Timberland, Sky Media and MTV

Timberland, Sky Media and MTV

How the iconic yellow boot channelled
its hip-hop heritage & green consciousness
on MTV for a record-breaking Black Friday

Putting an original TV show at the heart of our biggest campaign of the year was a big commitment, but it delivered results. The MTV partnership allowed Timberland to go beyond merely parading Loyle as a brand ambassador to tell a deeper and more authentic story around a subject that was close to the hearts of everyone involved. The TV show wasn’t a ‘nice to have’ that attached onto the rest of the campaign, it was the anchor for all of our other activation. The power of TV, and MTV in this instance, to tell a compelling story to the right audience at scale – was front and centre of the success of this campaign.”

Andrea Simmen Timberland Marketing Manager, UK and Ireland

Timberland, Sky Media & MTV

How the iconic yellow boot channelled its hip-hop heritage & green consciousness on MTV for a record-breaking Black Friday (and award-winning campaign we might add!)

Having seen their consumers get older and competitors starting to steal their thunder, Timberland set out to create a new brand icon, revive the brand’s connection to hip-hop culture and bring its sustainable roots back to life. All with a uniquely British flavour. In partnership with the coolest channel on the block MTV, we created a two-part TV series called ‘Timberland presents: Concrete Green with Loyle Carner’ that would use the power of TV to tell the story of an aspirational young guy making a difference to his local area. This resulted in a massive increase in sales for Timberland, a 100% sell-through on the Eurosprint trekker boot and 3 out of 4 viewers said the show changed their opinion of the brand and made them more likely to consider purchase. Moreover, the campaign went on to become Winner of ‘Best Use of Content’ at the Thinkbox TV Planning Awards 2020.

0
%
sell-through of product in most resellers (prompting reorders)
0
%
said the programme gave a good impression of Timberland
0
%
said they were more likely to consider Timberland

Challenge

In 2019, Timberland launched ‘Nature Needs Heroes’ to support their long-term commitment to using recycled, organic and renewable materials in their product. Their global campaign set out to plant 50 million trees in 5 years and greening urban areas to combat climate change and enrich communities. However, the brand was facing a deep-rooted problem. Their core customers had aged and competitors were weighing in on younger UK audiences with innovative and customisable apparel. So with Black Friday sales ahead and a fraction of their competitors’ budgets, Timberland wanted to make some noise to get young consumers talking about (and wearing) its new Eurosprint Trekker boot.

Insight

The iconic yellow boot rose to fame in the 90’s on the feet of hip-hop gods like Tupac and Biggie, then Rihanna and Jay Z in the 00’s. Now they had Loyle Carner, the perfect ambassador to bridge their hip-hop heritage and ambition to inspire a global greening movement through a British lens. The Brit-nominated artist came to their attention when he started posting about ‘urban greening’ projects where rundown areas of cities are transformed into green, inspiring spaces. But to get onto the feet of a quintessentially cool younger generation in the UK, this partnership couldn’t be a straightforward celeb endorsement deal, so Timberland committed funding to regenerate two derelict areas in Loyle’s home borough of Croydon.

Idea

PHD needed a media partner with the best credentials, significant viewing figures and aligned values to bring the story to life in an AUTHENTIC way that wouldn’t be seen as another “green-washing” exercise. Cue MTV. Not only aligned in subject and tone with music and Brit hip-hop shows; MTV had also identified its audience’s interest in woke-ness and had its own ambitions to commission content in this space. So, the timing was perfect. Using the power of TV, we created long-form content with DRUM to tell the story of an aspirational young rapper making a difference in his community.

Activation

Timberland Presents: Concrete Green with Loyle Carner’ is a two-part miniseries that we broadcast during prime time (Mondays at 7pm) and on-demand for 2 weeks leading up to Black Friday. It showed Loyle and his crew (sporting head-to-toe Timberland gear) visiting various National City Parks London urban greening projects to see their development and meeting experts who explained its benefits for mental health, creativity and community pride. To conclude the journey, Loyle hosted an exclusive live performance to officially kick off the redevelopment of Timberland’s legacy community space.

We launched 30” TVC promos to promote the documentary during one of the biggest MTV Music events of the year, the MTV Europe Awards, where Loyle’s involvement drove greatest cut through. We were able to leverage Viacom Network’s eco system with promotional airtime (MTV), commercial airtime (MTV, Comedy Central, Channel 5) and VOD pre-rolls (across MTV + Comedy Central) driving mass reach and appointment to view in the lead up to the programme debut. Sky Media’s family of channels were really behind the project matching the investment £ for £ for airtime across terrestrial, VOD, and social; 100K was spent on media, but the total campaign value came out as £345K. MTV UK social posts alone delivered 652,343 video views, and was fuelled with Loyle’s own passion for the project when he told people to tune in to the show each of the nights it was on across his own social media too.

Results

Timberland’s award-winning campaign achieved concrete business results with:

  • The product seeing 100% sell-through in most resellers, prompting several re-orders from our biggest accounts
  • Of those who saw the show:
  • 80% said the programme and initiative gave a good impression of Timberland
  • 79% said that it showed Timberland was concerned about the environment
  • 54% of those who had previously not considered Timberland to be ‘sustainable’ or ‘environmentally conscious’ associated these words with the brand after watching the programme trailer
  • 76% of people said that the programme changed their opinion of Timberland as a brand and made them more likely to consider Timberland
  • Concrete Green, delivered media value nearly 3 times that of the total cost of the show and MTV partnership, with programme content being seen by 5 million people and delivering £980k worth of media exposure from a £340k investment from Timberland.
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