CASE STUDY: Sportswear brand lets young Chinese wear emotions on sleeves

Background and aim

Sportswear brand Rapido wanted to raise awareness and try a new product concept among its core target audience of youth in China. Among this group, long-distance relationships are quite common. 

Execution

Working with Cheil Worldwide, the company created a jacket that has an array of LEDs embedded in its sleeve. The LEDs respond to incoming messages sent by the person's distant partner via a smartphone app, which "allows people to share their present feelings to each other", according to the agency.

For example, sending the message ‘I love you’ results in a pounding heart on the other person's sleeve, and ‘I miss you’ turns into falling tears. Thanks to a color sensor, the jacket also allows one person to send the color of an object they're viewing to their partner (in the video above, one person shares the color of a pair of the brand's shoes). 

In addition to a 'webisode' video, the campaign also included retail displays that invited people to download the app and try the 'Connected Wear'.

Results

With only a small media budget, the campaign rapidly achieved more than 11,000 shares on Weibo, and a video featuring the Connected Wear was viewed more than 3 million times on Youku. More than 1,500 people tried the connected wear in a retail setting. Because of this impact, the brand is currently working on mass production, according to the agency.

CREDITS

Marketing Manager: Jiyul Kim
Chief Creative Officer: Jeongkeun Yoo
Executive Creative Director: Kate Hyewon Oh
Creative Director: Jungmin Ma
Art Directors: Yeonjoo Lee, Junho Lee, Wooseob Oh
Copywriters: Hyekyung Jeong, Seungil Park, Yeonju Lim, Sungwon Won
Creative Technologist: Doowon Yoo
Account Executive: Changsuk Oh
Account Manager: Dooho Yoo, Taeil In, Youna Park
Product Development, the Boud: Seongho Park, Yeonwha Lee, Minhong Kim, Miso Kwon