CROCS deep dive
For this project, we were tasked with auditing a brand’s social media presence, tracking their online trends, and developing a creative strategy brief based on the data we collected through Tableau. We were told to act as though we were a part of the company, working as a strategist. I chose one of my favorite companies, Crocs.
From its start in 2004, Crocs became a staple for adults and kids alike. They saturated the market for five long years until the comfortable “ugly” clog ran its course as a fashion trend. Once loved, now viscerally hated, the shoe ware that most of us remembered loving, was all but a memory.
In order to survive the near catastrophe, the company expanded their market. Originally, they marketed for sandals, sneakers, winter boots, and eventually, partnering with Balenciaga and even Post Malone to create one of a kind statements.
“Collaborations are important to our brand, but to work, they have to be meaningful. “Our clog serves as a blank canvas that can fuel the latest trends or conversations. This is why we think we’re becoming more relevant in the streetwear space.” – Michelle Poole, Crocs senior VP of global product and marketing
Their brand voice showcases this,
by letting people be who they want to be and express themselves in the way they want. Their slogan “Come As You Are” is a perfect representation of this. They are taking “ugly” back by storm, and that is why I have always loved Crocs.
data findings
We decided to compare Crocs stock closings with some of our main competitors, like Nike and Sketchers. You can see Crocs is pretty far behind these major brands, but that may be because they are top sellers for athletic shoes and Crocs are designed around comfort wear.
Crocs has been on the come-up these past three years. Mainly after our first major marketing campaign, “Come As You Are” which was implemented in 2016. The 2008 economic collapse and the over saturation of our product was the main reason for its decline but we’ve had a steady growth since.
Where Nike and Sketchers had a huge decline in stock closing prices and have a large come-up ahead of them, Crocs is on an even trend. We need to make sure this trend continues in 2020. Our predicted closing prices for next year seem to have a drastic downfall.
How can we prevent this?
increase variety through customization
Even though the predicted outcome for our stocks in 2020 is on the down swing, the percent of interest in our company has never been higher. People are talking, and are searching for Crocs online. We’ve had a steady rise in interest every summer and every December. Crocs are a summer shoe, and Christmas is the ideal time to start up something that will get people talking and buying.
Our Come As You Are campaign that launched in 2016, is one of the main reasons interest levels have spiked. We aim to build upon this idea by creating more variety and customization in shoe ware. With its start of the rebrand in 2016, Crocs has had immediate success. Crocs first downfall in 2008 came when the market was oversaturated with the same type of shoes. If variety does not increase, another downfall in the market could occur soon.
net income on the rise
Our net income is also on the rise along with the amount Crocs spends on marketing. The more we’ve spent, the more net income we generate. Good marketing generates more revenue for the company. Thats where we come in. As members of Crocs marketing team, we have to allocate our spending in an intelligent manner.
We have to have a user centric way of thinking.
What do our users want? And more importantly, what do they need? Or, what do they think they need?
look for the trends
A lot of these answers can be found by examining what customers are searching for in relation to our brand, as well as how they are interacting with our brand.
We believe this idea for customizable shoe wear is something that our buyers have been searching for. There are Etsy shops and diy online stores that are selling their own customized crocs for more than double the price of a regular Crocs shoe.
what are people searching for?
This chart represents the key things most of our users are interested in and are searching for online. A lot of the items are very specific to the user, such as colors or types of Crocs.
Our audience is also invested in our most recent marketing campaign where. Crocs partnered with various celebrities who were able to design their own, limited edition custom shoe. Post Malone and Drew Barrymore being just a couple of the major celebrities to take part in our campaign.
total customization plan
Currently our website has a button where it appears as though a consumer could personalize their shoe, but it leads to the same amount of colors as shown on the main page. Our goal with the implementation of this new plan is to give our customers total customization control.
This specific customization tool will be displayed along with our variety of shoes as a way to “pick the color”. Users can choose their own colors and patterns from a preexisting pool, choose from their peers who have uploaded their work to the website, or upload their own work from their own images (via jpeg or png). They can then choose where to place them on the shoe and buy as is.
social media marketing
Social media marketing will have to play a role in this as well. Currently, our Instagram engagement rate per post is higher than most of our competitors, even Nike who has significantly more followers than our account has. In order to capitalize on this, our plan suggests that we up our conversation rate, build meaningful connections with our audience to heighten our overall engagement, and get our audience ready for new products through our new plan.
Because the basis of this new plan revolves around user generated content, we also want them to have the ability to share their creations. They will have the ability to upload them to our website after they’ve finished, as well as post them on their own social media. This will drive our overall engagement up and bring more traffic to our website.
increase our e-commerce sector
As most of you already know, our wholesale market dominates our other sales channels, wholesale being businesses that buy large quantities of our products and sells them to other businesses. Our lowest revenue is being generated from e-commerce, our products sold solely online.
Our plan aims to reach out to the e-commerce sector and up our revenue by selling users custom products only available on our website.
We will give power back to the buyer. Multiple other shoe companies have integrated this idea of “customization”, but no other brand will have the freedom to do so that Crocs customers will have.
next steps
The development team is already is the process of creating the customization tools for the website. The next steps we, as marketers and designers, should take are to take the rough concepts of the web design and run some A/b tests on members of our target audience.
This will help us achieve feedback on the idea in general as well as save us time in the long run.
Our next step will be to get the word out. before anything is launched, we have to create buzz around it to get people excited. Posting mockups of what kinds of Crocs can be created and running video ads on social media platforms like Youtube and TikTok should reach our target demographic. Utilizing parts of our previous marketing campaign can work as well. Celebrities were able to design and sell their own limited edition Crocs. Now, they can do the same, but instead will use our new customization tools to do so.
don't abandon, adapt
A way we can modify our existing collaboration campaigns with celebrities, is to allow the customer to compete and design shoes for them. Using the new tool on the website, their fans can design custom shoes for their favorite celebrity. The celebrity will choose between the submissions and then that will become their limited edition, custom made Crocs. The winner will receive the pair of the Crocs they’ve designed, as well as the influencer. The hashtag, #XCrocs will be used to locate and track the submitted designs across all social media platforms.
Interaction and engagement is key to a successful marketing campaign. Through this new plan, users will be sharing ideas, interacting with others’ ideas, and competing to win. I’m expecting a higher traffic flow to the website, as users would have to use it to design their Crocs, as well as higher engagement across all social media platforms. Considering only 4% of brands collaborate with influencers across channels, this will set Crocs apart from its other competitors. Crocs will utilize engagement tactics such as liking and retweeting users designs, which will further drive engagement up.
