Freedom of Movement

The objective

Increasing awareness and sales with lifestyle content

Launched out of a small room at Stellenbosch University, Freedom of Movement(FOM) is a proud South African lifestyle brand. The father of the three founding brothers was the source of inspiration for the brand's name. His parental motto of "hard work and discipline earns you the freedom to make your own decisions" imprinted on the siblings and their business idea.

Providing companions rather than just products, FOM started with leather-based briefcases and adventure backpacks that would not only be practical but also last for a lifetime. Since its start in 2013, the brand has branched out into a variety of clothing and accessories with “Stay free and keep moving” as its vision.

To increase brand awareness and reach new buyers, the makers behind @fombrand decided to run a campaign targeting South African young adults, both male and female, on TikTok. The campaign would promote the autumn/winter collection with cost per mille, impressions, and cost per video view as measures of success.

The solution

Using Spark Ads to create advertising that doesn’t feel like selling

In the past, the business realised that showcasing its items through lifestyle content worked better than mere product shots. This insight let them to choose Spark Ads as they allow advertisers to create ads from organic TikTok videos while maintaining their native feel and authenticity.

Learning from their own growth and from trends on the platform, FOM produced content with different models to increase appeal and relatability. The ads showed how to wear the looks both inside and outside, in the brand’s natural habitat – the wilderness.

Johannesburg-based agency Digidorx supported the campaign execution, budgeted at a small amount. Rather than running ads optimised for conversion only – as they did in the past –  this time FOM added awareness into the mix and the learnings, as well as results, were dressed in success.

The results

Diminishing costs while magnifying views

User engagement statistics from previous conversion campaigns allowed the young lifestyle brand to build effective awareness ads into the mix. And effective they were.

At an almost negligible R0.004, the cost per video view was lower than on any other platform. A whopping 1.4 Million impressions put FOM in front of some new eyeballs and generated sales at a cost per mille of R6.30.

Since October 2023, Freedom of Movement have increased their store footprint by 64% and they keep utilising TikTok for new products and end-of-season sales, having moved budget from other platforms to support their TikTok campaigns.

According to the team, they had two major takeaways. The first one is that increasing awareness creates more sales in the long run – a testament to the right combination of brand and performance marketing. The second is that due to the success, FOM has increased its budget on TikTok. Again, solid proof that fashion works hand in (leather) glove with TikTok.

Our AW23 campaign on TikTok leveraged the platforms' high engagement rate through the use of relatable lifestyle content, targeted at an aspirational audience. We saw great success with the campaign, maximising the lifespan of curated video content featuring models on location in our latest collection, that can often become fatigued very quickly on other platforms.

Lee Kleynhans, Head of E-Commerce

Freedom Of Movement