2023 marked fifty years of Timberland’s Original Boot –– fifty years traversing job sites, hiking mountains, and moving culture. To ring in the anniversary, Timberland created several activations throughout the year. These included opening a flagship store in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, hosting footwear design workshops for students and other New York-based pop-up events featuring musical performances. The brand also released unique, limited-edition capsule collections and a documentary film.
Timberland’s This is Not a Boot campaign included a fresh mix of real people in the NYC area and centered on The Original Yellow Bootᵀᴹ as the hero of the story. In each campaign element, these brand authenticators reveal how Timberland’s iconic boot has impacted their life journeys.
The challenge
To amplify the milestone, Timberland looked to align with cultural figures as bold as their world-famous boot. The brand hoped to drive awareness and bring customers to their anniversary line of rare colorways and limited-edition merch.
Most of all, Timberland wanted to reach diverse and fashion-forward young people. With more of the key 18-49 segment watching streaming TV than traditional television,¹ they decided to meet their consumers where they are.
The campaign
The approach
Timberland and their Agency, WITHIN, partnered with Roku to build a winning TV streaming advertising strategy. They leveraged Roku’s extensive library of content built around cultural change makers and trend setters. Roku curated a Bold Built Different Movie and Show Playlist sponsored by Timberland. The sponsorship was boosted through targeted video and Marquee Ads, an ad placement that takes over 1/3rd of the Roku home screen as soon as consumers turn on their TV.
TV streaming ads have become a crucial piece of the shopping journey, especially for digital natives. Roku users are 22% more likely to want to buy a product through an interactive streaming ad than non-Roku users.² And research has found that ad-supported VOD services are more popular among diverse viewers, such as those sought after by Timberland, than both linear and ad-free streaming TV.³
Engaging a young, diverse audience means going beyond cultural alignment and tapping into the spaces where digital natives spend their time.
The results
The Bold Built Different Playlist resonated where it mattered most, giving the campaign a 20% lift in purchase intent and 16% lift in brand favorability from multicultural viewers ages 18-44.
"Partnering with Timberland to celebrate the iconic Original Boot's 50th anniversary was an exhilarating journey for WITHIN. Through our collaboration with Roku, we were able to tap right into our core audience and craft a campaign that authentically resonated with young, diverse audiences." – Casey Farrell, Integrated Media Manager, WITHIN
Marquee Ads and The Roku Channel organic title drove nearly 146,000 clicks into Timberland’s Movie and Show Playlist. Proving the power of Roku to reach incremental audience, 72% of playlist viewers were cord-cutters –– and 54% spend most of their time in ad-free streaming environments.⁴
“For Timberland’s first partnership with us, they were particularly interested in Roku’s holistic insights on brand lift. Providing them with an analysis of the campaign’s lift in brand health metrics helped prove ROI and unlock future learnings.” – Caitlin McKnight, Head of Retail Enterprise Ad Sales, Roku
Want to learn more about Roku Advertising? View more case studies here, and be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
¹ Roku analysis of Nielsen data, 2023
² Roku and Lucid Retail Thought Leadership Study, May 2023
³ Nielsen State of Play data, April 2022
⁴ Kantar Millward Brown Brand Lift & Roku Brand Experience Insights Study; Campaign Dates: September – October 2023
