Submitted by Freestak

STANCE European Street Art Tour

Freestak built an influencer-led European Street Art Tour for STANCE across three cities, generating 891 content posts and a reach the agency reports at 2.7m.

891impressions
4new retailers
6press publications
2.7mreach
$100kreturn on investment

Case in 60 seconds

STANCE was launching premium performance socks into Europe with no standing among urban runners and no shelf presence, so awareness and demand had to be built in London, Paris and Copenhagen before the products reached those markets.

The campaign appears to turn on urban running crews functioning as cultural groups rather than training groups, because a sock bought for individual expression travels through a community that already treats what it wears as a statement.

A guided run through street art, framed around STANCE's stated ethos of curating originality, gave the brand a reason to convene the running crews it wanted rather than an advertising message aimed at them.

Freestak invited 250 influencers, including representatives of the 9 most influential urban running crews in Europe, to a 1h guided street art run and party in each city, seeded one pair of socks before the event for pre-event social activation and another for the run itself, and had a professional photography and video team cover events that started and finished at STANCE's would-be key retail partners.

Freestak reports 891 content posts, 2.7 m reach, 6 publications and 4 new retailers, while Stance EMEA's head of marketing is quoted putting the campaign's ROI close to $100k dollars.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Influential communities of urban runners in London, Paris and Copenhagen, described by the page as STANCE's key demographic of creative 'punks and poets', alongside would-be key retail partners in those cities.
Street art and urban running both sit on individual expression, while a performance sock is a functional purchase, so the tour put the product inside a cultural activity instead of arguing for it on technical grounds.
Socks are a low-consideration category with established incumbents, and the page frames the task as positioning STANCE as the new sock brand of choice, which required a reason for runners to notice a garment they rarely choose deliberately.
STANCE acted as host of the run and the party rather than as sponsor of somebody else's event, which is consistent with the page describing the programme as representing everything the brand stands for.
Based on the available evidence, the two-pair seeding assumes people post about a product they have already worn before an event as well as at it, which spreads content across the run-up rather than concentrating it on one night.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • YouTube
  • photography
  • social media posts
  • video

Partners

  • Freestak (lead_agency)

Participation mechanic

  • Invited influencers took part by running the one hour guided street art route, wearing the seeded socks and posting before and during the events, so attendance and content creation were the same act.

Creator role

  • 250 influencers
  • representatives of the 9 most influential urban running crews in Europe

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
impressions891 pieces of content created and 2.7m impressionscontent_pieces
new retailers4 new retailersbusiness
press publications6 publicationsperformance
reach2.7 m reachreach
return on investmentthe #STANCERUN European Street Art Tour campaign delivered close to $100k dollars of ROIroi
social media posts891 content postsperformance

Why Freestak's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Seeding product twice, once before the event and once on the day, gives an invited group two separate occasions to post, which is how a single evening turns into a volume of content larger than the guest list.

  2. 2

    Starting and finishing runs at prospective stockists makes the retail conversation part of the activation rather than a separate sales call, and the page credits the work with activating would-be key retail partners as well as consumers.

  3. 3

    Recruiting through existing crews rather than individual accounts reaches a community with its own gathering habits, which is why an invitation to nine crews reads as a route to a scene rather than a set of separate placements.

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