Dive Brief:
- Foot Locker today launched “Step Into Your Gift,” a 360-degree holiday marketing campaign designed to highlight its commitment to sneaker culture and basketball, per a company press release emailed to Retail Dive.
- New spots feature NBA stars Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball, and Grammy-nominated artist Coi Leray. Ads showcase such exclusive new styles as the Nike Zoom Vomero 5, Jordan 4 RM, Adidas Originals Samba OG, Adidas Anthony Edwards 1 Low, New Balance 9060, Puma MB.04 and Ugg Neumel Weather Hybrid.
- The campaign can be viewed through paid media, e-commerce, digital out-of-home advertising, in-store displays, and social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Additional activations will take place in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, per the company.
Dive Insight:
Foot Locker is coming off a Q2 that saw sales return to growth for the first time in over a year as the retailer continued its cost-cutting measures.
The holiday campaign continues Foot Locker’s reimagined branding and store refresh that focuses on basketball and street culture. A November 2023 campaign that heavily promoted sneakers and the NBA laid the foundation for 2024.
The latest campaign also places an emphasis on Foot Locker’s women’s business, which has become the brand’s fastest-growing segment, according to Kim Waldmann, Foot Locker’s chief customer officer.
“We’ve made greater investments across our entire omnichannel experience this year, including our website. As we create specific homepages and collections, we consistently incorporate women's into the overall shopping journey and highlight our vast product assortment throughout our site during key campaign moments,” Waldmann said in an email. “We’ve also shifted our marketing strategy to prioritize women-centric campaigns, highlighting women athletes and influencers who resonate with our core customer. Our commitment to expanding sneaker culture drives us to bring more customers into the category, including women.”
Waldmann added that the retailer has added more collaborations with its brand partners in order to grow its women’s sneaker selection and expand its category offerings across basketball, lifestyle running and performance running.
Foot Locker’s DNA revolves around sneaker culture, Waldmann said, adding that its marketing focus is not only geared toward athletes, but also around younger consumers who prioritize a lifestyle that encompasses sports, music and fashion.
The campaign also comes as Foot Locker undergoes operational changes. Under CEO Mary Dillon Foot Locker is in the middle of a major facelift that includes up to 400 store closures over the next two years and the relocation in late 2025 of its headquarters from New York City to St. Petersburg, Florida. Foot Locker in the spring debuted a new store format in Wayne, New Jersey, and expects to have two-thirds of its total chain refreshed by the middle of 2025.
