By Mitori Liu
Nov 10, 2022
Story brief:
The footwear and apparel maker Vans released its 2233 limited shoe series and related activities in its retail stores, co-branded with the Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili to attract young consumers in the upcoming Double 11 shopping festival.
Story in detailed description:
According to an article on the Wechat account of VansChina (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Os-A_L9pX0zW1HdWKVQ__w), while the image of 22 and 33, two cartoon mascots of Bilibili platform are printed on the two co-branded shoe products, Vans has applied the shoe style of its Authentic and Old Skool shoe series to keep the classic elements. In addition to the creative products, customers who complete the purchase would receive exclusive gifts, including skateboard prints and a customizable shoe box. Customers who win the lottery for purchase on Vans Tmall store need to go to the specific Vans store in each city to make the purchase and get the chance to interact with the virtual characters on Bilibili that come offline through the roleplay of famous vloggers on the platform.
Implication:
Despite the common co-branding campaigns between brands and social and video platforms, employing virtual characters with physical retail stores is a rising novelty that is potentially appealing to young consumers. Taking the online and offline benefits from both parties, the co-branding kills two birds with one stone that it not only drives online traffic from Bilibili to Vans retail store to increase Vans popularity, but also allows the virtual characters and elements of Bilibili to come to reality and raise customers’ brand awareness in another world. Brands planning for co-branding may learn from this event to explore opportunities in both reality and virtual world and enable user interaction in multiple dimensions to create unique experience for customers.