Make a Bold Move
Timberland
Built for the Bold.Approach
The Built for the Bold brand campaign was always part of a system. Before our strategists had Googled “Yellow Boot” for the first time, we planned — hand-in-hand with Timberland’s top-tier in-house marketing team — a multi-phased approach that would sustain excitement and engagement with their consumers, old and potential. The brand campaign would come first, to introduce our bold voice and visual center. The product campaign next, as a proof of concept for the new brand direction.
Challenge
With a massive social and OOH push for the brand campaign in full swing, how and when do we refocus the narrative around the products, not the brand? How do we maintain the momentum built in the lofty, Platonic world of the brand, while making the (direct-injected) rubber meet the road by sharpening our ask in a product campaign? Now, how do we do all that in our own studio? The apparent answer: capably. The “Make a Bold Move” product campaign reestablished Timberland’s pithy voice and brought new life and meaning to our iconic tone.
Solution
We connected product and brand by isolating moments from our anthem film — the creative focal point of the Built for the Bold campaign — and zooming in to tell product-centric stories. In the film, we see a young man swinging in a hammock hung in a park. How’d he get there? Which boot enabled the moment? We told these product stories through stills, 6- and 15-second films, and product heroes produced in our third-floor studio in downtown Portland, Oregon. We paired these moments with headlines worthy of Timberland’s heritage voice, clarifying while adding character and depth to the story.
We set the standard for how Timberland will execute product campaigns for years to come. Together, we’re furthering their reputation for giving products context, meaning and utility with a bold voice and unforgettable visual storytelling.
As the name implies, industrial design is a part of our DNA. We take pride in rolling up our sleeves and figuring it out. That’s what our clients have come to expect from us — unexpected solutions that maximize intrigue and take their brands to a deeper level of storytelling. DIY, but make it premium.
Here’s an example of how we created each product story — including 15 second films and product superiority stills — by isolating moments from the Built for the Bold anthem film. In the film, we see London-based musician Arlo Parks spill cereal all over her GreenStride™ Cortina Valley boots, interrupting her songwriting. From that scene, we created a 15 second film that adds greater context to the moment, detailing Arlo’s fit, studio, work habits and ultimately, the spill itself. Clicking down even further, we created a set and art direction that captured the same product story on a white background without a model and paired it with a killer line.
A behind-the-scenes look at our third-floor studio and the process that brought to life our product shot for Timberland’s GreenStride™ Tree Vault 6-inch Waterproof Boot.
Never satisfied with a simple product laydown, we got clever with how to show off the benefits of the Mountain Town Insulated Jacket. We expressed its added warmth and durability with an out-of-season garden scene, transforming the jacket into a scarecrow and paying the whole thing off with a quippy line.
And here’s how we expressed its waterproof capabilities — through a deluge and good copy.
We kept things a little more grounded to express the same waterproof benefit for the GreenStride™ TBL® Originals Ultra Waterproof Boot.
As a nod to Timberland’s long history of bold copy, we revived the line “For Those Who Can’t Yet Walk on Water” from an old Timberland product campaign and recontextualized it to work with the new Built for the Bold Brand Voice.
