In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, many companies were aiming to show their support for Black Lives, including Crocs. As the only Black person who knew how to use design software in their company at the time, I was recruited to design Jibbitz™ Charms to sell and donate a portion of proceeds to the NAACP. But as an actual Black American reeling from the aftermath of these events, I aimed to hold Crocs to their purported ideals by pitching a more impactful campaign. One that was for us, by us, telling a story of Black Joy, while still telling the same story we always strove to tell in Crocs marketing campaigns – Come As You Are and be comfortable in your own shoes.

The campaign I pitched was inspired by Afrofuturism while still giving Crocs their standard evergreen story of how easy it is to show off your unique personality while wearing Crocs. Afrofuturism is an exploration of the future from a Black perspective that leverages history, technology, and fantasy to create an escape from the oppressive past and trials of the present through music, visual art, and literature. The goal was to leverage the ideals of Afrofuturism to create a campaign that celebrates the Black people who are building a new tomorrow all while joyfully being their most comfortable selves and wearing the Crocs Classics collection with Jibbitz™ Charms.

We would create this campaign by partnering with a selection of Black influencers and organizations. We'd have each person create their perfect Classics with Jibbitz™ Charms and show off their creations through short interviews and photos. Ideally, one of these partners would be an illustrator who would design a limited run of Jibbitz™ Charms in their interpretation of our Afrofuturism theme. While capturing content of our main partners, we would also capture behind-the-scenes photo and video content of our all-Black crew wearing their perfect Classics with their chosen Jibbitz™ Charms.

The plan would then be to create a campaign landing page on crocs.com where people could interact with the full story of all these amazing Black individuals joyfully being themselves. We would have also made a social media activation to connect fans with these stories and figured out how to place this campaign in relevant retail stores. Ideal launch dates for this campaign would have been the first federally recognized Juneteenth holiday, Independence Day, or in the springtime as Black lives matter all year round, not just during Black History Month or on Black holidays.

This campaign, nor any others I'd pitched in this vein, ever moved forward.

Agency: Crocs in-house team, Creative Director: James Gardner, Senior Graphic Designer: Dominique Barnes, Production Lead: Katie St. Peter

Scope

• Concept

• Storytelling

• Campaign Design