First day feels

In an effort to appeal to teen girls heading back to school, Converse set out to position their Chuck Taylors as the go-to apparel of choice. To reach this audience we knew we needed to get in front of them in a way that was authentic and in a visual language that teens actually use.

We turned to Stranger Things star, Millie Bobby Brown, to deliver the message in 32 original reaction GIFs.

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A social-first campaign in the ultimate form of teen self-expression

Back-to-school is a cluttered and extremely competitive time of year for brands to reach a 14 to 17-year-old audience.

We knew that in order to reach them, the content had to be inherently shareable. We saw reaction GIFs as a perfect way for teens to organically share our content with their friends on their own terms, through both public and private social channels.

Inherently shareable,
mapped with data

Using data from Twitter, Giphy, and Tenor, we mapped the most frequently shared reaction GIFs across the internet against First Days Feels and the Converse brand. This led us to develop 40+ prompts to elicit each emotion from Millie during a very short shoot

Tracking behavior with a wide range of emotions

Our plan worked: because we’d done our homework on the language of the internet, our GIFs, memes, and videos spread through both owned and organic channels.