Payless

What they asked us to do ...

Throughout our five-year relationship with Payless, they’ve challenged us to reinforce their brand loyalty with target consumers through a breast cancer initiative, reinvigorate their brand by conducting seasonal editor events and fashion showrooms, and devise the appropriate solution to leverage their new and budding partnership with The Fresh Air Fund (FAF).
 

What we did ...

To elevate their brand and create awareness about the thousands of new fashion-forward styles Payless offers consumers, we set out to position the brand as the “New Payless,” a source for high-fashion, high-value footwear and accessories for the entire family. We tapped into our strong media relationships and helped launch their new logo and their first designer collection. We also placed Payless in front of fashion industry influencers at New York Fashion Week for the first time in the company’s history.

To leverage Payless’s newfound relationship with The Fresh Air Fund (FAF), a 130-year-old non-profit organization that provides kids from New York’s toughest neighborhoods with free summer camps on the East Coast, we conceptualized and developed the Friendship Shoe. The special, limited-edition “signature shoe” was sold to raise money and kick-started the FAF’s project across markets and online. The canvas shoe came with colorful markers allowing kids to design and sign, thus turning the shoes into the perfect memento for summer camp and helping to provide underprivileged children with their own camp experience. To garner influencer support, we pitched US Weekly for the exclusive opportunity to collect celebrity signatures on a pair of Friendship Shoes in exchange for providing a second autographed set for a reader giveaway.
 

Our results ...

We’ve achieved impressive results in our work with Payless through influential celebrity support and strategic programming. Highlights from our campaigns include:

  • Our daily interaction with top women’s publications facilitated more than 100 sample requests per month. Print media highlights included but are not limited to: Cosmopolitan, Lucky, Woman’s World, Marie Claire, Glamour, Lifetime, Good Housekeeping and Redbook. Media coverage and consumer sales continue to rise, and in fact, an independent research group concluded that the 2006 PR program delivered among the best returns on investment with a $24 return on each $1 spent.

  • Payless sold nearly 10,000 pairs of the Friendship Shoe over the primary program period. Sales beat projections for the June “Shopping for Camp Month” time period by 300 to 500 pairs per week. By securing a partnership with US Weekly, we collected 26 celebrity signatures (twice), enabling us to showcase support of celebrity community via a national publication. The pair signed by 25 celebrities raised $1,500 – an 8,238 percent increase in the product’s pre-signing value. We were a finalist for PRWeek’s Cause-Related Campaign of the Year Award for this work with Payless.