Dive Brief:

• Direct-to-consumer footwear brand Allbirds has launched “Meet Your Shoes,” an integrated campaign to promote the brand’s original Wool Runners, which are made from ZQ-certified merino wool, and Tree Runners, made from FSC-certified eucalyptus trees, according to The Drum. The campaign invites people to explore the source of their shoes.
• The campaign, created by Anomaly Los Angeles, includes MeetYourShoes.net, an interactive experience giving consumers a product code that connects them to a live feed of a unique sheep or tree in their natural habitats. The site also offers other interactive ways for consumers to get to know their shoes. 
• “Meet Your Shoes” includes several humorous videos directed by Smuggler’s Björn Rühmann, featuring characters who feel compelled to meet their shoes’ source. In one video titled “Wool,” a man at a barbershop stares at his wool shoes and then gets up in the middle of his haircut and walks out the door and through the neighborhood, gets on a plane and arrives at a field with a single sheared sheep. During the trek, a voiceover says, “We think it’s a bad idea, but yeah, technically, you could meet your shoes.” The campaign is running across digital video, cinema, streaming audio, social and outdoor media.

Dive Insight:

Trendy Allbirds brand is ramping up its marketing as the direct-to-consumer online business continues its expansion into physical retail. Using humor to highlight Allbirds' use of natural and recycled materials while highlighting consumers’ ability to go to the source of their shoes, could resonate with millennial and Gen Z consumers, who care about how their products are sourced and are an important target audience for many DTC brands. More than half of teens, age 16-19, say they have deliberately purchased from or stopped using a brand because of its ethics, and 85% think brands should minimize their environmental impact, recent MediaCom research revealed. 

The interactive website offering shoe owners a glimpse at the sheep or tree that may have been the source of their footwear could help Allbirds deepen its connection with consumers and heighten brand awareness. Younger consumers enjoy interacting with brands in unique ways and sharing those experiences on social media, which could attract more attention for Allbirds. 

Direct-to-consumer brands like Allbirds have been disrupting the market with their ability to create consumer relationships and serve their evolving needs, with some outpacing brands that have dominated the U.S. economy for generations. Some, like Allbirds, are also expanding beyond their online roots as they grow. In September, Allbirds opened its first flagship store in New York City that features a revamped retail strategy, and reopened its San Francisco store around the same concept. Allbirds is planning to open eight stores in the U.S. over the next year.