For its 40th anniversary, shoe brand Biti's created a video asset that distilled 40 years of Vietnamese progress into a 1.6-second video that featured 40 artists telling 40 unique stories.
Objective
Biti's wanted to turn its 40-year anniversary into something that Vietnamese consumers could also celebrate and take pride in.
Context
Vietnam has changed over the course of 40 years — from rising from war and global embargo to now being an open nation. To make a deeper connection with younger consumers, Biti's wanted to illustrate this collective progress.
Target Audience
Biti's target audience for this campaign were its loyal customers, employees, and the young generation who have an affinity for Biti's due to previous national pride campaigns.
Creative and Media Strategy
The campaign took an integrated marketing communication approach leveraging social influencers, artists, mobile, and video to deploy a 1.6-second video asset.
Biti's launch of "A Step Forward" aimed to provide an illustration of 40 years of progress and the future of the country, all drilled down to a 1.6-second video. This length was chosen because it matched the waning attention span of the campaign's target audience and signified the time it takes to take a physical step forward. The campaign leveraged:
Every artist was given complete freedom to express their personal point of view on the assigned topic of progress, with the only exception being to integrate the campaign's featured shoe in the exact pre-established position into the content. Each creation had to work on multiple platforms: video, display, and an installation in the form of a physical multimedia exhibition.
The use of different styles and mediums gave the series a very fresh and surprising look and feel. What's more, the multimedia exhibition allowed people to get closer to the artists and their creations, experiencing the surprising storytelling presented by the brand.
The 1.6-second mobile video triggered curiosity and buzz and tracked with the audiences' short attention span. Biti's also created a microsite that featured an online exhibition, optimized for mobile, in which people could experience all the immersive content, understand the background of each story, and engage with tailored animated videos and social content for each artist.
With zero media investment, campaign communication was organically spread out by the program's artists and spontaneously amplified by more than 60 key opinion leaders (KOLs) and communities igniting real thought-provoking conversations. Campaign results included:
What's more, A Step Forward elevated Biti's brand recall and consideration by 40 percent, resulting in a 42 percent increase in website and store traffic and a 30 percent boost in sales. This was achieved despite a 30 percent decline in the Vietnamese retail industry during the same period.
