The Converse sneaker has become an iconic symbol of laidback cool. Through the decades, as brands have come and gone, Converse has remained a symbol of non-conformity in a mass of sameness. That’s a hard act to pull off from a marketing perspective.
That’s why Converse’s marketing efforts are always interesting to watch, especially in a time where “authenticity” is on the lips of most marketers. Converse’s latest campaign “Wall to Wall” aims to reinforce cultural relevancy. For the “Wall to Wall” series Converse invited street artists to travel all over the world to transform walls into street art.
Converse got graffiti/street artists like David Ellis, Push, Vizie and others to participate. For each artist and city that they transform walls in there is an artist bio, a video of them creating their “Wall to Wall” piece, sometimes and interview and a photo gallery. The “Wall to Wall” artists have created pieces in cities like Austin, Toronto, Napoli, Brooklyn, Lyon, Manchester and more.
What’s interesting here is that Converse is taking what would be a pretty typical execution for it and making it into a source of content it can use many places. It has 32 million connections on Facebook; 117,000 followers on Twitter; and has gotten over 14 million video views on YouTube.
If you’ve seen “Exit Through the Gift Shop” then you know all about the mystique and cultural buzz that surrounds so-called street art and artists like Banksy and Space Invader. This is definitely a brand-appropriate campaign that’s pretty cool.
Below is the video artist Faunagraphic in Manchester. You can see all of the “Wall to Wall” features on the Converse site. The videos are also on YouTube.
