TIMBERLAND – REVIVING THE ICONIC BOOTS BRAND FOR A GEN-Z AUDIENCE
Timberland needed to recruit a sneaker-loving, Gen-Z audience for whom brown boots were less-and-less relevant. We aimed to change the brand’s appeal to this new audience by bringing them in as key creative participants.
To achieve this, we launched a digital-native sub-brand, Construct:10061. (The name is a nod to the classic yellow boot product code.) This new brand was designed to make the process of inventing and producing new footwear transparent, collaborative and iterative.
Each season, a group of fashion and footwear designers (from Chris Raeburn to Jeff Staple and Peterson & Stoop) were brought together at the Timberland factory in Dominican Republic to hack and rethink the bootmaking process.
As designers worked, we rapidly produced and deployed content to our growing group of followers on Instagram. The goal was audience co-creation; working with them to improve and accelerate the development process. We used data to interrogate which designs resonated with our audience, and to let them help us create the best short run product range.
Over 3 years, Construct:10061 attracted high value press coverage and introduced a new range of boots sold by Timberland worldwide. Snoop Dogg was a fan. 160 different shoe concepts were produced along with 1000+ pieces of content, engaging 26k+ Gen-Z followers.