the Vault by Vans collaboration with Cali Thornhill Dewitt, a visual artist based out of Los Angeles.
Part of the Vans Creativity campaign includes collaborations with several artists, reinforcing that Vans are shoes that artists are interested in creating collaborations with and are an integral part of the art community.
print executions
Although this campaign is primarily digital, a few print executions exist, and this one pairs well with the Creativity campaign. This is another one of many artist collaborations that Vans has done underneath the Creativity campaign, and directly expresses that Vans is both created by artists and created for artists.
