Hong Kong – Global sportswear brand New Balance, in partnership with media investment company GroupM, has launched its newest 574 Green sneakers to bring the people of Hong Kong together, lift their spirits, and empower them to fearlessly create a sustainable future for the community. The partnership aims to redefine sustainability through the promotion of positive transformation journeys in Hong Kong. 

With the purpose of encouraging people to contribute to this common cause, New Balance Hong Kong invited Ruby Lau, lifestyle reporter and influencer, to explore three groups of ordinary people in the city who had transformed their lives during lockdown and share their personal stories of how they discovered a life of “new balance” on social media. Interviewees, including a local artist, barista and indie band, represented the positive changes to the city’s culture, nature, and soul. To encourage everyone to get involved, New Balance enhanced the campaign with exclusive offers on eCommerce. 

Commenting on the campaign, Vivien Yau, general manager of New Balance Hong Kong and Yoki Cheng, head of marketing of New Balance Hong Kong, said, “We wanted to acknowledge the great effort of GroupM and New Balance Hong Kong for harnessing the opportunity to empower people in pursuit of their passions, supporting the spirit of perseverance and creating positive changes in the community.”

Yau and Cheng added, “We were thrilled to partner with GroupM in Hong Kong, who led the way on this campaign, providing a platform for these truly inspiring transformation stories, as well as an integrated consumer experience that tapped into our understanding of Hong Kong. It was a small budget online campaign and we are very pleased that it garnered approximately 15.4 million impressions, 95,000 clicks and 172,000 views, while helping to raise the sales of the 574 Green sneaker by 15% in just two weeks!”

Clay Sen, who led the campaign and is responsible for the group’s SEO, CRO and Content functions in Hong Kong, shared, “We were honoured to partner with New Balance on their 574 Green campaign. From the moment we were briefed, we demonstrated not only our understanding of the unique nuances of Hong Kong, but also the versatility of our product offerings and talent at GroupM – this was a truly omnichannel campaign that compromised of the very best in content, creative, search, eCommerce, media and strategy, all of which worked harmoniously together to connect with the city.” 

Caroline Chan, CEO of GroupM in Hong Kong, commented, “I’m so proud of the team and their work. This campaign perfectly encapsulates of our evolution from media partner to New Balance’s fully integrated, end-to-end growth partner. The work also highlighted the team’s finesse for pairing New Balance’s business challenges with consumer insights to create innovative solutions that fused our high-quality media strategy with content and creative production capabilities, closing the consumer loop and delivering conversions—a true evolution for media agencies.”