We team up with eBay Germany to make a #perfektermix

When eBay Germany called us earlier this summer and asked us to pitch some ideas to them for a campaign promoting sneakers, we nearly jumped out of our shoes. It’s not every day that you get to build a campaign based on a product you truly love, so you could say it was a campaign close to our feet (er, heart).

Defining the concept

The beauty and the challenge of pushing sneakers as a retail vertical is that, well, they’re for everyone. They define us, but don’t limit us, because such vast variety exists and no one pair of sneakers is enough for anybody.

 

 

eBay’s global rebranding has emphasized the colorful diversity and individuality of both its sellers and shoppers, and we wanted a concept that channeled the eBay global identity into one specific summer campaign. And we wanted it to be as unique ― and irreducible ― as eBay Germany’s many, many customers.

The perfect mix

We won the pitch with an initial approach and a presentation that included the video storyboard and draft, a multi-step social campaign and projected marketing spend. Then we worked closely with the eBay marketing team to refine the channels, media, timelines and, most of all, the concept.

The result? #perfektermix

 

 

“The perfect mix” encourages shoppers to express the different sides of their personality by mixing and matching two different sneaker styles, just like they might with songs on a favorite mixtape. The campaign unites fashion with music while capturing both what’s both eternally youthful and essentially nostalgic about sneakers.

“Maybe the best thing was seeing how everything took shape so quickly, from the idea to the first animated drafts until the day we filmed everything,” said Art Director Gian Maria Gallicchio , who followed the video from the storyboard to post-production to the final delivery. “For me it’s was doubly nice to work with eBay Germany ― I’m half-German myself!”

 

 

It was nice for us to hear that eBay Germany felt the same: “Moskito are a very creative and professional agency,” said Corinna Kühn, Content Marketing & Social Media for eBay.de, “with a great hands-on mentality and a lovely team.”

Shooting the video

The heart of the campaign is a short promotional video linking sneakers to musical genres from Rock to Pop to Hip Hop while suggesting the iconic 80s song-and-dance film, Footloose.

 

 

“The importance of music as our guide throughout this project was clear right from my first meeting with Moskito,” said our partner Andrea De Taddeo , a Laveno, Italy-based filmmaker. “In choosing the music and the developing the musical mashups we were launched on our search for the perfect mix.”

Working on a tight schedule down at Village studio in Milan, we had create a series of variations on a theme, including 15 brief clips for targeted launch via social media.

“The biggest challenge was finding the best technical solutions so that during the shoot we could focus totally on the dancers’ performance,” said Andrea. “I wanted to get the widest range of movement so we could get the greatest differentiations in the various scenes.”

This involved creating a set covered in laminated plastic that gave the dancers both freedom of movement and could be reset easily for each new take, which streamlined post-production time greatly.

 

 

“Watching the preparations on the set, the dancers, the sneakers and everything that was going on around us during the production of the video ― all that was new to me,” added Gian Maria. “It was exhausting ― and I wasn’t even the one dancing in the video!”

Social media

 

 

We created a channel-specific strategy to make the most of each social media platform’s strengths, including a series of Instagram story teasers from the backstage of the video shoot and a variety of geofilters.

“This project was an opportunity to take the brief and run with it, from the brainstorming, to the styling of the video shoot, to the Snapchat filters – which were a first for Moskito,” said Art Director Paola Taccardi.

 

 

Combined with a live dance contest event in Hamburg, the colorful, eye-catching summer campaign generated buzz and gave our client the boost they were looking for.

“Moskito successfully delivered this campaign for eBay.de’s Social Media channels,” said Sascha Eisenschink, Social Media Manager for eBay Germany. “We were very pleased with their work.”

As they say, if the shoe fits, wear it. And this campaign was just the perfect mix for all of us.

 

Does the shoe fit? Moskito Design may just be the right-sized agency for your next campaign.