Our Approach
We realised that a campaign to educate new parents and champion the importance of properly fitted children’s shoes would be the perfect way to establish Start-rite as the information source of choice. During the pitch preperation we unearthed that half the children born in the UK will develop foot problems in later life, simply because they wear ill-fitting shoes as children.
Our concept of Start-rite as the sponsor and supporter of a campaign was a subtle twist on the original brief to develop a web site that new parents will automatically turn to when they are ready – or think they are ready – to buy their children’s first fitted shoes. Essentially, we repositioned the brief so that it became a campaign to champion properly-fitting children’s shoes, as opposed to trying to get people to buy their child’s first shoes from Start-rite.
We researched the behaviour of the target audience and its media usage, we also felt that there was overwhelming potential to develop a campaign-based site, to drive mums to it as the first and most comprehensive port of call for the well-being of their children’s feet. Research quickly revealed the potential of marketing to such a dynamic, proactive, information-hungry audience – and the channels that could be exploited most effectively to reach them: ECRM mailers, parenting websites, Search, Paid Placement Advertising, On and Offline PR and – perhaps most important of all in this sector – Viral and Social Marketing.
Another important element to our approach is the presence of podiatrist Emma Supple, the well-known foot expert, who provides advice and explains the problems that can arise from ill-fitting children’s shoes.
Creativity and Design
The result – the Healthy Little Feet campaign – is a multi-channel strategy that aims to reach and inspire parents to make the right choices for their children’s first shoes, becoming the primary knowledge resource at this crucial stage of foot development and beyond, with the development of brand loyalty a more subliminal long term goal.
Parents are encouraged to register to show their support for the campaign and receive the latest information on children’s foot health while gaining access to use the easy-to-use 5 step Ready For Shoes checker.
With such a high quantity of existing mum targeted brands and campaigns it was always going to be a creative challenge to create a consistent multi channel digital offering that both visually engaged whilst meeting the target demographic of new mums and delivered them a serious information based message.
Our strength was the ability to service the complete campaign. We built everything from scratch, from the generation of the design to the photography on the site. These are not images licensed from the stock of some faceless American picture library – they were commissioned specifically for the campaign and they really add to the sense of freshness and the reality of the campaign’s serious message.
