CASE STUDY: How Crocs is leveraging an innovative app to reinforce its kids business

Background

Crocs has been well known for its iconic product, the clog, since its inception in 2002. Based on the shape of the fun, colorful shoe, the company created a character named “Crocs Little” to educate customers about the comfortable CrosliteTM material found in every Crocs shoes. Crocs Little was also born to be a friend to some of our most important customers: kids.

The kids business (especially among preschoolers) has always been a great contributor to the brand with lots of potential to grow. Today, kids are very savvy at using mobile device, which has led Crocs to reach out their young audience with an innovative interactive story-game iPad app named “The Adventures of Crocs Little”. Crocs selects Deep Focus /FlipScript as the agency for this innovative project. “Deep Focus/FlipScript has strong proven track of success in app production and promotion in not only China but also other international markets. With their expertise, we believe that they will bring this app to life in an amazing way”, said Angela Li, Regional Digital Marketing Manager at Crocs Asia.

Objectives

“The app itself shares the same mission as the brand: to bring profound comfort, fun, color and innovation to the world’s feet“, said Angela Li. “We wanted to create something that features our character “Crocs Little” which would be interesting enough to keep our youngest consumers coming back to the brand again and again for many years to come. Meanwhile, we hope to win the support of the parents along the way by providing them with a fun, kid-friendly product that will help to foster more trust in the brand itself.”

Strategy

“We believe this app offers a great mix of pre-school educational skills as well as a fun, friendly game experience which distinguishes us from other kids apps in the market.” said Angela Li. “We have also tried to weave the brand experience into the overall creative design and content development but in a friendly and subtle way”.

The app has various game levels built in each story for kids to accomplish by helping “Crocs Little” with each designated task. For every level they accomplish, kids will be rewarded with a “Jibbitz” badge –

named after a Crocs sub-brand for accessories, the most famous of which is the charms to wear with clogs. Once all “Jibbitz” badges are collected, the users can activate discount coupons to be redeemed at either Crocs web or retail stores. We hope that this will encourage consumers to try the brand.

To keep interest levels high, a total of 10 stories are planned so that every few months, the app will be updated with more adventure stories of Crocs Little. “We have also developed a secret game which requires a Crocs Little figurine to play. Players will need to pick up the character at a Crocs store, thus driving more people to our point of sales,” said Angela Li.

“In terms of how we are marketing this app, we are focusing on parents as are target audience for communication, seeking to win their hearts by showing we understand their challenges and what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. We want to position ourselves as a kids-friendly brand and Crocs Little is the buddy that kids can grow up together with.”

Execution

The first 3 markets to roll out this app are China, Hong Kong and South Korea and it is planned to expand to other English speaking countries in Asia in 2014. The brand’s regional digital team based in Hong Kong is supporting local activation to drive the awareness and promote downloads throughout the region.

Digital/social sits at the core of the entire activation ecosystem for China with weibo conversational campaign, app forum and mobile advertising to push out more awareness. Crocs China Wechat account has been another important platform to drive weekly teasers and Crocs Little bedtime stories. Crocs Tmall store also supports the app launch with a full campaign page, encouraging existing customers to download the app for their little ones.

On social marketing, the brand has begun conversations with fans about key parenting milestones and encouraged fans to join in, emphasizing our strong standing with families. It also created entertaining GIF animations promoting the app that both parents and kids can laugh along to. “Our fans in China are a discerning audience and like to get the opinion of bloggers and celebrities that they trust. For that reason, we shared the app with influential mommy bloggers and celebrities with young kids who, in turn, posted photos of their little ones using the app. We really want to show people how enjoyable the app is for the whole family.” said Angela Li

Results

In just one month since its launch in China, the app has been downloaded almost 80,000 times and the app has been given a 5 Star rating from the 400 or so reviews and ratings. There has also been a lot of positive feedback about the app on Weibo, describing it as helpful to their parent-child relationship. “We are looking forward to more exciting results & feedback from consumers in other parts of Asia to really leverage this app to reinforce the brand & product awareness among this target group.” said Angela Li.