The Campaign

The idea is from two insights. One is that in statistics, 80% of trying on Wave Rider decide to buy it right away. The other is that people love to receive gifts and love more to receive them with a “surprise”. We got an idea that if a shoe box would be delivered with only the half pair of shoes and the other half would be waiting for the receiver’s visit in the store, who would ignore the chance to get the fine running shoes for free. But to maximize the participation rate, we got one more idea that the recipients were singled out from the brand’s previous running events.

Creative Execution

For one month, we selected 200 people and developed the message and the special box design. And we sent the 200 boxes to each addresses by parcel delivery company during 3~4 days. In the box, we left a message explained the surprising event and how to get the other half pair of shoes. To get it, the recipients should get a photo of the box and upload the photo on their owned SNS with the hashtags of MIZUNO and this guerrilla event title. And on 3rd September, the popup store opened and the recipients visited the store with the box and the shoe and exchanged the new pair of the shoes in the correct sizes. For more audiences’ visiting, we invited a special guest, Kim Yeon Keong, a famous volleyball star playing volleyball in Wave Rider because of the feeling of wearing though they were designed for running.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The 80% of receivers joined this guerrilla event with pleasure and came to the store. During the event, the mention of Mizuno and Waver Rider increased 154% on Facebook and Instagram compared to the previous month. The uploaded posts reached 28,812 followers and got 2,530 likes or hearts. And the posts were very positive mentions about the brand, the shoes, and the event ideas. And the sales on the event store soared 150%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

This work is designed for the core targets to experience the brand gladly not just to learn about it. Because the brand was unfamiliar to the Korean consumers and it didn’t have enough marketing and communication budget to advertise itself by TV commercials, or a large-scale flagship store. With small budget promotion, we had to find the potential consumers, contact them, and make them experience the brand directly and instantly.

The target audience was 20s and 30s people who knew the brand, Mizuno but didn’t know the running shoes, Wave Rider as well. For getting maximum results, we approached this event and the shoes would go viral on SNS channels, Facebook and Instagram with the audiences’ accounts, not the brand’s account. So the 200 receivers was selected from the participants of the brand’s running race, 2016 Mizuno Relay 4 Seoul and actively shared their activities on their owned SNS channels. With a surprising delivery, we could get the 200 young brand ambassadors and free media.