CONVERSE

PRODUCT AS THE STORY

HEROING PRODUCTS THROUGH HIGHLY-TACTILE SPACES THAT FOCUS THE INTEGRATED MESSAGE IN AN EXPERIENCE.

A brand that is a reflection of the communities they serve, is a brand that needs to embrace constant change while staying true to the DNA. That relationship and dialogue is the ongoing invitation to collaborate on a collective future vision. Converse has been the ubiquitous platform for popular culture, and more importantly a catalyst for individual self-expression. The brand completely believes in the importance of this connection, regardless of whether we’re trail blazing thought leaders or part of the masses trying to find our voice. How these aspirational and intimate ideas are visualized are as varied as the people who believe in them. To meet that spirit of self-expression and showcase the endless range of ways a person can embody the truest version of themselves, the Big-Giant brand team guides each global initiative’s expression to align with the narrative of the season, as well as provide a logical stepping stone to the brand’s ultimate long-term vision.

Each season, our teams collaborate to strategically breakdown the narrative, message and specific vibes, envisioning content that will be fully aligned to meet the wide range of integrated marketing needs while delivering on the initiatives core product benefit message. As a key aspect of staying true to the Converse mission of providing that platform for self-expression, a key component is allowing the individuals from the brand’s communities and their own inspiring user generated content to directly play a role in defining the direction. It’s a process that requires the assimilation of an extremely varied set of influences and the discipline to stay honest about what we can or should bring into the creative mix. A truly inclusive vision allows the communities we’re serving to see their current and future self within the content—that trust is critical to achieving meaningful content that fuels both connection and evolution.

The team is also often tasked with bringing the product team’s vision to life and capturing either the spirit of their creative intent, the technical aspects of the product or simply documenting to give the consumers the best understanding of the product so the consumers actual product experience is one that validates the messages of the communication.

While a brand is more than any one touchpoint, this wide range of content, while different in function, works collectively to validate the bond between a community and the brands they love. That consistent reinforcement is proof that the brand is who they say they are.

Our goal is to be both creative partners in crafting that short and longterm journey through process of content creation, as well as caretakers of the consumer relationship through consistent content that intentionally speaks to the intended communities, truly delivering on the brand’s promise.

ENVIRONMENTS

Immersive experiences that can become an extension of the product story while also feeling of the brand’s DNA provides the drama and storytelling that can help consumers see themselves as a part of the product’s story and ultimately create deeper emotional connection to the brand.

MOUNTAIN CLUB

Extending the Brand’s Reach

Taking the Converse brand into new spaces like outdoor, the Mountain Club product provided consumers with a fresh look at how a ubiquitous silhouette could be transformed to take them to new places by delivering both iconic style and utilitarian function. Take sophisticated utility would be brought to life through simple, humble materials that could be as artful as they were functional and a sensibility that clearly spoke to practical performance.

Soho, NYC

Shop in Shop Utility

A universal structure using a refined approach to humble materials provided an ongoing platform for storytelling within the brand language as well as delivering an easily recyclable structure.

DISPLAY

ARTFUL UTILITY

Simple forms keep the focus on the product while allowing for flexibility and artful storytelling.

PROCESS

Capturing the full spirit of a product story requires an amplification of the core aspects of the product. When we commit to the purity of the story and then build in layers of experience, we allow each consumer to build a connection at a level that suites their interest.

MILEY

Capturing an attitude

The multi-season product collaboration between Converse and Miley Cyrus was all about a sensibility and bringing her unmistakeable tone into the environment and digital touch points through the tactile elements as well as building in immersive experiences that created even more connection to the personality.

SOHO

3D Ideation

Working through the various potential configurations and

SOHO

Sensory Engagement

The Miley spaces leveraged a variety of textures and materials that naturally amplified the environment and created unique opportunities to engage with the initiative story.

SOHO

Sensory Engagement

The Miley spaces leveraged a variety of textures and materials that naturally amplified the environment and created unique opportunities to engage with the initiative story.

DESIGN

Extending a product story while staying true to the brand can supply the foundation for interesting and unexpected mash ups of worlds.

NBA

Modern Heritage Stories

The Converse team developed a line of Chuck Taylor All Stars that told the story of the iconic relationship between Converse and the NBA, while also putting a contemporary filter on the team-driven product by utilizing upcycled jerseys to uniquely elevate the connection. Our team developed a system for delivering the authentic basketball lifestyle story while maintaining the overarching connection to the brand within retail environments through materials and sensibilities.

INITIATIVE ZONE

Universal References

Reimagining the world of classic basketball visuals with interpretations of classic basketball bannering and court lines juxtaposed against street stylings of wild posting and city materials.

DIRECTIVE

Aligning creative to deliver globally unified and strategically scalable experiences requires clearly defined guidelines and the right amount of examples that helps a variety of geographies with a wide range of marketing needs achieve the right level of communication. Delivering a consistent message to consumers across all platforms is a critical foundation for brand building in an increasingly connected world of product marketing.

PRIDE

Including Voices

The annual pride product and brand initiative that has become a staple of the Converse platform of self-expression and inclusivity is a deep storytelling opportunity that connected a product with a personal story. The expressions of the person and the product were celebrated as both individual and group stories creating opportunities to leverage the many brand channels to ensure the message of inclusivity was delivered clearly and with meaning through expressive artful moments that invite consumers to celebrate or join the community.

DIGITAL

Defining clear systems to ensure the product is heroed in service of the larger message across extreme variation in formatting.

SOCIAL

Deeper storytelling opportunities with a wide content ecosystem require more complex guidelines that can maintain ongoing simplicity of message and visual consistency for consumers building great momentum for the overall initiative.

RETAIL

Highly unique environments coupled with fixed conditions require a deeply thought out mix of systemization for the user journey and modular flexibility to allow retail teams to respond to the widely different retail conditions.

CELEBRATING THE STORY

The final experience is a culmination of many individual stories brought to life through a focused presentation that allows for high level of flexibility to maximize the storytelling impact and deliver on the bigger message of community building.

EXECUTION

The final step in ensuring consistency of presentation requires that our partners who are fabricating or developing the final product have the key information needed to then apply their expertise. While we have a vision, we want to leverage the technical knowledge and experience of expert partners to deliver the best final product possible through a truly collaborative effort.

GOLF LE FLEUR

Playful Craft

The ongoing collaboration with Tyler the Creator has provided a constant challenge to capture the playful and approachable spirit of the Golf brand while providing experiences that also embody the highly curated aspects of the brand. That mix of LoFi and HiFi created a tricky mix of expectations for our team to find a balance of creative vision and detailed information to allow the fabricator to understand our vision and allow them to utilize their expert skillset to collectively bring the initiative to life.