Endorphin Collection
Digital Product Launch & Campaign
Opportunity
Saucony spent two years engineering the Endorphin Collection, a set of three pinnacle speed shoes designed, tested, and perfected with their elite athletes. We developed a 6-month omnichannel drip campaign to get the shoes on people’s feet—on tour and in store—timed around marathon season and the Summer Olympics. But Covid changed everything. We brought the shoe entirely digital, recreating the endorphin rush without a “try-on” experience or marathons to back us, leading to a 1-day sellout.
Unlock
To translate the physical try-on experience into a digital one, we built a universe rooted in consumer insights and rich storytelling that drove people to an immersive product page. The creative toolkit served as a product launch guide for international markets and retailers around the world. We positioned the collection as the “Evolution of Fast”— with one shoe each for speed day, race day, and every day, catering the product to consumer use-cases. And we anchored the strategy in Saucony’s R&D: “engineered with elite athletes, built for everyday runners,” allowing for authentic influencer marketing with our athletes.
Results
Pro Pre-order
Pro sell-out
Runners driven to Saucony.com
Biggest demand revenue day in 2020
PR
Media placements
Impressions
Increase in open and unique click-through rate
Product-focused email conversion
Evolution of Fast
To launch a collection of three speed shoes with very different tech and use-cases, we used a phased rollout that inspires, educates, and guides our consumers every step of the way. Phase 1 built hype at global B2B conferences with teaser content focused on star athlete Jared Ward. Phase 2 sold out of all pre-sale inventory by building out hype via aspirational stories around our product development and our athletes’ big wins wearing Endorphins in marathons and Olympic Trials. In Phase 3, we rolled out and sustained the sale of each shoe one-by-one focusing on product benefits. And finally, we facilitated an unexpected lifestyle collaboration with Chaco that’s rooted in recovery.
The success of the Endorphin launch and our work on Chaco’s Chillos launch led to a fast-tracked collab—The Endorphin Chillo. This synergy cross pollinates two consumer groups, getting the product in front of consumers that wouldn’t typically engage with it and positioning the Endorphin as a lifestyle.
