Back to school shopping has changed dramatically, with competitors jump-starting the retail season as early as July. School clothes are becoming a lower priority and kids (instead of moms) are making a lot more of the decisions.

But whilst competitors were all chasing the latest popular young YouTubers to get kids attention, we focused on a different group of influencers.

Influencers who build minds, not Instagram followers.

Teachers.

We partnered with iamOTHER, Pharrell Williams’ creative collective, to showcase amazing teachers in a series of eight custom-music videos, featuring teachers and students in Old Navy clothes.

Each teacher collaborated with a songwriter creating an original song of what was important to them. These songs were compiled and released as an album called “ONward!,” the same name as Old Navy’s Boys and Girls Club cause marketing initiative.

We created an owned and earned media system where the music was authentically released through the teachers first:

Teachers released their videos on their own social media.

Content was then featured on the viral content site Upworthy.

All songs were released as an album on Spotify and played in Old Navy stores.

Music videos were played on Vevo.

UGC content of teens’ versions were created across Musical.ly.

An on-air integration of one of the teachers and kids ran on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

By using America’s most under-rated influencers to deliver our Back to School message, we delivered amazing results:

Old Navy reported a +4% sales increase in a retail industry on the downward trend.

Brand tracking studies showed that those who saw the videos thought they were fun (64%), positive (62%) & happy (60%) and felt they were empowering kids today (49%).

We increased brand familiarity by 11% and helped strengthen the brand's pillars of family oriented (57%) and fun (48%).

Old Navy raised $730K+, which they matched, to donate over $1MM to Boys & Girls Clubs.

We delivered more than 1BN back-to-school impressions, achieved 25m video views, and drove 750k visitors to the Old Navy ecommerce site.

All of this was delivered by a media agency and a single content partner. No advertising agency was involved.

Old Navy delivered their ultimate goal to be seen as a champion for kids today.

Old Navy stands for family values, fun and most importantly attainable fashion. Year over year we are presented with the same challenge, how can the brand break the mold and stand out during the critical back-to-school shopping season. While category convention in Apparel Retail is to out shout your competitor's with heavy TV campaigns targeting moms, this year we created an entirely new kind of campaign. We built a cultural groundswell of support from kids, moms and communities to highlight one of the most important, yet unsung,

heroes of America’s youth, teachers who inspire their students to become leaders.

We set out to stand out - building a cultural groundswell of support from kids, moms and communities to highlight one of the most important, yet unsung, heroes of America’s youth: the teachers.

Inspired by the popularity of Chicago teacher Dwayne Reed’s viral music hit ‘Welcome to the 4th Grade’, we created an entirely new kind of branded content campaign that would not only cut through the back to school chaos, but also support Old Navy’s ONward! CSR initiative with Boys and Girls Club.

We created engaging music content with these uncelebrated heroes to help Old Navy to stand for a higher mission and emotionally connect with both kids and moms, and set out to keep the campaign content true to the teachers and make all of our paid media feel organic.

To do this, we’d give teachers the rock star status they deserve.

Each retail season presents a new challenge - how can Old Navy stand out during the critical back-to-school shopping season.

We needed to create a program that would make Old Navy the preferred destination for both kids (and moms) wanting to get the latest in back-to-school fashion.