The Crocs Renaissance

By embracing its polarizing nature, re-invigorating its icon, and igniting loyalists around the world, Crocs has enjoyed a brand renaissance. Through a keen sense of self-awareness, agile response and activations, effective listening, and powerful collaborations, Crocs generated 400 percent shareholder return in the last three years and continues its legendary turnaround.

rocs launched in 2002 with a very niche product: a specialty boating shoe. Despite its ups and downs over the years, Crocs today has successfully revived its brand icon, the Croc clog, and is enjoying a brand renaissance. Over the past three years it has generated a 400 percent shareholder return and has gained awareness among some of the world’s most famous celebrities.

In 2017, the brand realized it had perception issues that needed to be tackled. Although Crocs hadn’t faced global awareness challenges over the years, it was struggling with judgment from customers as a polarizing brand. Crocs saw the opportunity to “improve clog relevance,” and bring back its infamous clog silhouette.

2016–17

In 2016 Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane decided to send Crocs down the London Fashion Week runway. Kane’s decision got the media talking about Crocs, and publications such as Vogue questioned whether the Crocs trend would catch on. Although Crocs had encountered negative judgment for years, the Croc clog had always been a symbol of individual expression. The brand decided to send a message to people everywhere: be comfortable in your own shoes. To build an identifiable movement with customers around this purpose, it sent out an invitation in 2017 for everyone to “come as you are,” no matter where you’re from or who you are. It identified two separate and distinct groups to target: the “Feel-Goods” (female head of household who makes footwear decisions for the entire family), and the younger sister or daughter “Explorer” customer.

Crocs partnered with celebrities such as actress Drew Barrymore in 2017 and focused on its largest global markets: the U.S., Japan, China, and Korea. When it unexpectedly partnered with luxury fashion brand Balenciaga, it made global headlines. By going digital exclusively, Crocs was able to further share its message with customers and ignite its loyalists to participate on social media. In just the first year of its journey, brand desirability, relevance, and consideration increased by double digits.

2018

The year 2018 became a celebration of “being comfortable in your own shoes.” Leveraging the success of the film La La Land, Barrymore stared in a Crocs spot where she sang and danced in Crocs as if in a musical. The ad became the most viewed content in Crocs’ history, resulting in a 91 percent increase in impressions, 1,655 percent increase in comments, and 250 percent increase in engagement rate. At the same time Crocs increased its digital efforts and began investing in programmatic media and dynamic creative optimization. It began to prioritize beyond the Feel Good customers and started targeting the Explorer customers who resonated most with its “come as you are” message.

Crocs also invested in social listening. In 2018 Crocs fans demanded a Snapchat filter. Crocs created the filter, and that year saw one in 50 people in the U.S. wearing its classic clog on their head — 6.3 million unique users. It also began listening to customer tweets, and had the opportunity to send an entire senior high school class of students a pair of white Crocs to wear at graduation, which resulted in four hundred million impressions.

Crocs also began working with artists. It discovered that musician Post Malone was an authentic fan of the Crocs brand when it came across his tweet about Crocs Jibbitz. Crocs partnered with Malone shortly thereafter and dropped a Post Malone x Crocs pair that sold out instantly. The shoe became one of the hottest of the season according to Vogue, and even caught Madonna’s attention. More importantly, the brand finally saw an increase in relevance among the teen female population. After just two years, desirability, relevance, and consideration were still in double digits and its Explorer target had increased considerably.

2019

In 2019, actress Zooey Deschanel joined the Crocs family to share her love for the brand, along with a new cast of Asian superstars. Fans celebrated Croctober that year, a month defined in Urban Dictionary as a way to celebrate 31 days of Crocs, and fans even created Croc Day, a day to celebrate the actual reptile. In response, Crocs created a special glow-in-the-dark shoe for Croc Day. In 2019 the brand launched more than 18 collaborations, further embracing its mission to “come as you are” and garnering attention among audiences. Crocs’ collaboration with musician Luke Combs, who created a Croc featuring a beer opener, was discussed on Jimmy Kimmel Live in an interview with the artist.

There was also a string of Malone collaborations in 2019, such as a takeover of a Chicken Express in Texas where Malone used to work. The activation resulted in a line that wrapped outside the restaurant for hours as consumers waited not only for chicken tenders, but for the free Crocs it was giving away. The shoe dropped following the event, selling out immediately, and Crocs trended on Twitter under hip hop and rap — categories it typically wouldn’t be associated with. During that time Crocs saw a line outside its flagship store in New York City for the fifth time.

Malone featured Crocs in one of his songs, in the lyric “thousand-dollar Croc,” which was how much his shoe collaboration with Crocs was selling for on the secondary market or sites such as eBay. With Malone’s permission, Crocs used the song lyric and created a thousand-dollar Croc challenge on TikTok to further reach its female Explorer customer. The video caught the attention of thousands of creators and obtained 2.8 billion views. According to Google, Crocs became the most searched shoe of 2019. The Luke Combs shoe ranked as No. 1 while the Post Malone shoe ranked as No. 8, meaning that these two editions of Crocs were two of the top 10 most searched shoes of 2019. That year even Rolling Stone acknowledged Crocs for having the strangest musician and brand collaborations of 2019, which was something the brand was proud of.

For the third year in a row Crocs obtained double-digit numbers in desirability, relevance, and consideration. In a survey by Piper Jaffray, Crocs was the 27th most preferred footwear brand among American teens in 2017, the 13th in 2018, and the seventh in 2019. Crocs had its strongest fourth quarter in company history in 2019 and was recognized by Inc Magazine for its legendary turnaround.

2020

Croc’s goal in 2020 is to supersize “clog relevance” and brand resonance, as well as increase awareness of its sandals. Today Crocs has announced that actress/singer Priyanka Chopra Jonas has joined as its global ambassador. Having already sported camo Crocs on her Instagram account, she is an authentic fan of the brand and is eager to share the story of Crocs. Crocs has also added a Chinese superstar with 100 million followers on Weibo to help spur its growth in China. The brand has become more style- and inclusivity-focused. In 2020 Crocs plans to focus on being genuine and bringing more attention to its classics, sandals, Jibbitz charms, and LiteRide collection. It aims to reflect the world we live in, and has put together its most inclusive cast yet to mirror the modern customer base and the “come as you are” spirit of the brand and its fans.

"The Crocs Renaissance." Terence Reilly, CMO at Crocs. ANA Brand Masters Conference, 3/6/20.