Summer just started, so Crocs, the maker of lightweight sandals and other beach-friendly footwear, is gearing up for its big sales season with an interesting Twitter push today.
Working with agency McKinney, the brand has partnered with Twitter to create a feature that will let consumers pick a pair of shoes and some clothes—everything from sundresses and seersucker suits to hotdog-themed costumes—for a fashion model of their choice to wear while going down a waterslide. There are 135 pre-shot videos that include up to 45 different combinations of Crocs and clothing. Also, viewers can pick from two female and one male models in a Twitter-dedicated effort—the whole experience will live on the microblogging platform—called Funway Runway.
"It's definitely something new and innovative for our brand," Terence Reilly, vp of global marketing at Crocs, told Adweek. "It's a cross section of fashion, fun and footwear."
And it involves a healthy dose of both paid and earned social media. The Niwot, Colo.-based brand will be running Twitter's Promoted Trend, an exclusive national ad placement that costs around $200,000 a day, on Tuesday with copy incorporating the #FindYourFun hashtag.
"We will also have three weeks of Promoted Tweets to continuously support the effort," said Swapnil Patel, McKinney's director of media. "We recognize that we no longer live in an 'if you build it, they will come' world."
In addition to the paid social, Patel said, Crocs will be featured on SheKnows and Bustle with homepage takeover ads that will push the brand's spring/summer product line to those websites' female audiences.
Meanwhile, Croc's #FindYourFun app on Twitter underscores the platform's full-speed-ahead mindset with video nowadays, while highlighting how the San Francisco-based tech company appears to be working more closely with marketers than ever.
"Dynamic custom videos combined with a timely and fun call to action is a great example of a brand knowing how to engage their target audience in a creative, innovative way," said Chris Riedy, Twitter's director of retail sales.
Last week, Riedy's team unleashed its autoplay video ads as well as product pages that should appeal to retailers.
For Crocs, the social-media-happy play marks a continuation of a brand refresh that began a few months ago with the #FindYourFun hashtag. Like such recent efforts, today's Funway Runway stint will be global—the promotion will be seen in the U.S., U.K., South Korea, Japan, China and Germany. Once again, the entire appeal will live on Twitter, where the campaign's creators hope to see videos shared in great numbers.
Those who catch one of the clips could see "water ballerinas," said Patel. "You get to send models down a waterslide in really fun outfits rockin' Crocs—who wouldn't want to do that?"
