Since its inception, bodywear brand Chromat has focused on empowering women, femmes and non-binary people of all shapes and sizes. Known for being edgy and avant-garde, Chromat’s 2018 goal was to evolve the brand to be more commercial and mainstream, without losing its values.

Chromat tasked us with creating their first creative commercial campaign and to launch their summer 2018 Collection with these goals in mind:

1) Commercialize the brand, while maintaining the identity that they’ve built over the past 7 years

2) Broaden the brand’s diversity and inclusivity representation

3) Increase Chromat’s direct-to-consumer sales

Swimwear is often a point of anxiety for women who don’t fit the mainstream standards of beauty. Taking our inspiration from the traditional “rules posters” at every pool, we decided to take Chromat’s radical politics as our inspiration to rewrite these rules, banning transphobia, food-shaming, body-policing, and all intolerance in the process. We challenged what a beach body can look like, making the pool, and swimwear shopping, a welcoming space for every woman—stretchmarks and all.

Chromat has a passionate following of women in creative industries between the ages of 24-35. They support diversity and inclusivity, are feminists who believe in the brand’s vision, and are supportive of their mission. Knowing that they have such a passionate online fan base, we believed that social was the right platform to organically and most authentically share the inclusive mission of the campaign. We had to create bold, simple, easily sharable messaging that encapsulated the beliefs of these women and it was important for us—and the brand—to cast a diverse group of trailblazers both in front of and behind the camera. Our campaign, the Chromat Pool Rules, hinged on the insight that the vast majority of swimwear ads represent a very small group of women. So, to help Chromat reach a broader audience, we reflected a broader audience—with radical inclusivity.

The timeline for the campaign launch was the height of summer, once the new swim collection was out. We chose to feature a group of diverse trailblazers and photographer, all who were influencers themselves, from transgender (Geena Rocero), to an amputee (Mama Cax), allowing us to tap into their highly passionate and engaged following. The campaign debuted in July 2018 on Chromat’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and was shared by the influencers as well. The campaign included 10 still Pool Rules images, additional stills that illustrated our concept—which were posted across their social platforms and the brand website—as well as 4 short Pool Rules videos and 1 long-form video that introduced our model influencers, all effectively generating scale via engagement and sharing. We also ran a series of 6 digital banners and guerrilla wild postings at targeted areas in New York that drove traffic to the website.

Working with models who were also influencers allowed us to organically kickstart a groundswell of support for the campaign and generate buzz in the press including Teen Vogue, The Today Show, BuzzFeed, Glamour, Nylon, Upworthy and more. All in all, the campaign garnered 205MM social impressions and 550MM media impressions with no paid media, was covered in more than 50 publications worldwide, increased sales by 38%, and led to a 44% increase in traffic to Chromat’s site from social media and a 72% increase in returned customers on their website. Due to the strong social and press coverage, Chromat’s campaign showed up in Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of the word “inclusivity” and fashion brand Diesel also featured the Chromat Pool Rules in a special collection at Paris Fashion Week.