Converse

The Objective

Bringing "All Star" energy to London during Fashion Week, Converse's Creative All Star Series initiative brought together the brand's global collective of creatives, while shining a light on local talent during key cultural moments. Offering London's young people opportunities to gain valuable experience and tangible tools, the Creative All Star Series is rooted in Converse's heritage as the original brand of "All Star Weekend". By giving Converse fans a chance to learn, craft and celebrate the game of basketball using Converse's iconic products as their canvas, the Series solidified Converse's status as a staple of the streets in London and beyond.

For the launch of the Creative All Star Series in London, with a focus on the Converse Pro Leather silhouette, Converse partnered with TikTok to broadcast the offline event to global audiences and get TikTok users involved in the action. The objective was to grow brand affinity among London's young communities, inspiring them to embrace their individuality and strengthen their skills through experience that mobilises creativity, and exchange ideas through a truly integrated campaign, from online to offline.

The Solution

Converse used a multi-layered approach. Central to the campaign was their Branded Hashtag Challenge Plus – #ConverseAllStar – inspiring the TikTok community to use a pair of Converse shoes as their "creative canvas." For the chance to win tickets to the Converse London All Star Creative event, TikTok users were invited to customise their shoes and post a video using the #ConverseAllStar hashtag. Converse kick-started the campaign by working with top UK TikTok Creators including James Lewis (@jamesllewis, 2.1 million followers), SurFace (@surfaceldn, 5.7 million followers), TootyMcNooty (@tootymcnooty, 4 million followers), and Vexx (@vexx, 168,200 followers), driving high user engagement and generating massive reach.

Converse fans submitted thousands of creative entries spanning doodled, embroidered, painted, and even Blu-Tacked sneakers. All of these were housed on a central Challenge page which all other brand assets were directed toward.

As a premium Branded Hashtag Challenge Plus campaign, Converse's campaign utilised a number of assets to boost exposure. An extra Explore tab on the Hashtag Challenge's main page displayed three customised sections to boost brand exposure: a Discover page banner, a product carousel, and a survey about what attendees were most looking forward to at the in-person events. A bespoke music track was also produced to accompany creative entries.

Converse also ran an additional screen-dominating TopView ad to drive to the challenge, as well as In-Feed Ads to drive sign-up clicks to the event. Both used TikTok Creator content to drive users towards the challenge and inspire creativity. Once the 6-day challenge ended, Converse followed up with a set of product-orientated In-Feed Ads linking to its e-commerce pages and demonstrating close-up and on-model shoe imagery in a unique, eye-catching edit of stills, footage and graphic design.

Finally, the Converse Creative All Star Series event, held at London's Hoxton Docks, brought the campaign offline and into the real world. The campaign's outstanding TikTok Creators manned a Creator Customisation Station while live streaming the event to their followers. This was the first partnership to really hero TikTok's creative community with an event integration, showing how TikTok can serve vast digital communities while engaging with smaller, real-world audiences.

The Results

Converse's Branded Hashtag Challenge Plus generated over 24 million total video views, 29.7 million impressions and brought 2,900 fantastic Converse creators together, delivering a total of 16.86 million impressions and 1.8 million clicks to the challenge page over the course of the 6-day campaign. Across all assets, the campaign drove a 9.22% engagement rate, with users aspiring to own a pair of the new Converse Leather Pro shoes in the comments.

A brand lift study revealed the campaign had driven a 75% uplift in brand recall, which can be mostly attributed to the innovative use of product alongside well-known TikTok Creators in the creative, proving the vital importance of using Creators in campaigns.

Max Firth, Converse Western Europe Brand Director, said, "TikTok was a fantastic collaboration partner for the Creative All Star Series in London – bringing energy, originality and creativity to the whole process. From the hashtag challenge in the lead-up to the event through to the creators we worked with and customisation moments onsite, they put our audience at the heart of everything and we were thrilled with the scale of the partnership, as well as the level of creativity from everyone who took part."

This is a shining example of how a digital activation can be carried through to an offline event, using TikTok to pull users, Creators and punchy brand messaging together, turning aspiration into reality for Converse fans. Easy as a walk in the park, right?