At Sperry, we see a cycle in our beloved waters that we can’t ignore. Eight million tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. And by 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.
As a brand that’s anchored by the power and beauty of the sea, we couldn’t sit back and do nothing. That’s why, in March 2019, we drew on founder Paul Sperry’s innovative spirit and launched “Look Good. Do Good.” -- a mission to sustain the waters that stretch the globe and connect us all.
The campaign’s first step toward change is Sperry BIONIC(R), a collection of our best-loved boat shoe and sneaker silhouettes made with BIONIC material, which is spun out of plastic recovered from marine and coastal environments.
Our goals:
To build awareness around the ocean plastics epidemic;
To share sustainable solutions to protect the future of our global waters;
To engage our consumers and partners to create change together;
And of course, to launch a collection of eco-conscious footwear that we believe can be part of the solution.
Launch a multi-channel marketing program (paid, owned, earned) to activate our core audience and introduce a completely new eco-conscious customer to the brand through our BIONIC product and our sustainability mission.
Sperry’s entry into sustainability demanded powerful and consistent storytelling across touchpoints. We determined our greatest window of opportunity to be World Water Day through Earth Day (March 22nd, 2019 - April 22, 2019), and stood behind our message for this entire length of time. Even our profile photos were updated to feature a special recycling-inspired logo!
To disseminate our message, we focused our resources around three key social communities -- Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat -- and drove to a dedicated landing page on sperry.com. In addition to our owned brand channels, we also activated a select group of sustainability influencers to help us establish credibility within this global conversation.
KEY INITIATIVES:
Instagram Takeover: Instagram served as our primary vehicle to engage and educate our core audience, with dedicated storytelling leading up to World Water Day and lasting through Earth Day. The content we shared sought to spark conversation, which we accomplished through a mix of graphic “fact” videos featuring data about the ocean plastics problem; “pledge” tiles, which provided actionable tips for reducing single-use plastic; and product content to introduce our new collection of shoes made from ocean plastic.
Video: To bring our mission to life, we created a 60-second animated video (title: “Sea to Shoe”), which we distributed across Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. :30, :20, and :10-second versions were created based on individual channel requirements. Sea creatures from the video were then used to create Stickers for Instagram Stories.
Instagram/Facebook Ads: We built out dedicated segments on Facebook and Instagram to get in front of people who are passionate about sustainability and ocean health. We introduced this new audience to the brand through video content (see “Sea to Shoe” above) as well as a mix of photo, video, and cinemagraphs inspired by water.
Snapchat Ads: In addition to running our “Sea to Shoe” video in between Discovery and Story content, we released a branded filter on Earth Day to provide Snapchat users with a fun, ocean-themed overlay to enhance their Earth Day-related Snaps.
GIPHY Stickers & GIFS: We launched 11 Stickers and 5 GIFS on GIPHY, providing a fun way to insert Sperry creative into existing conversations on Instagram Stories and Snapchat. All Stickers and GIFS are tagged with eco-fashion and sustainability-related keywords to drive discovery. GIFS, specifically, showcased our partnership with musical artist Josie Dunne, who we teamed up with on a special version of our BIONIC sneaker.
Influencer: We partnered with 11 sustainability influencers with a connection to ocean health to drive awareness around the Sperry BIONIC collection, while validating our position as an eco-conscious brand. Influencers were asked to share key facts from our campaign creative as well as tips for reducing single-use plastic with their audiences. Partners included Nat Geo photographer Andy Mann, pro surfer Mikey DeTemple, and Brazilian eco-blogger Valeria Hinojosa.
Leaning into key consumer moments -- World Water Day and Earth Day -- made our sustainability message and product launch relevant and impactful. Through our Look Good. Do Good. platform, Sperry has helped to repurpose half a million -- or four tons -- of plastic water bottles collected from marine and coastal environments. That’s half a million plastic water bottles that won’t end up in our waters. And we’re just getting started.
KEY CAMPAIGN RESULTS
Removed 500,000 plastic water bottles from marine and coastal environments -- exceeding our goal of 125,000.
Compared to our competitor set, we drove a 14% lift in consumer perception that Sperry “supports causes I care about” compared to the prior season.
2X higher engagement rate from our influencer activation compared to internal benchmarks by partnering with talent who could authentically relate to the campaign.
700% higher share rate of our Snapchat filter than industry benchmark -- 7% vs. 1%.
We saw the highest M/M increase in social followers in a one year period -- 21K across Facebook and Instagram.
79% of purchases driven by brand communication included at least one BIONIC style -- a nearly seamless marriage of product and purpose.
Raw Numbers - Social Performance
42MM social impressions
956K social video views
85K social engagements
255K filter shares (Snapchat)
