Creating brand expectations: recreational footwear
The key to creating expectations for any brand is to know the target well enough to discover an insight about them, an insight that describes their rational and (especially) emotional reason for being involved in a category. In this case, we are talking about men who are avid hunters — who look for any and every opportunity possible to get outside and hunt.
Their passion is the foundation of the insight. We found that these are people who, at the core of their being, want nothing to get in the way of their pursuit of being outdoors — not weather, not how they feel, not conditions on the ground — nothing. That means they are different from other, more casual users of outdoor footwear — they are what we called “booters”. Such booters demand that their footwear never let them down, that it never be the reason why they did not get outside in the first place, nor never be the reason they quit sooner than they wanted. It meant communications to them could and should be in the extreme, and the promise of footwear that never lets you down will resonate and create an empathy with the brand.