The Campaign

The protagonist in “Boys”, questioned the meaning of examinations, left the exam room. After imaging different possibilities of his life positioning in different social spectrums, he learned that life is a natural exam room. Eventually, he went back to his classroom and chose to face up to the unavoidable test of youth in earnest. Meanwhile, it leads to our brand proposition: “the examination room of youth lies in everywhere you want to flee.” “Girls” tells a story in which the heroine saved a young patient of self-harm, an analogy to the painful experience in the grown-up of the young and relates to the perseverance and independence the young should have. It has unique and profound conception with intense technique of expression, as the brand proposition advocates in the end: “my youth, living my life is not for others.”

Creative Execution

In this project, we had the honor to co-operate with the top-class Director in Asia Pacific and produced two great videos. In Boys Version, a double was used with to present the scene of self-reviewing. We selected different passages from various places as shooting scenes to demonstrate different possible life situations. In Girls Version, we convinced the conservative client to try a more vivid way to present our theme of ‘The Trueth of Youth’ – to have some scenarios like blood, suicide etc. which other brand videos can hardly make it happen. This three-day shooting video took almost two months for the pre-production.

1. After the brand keywords “We are who we are -this is our natural color” were adopted, there are as many as 13 million search entries. (Data from Baidu Searching Engine) 2. Over 3 million views are observed in TVC series (data from such video platforms as QQlive and youku). 3. This fresh slogan “the shade of my color deep down” are voluntarily memorized, mentioned and quoted by consumers. 4. This case leads to heated discussions about New Balance among consumers and people in the industry, not only creativity in advertising, a clear and distinguished New Balance brand with fresh characters. 5. On social media networks, it leads to an explosion of phenomenal discussions and interpretations related to “real youth” and mega transmission of socialized topics. 6. The case leads to significant increase of New Balance 574 sales by transferring brand promotion into sales.

Be based on parent brands and extend product line. We created characters for our brand New Balance for the first time: rarely active middle class who love to think and to feel—the backbone in our society who are silent but will not be overlooked and the majority who are moving forward steadily—distinguishing itself from other brands in sports footwear. New Balance 574 series, a youth-oriented series products, naturally satiates the vacuum for “the youth of middle class” and gives rise to the slogan “the shade of my color deep down” this year. TVC series, telling the fable of youth. In this case, TVC series “Boys” and “Girls” jump out of the traditional “candy-style or cardio-tonic” pattern of youth advertisement but rather express the true teachings of youth using artistic stories.