New Balance drives purchase with a multi-product strategy, led by a shoppable AR try-on Lens

New Balance, a leading sports footwear and apparel brand, partnered with Snapchat to drive awareness and purchases for their partnered collection with NBA star Kawhi Leonard. The collection of basketball sneakers was inspired by Kawhi’s life and career. In addition to the new collection, New Balance also released a limited edition KAWHI x Jolly Rancher sneaker collaboration which featured colors inspired by Kawhi’s favorite Jolly Rancher flavors. 

New Balance launched a multi-ad product campaign targeted towards Snapchatters A13-24 Fashion, Fitness, and Sneakerhead lifestyle interests. 

The campaign included a Shoppable AR Lens which allowed the user to virtually try-on different sneakers from the Kawhi Leonard x New Balance collection and swipe up directly on the lens to shop on the New Balance website. The campaign also included Snap Ads featuring different sneakers from the collaboration, which prompted users to swipe up to try-on the sneakers with the Shoppable AR Lens.

New Balance utilized goal-based bidding for the Lens to optimize for users who were most likely to swipe up to the New Balance website. For the Snap Ads, New Balance bid on swipes to reach users most likely to swipe up on the Snap Ads and enter the Lens experience.

The New Balance x Kawhi Leonard try-on Lens, as part of a multi-product strategy, allowed New Balance to drive both awareness for and purchases of the new Kawhi Leonard sneaker. The AR Lens campaign reached over 7.3 million Snapchatters. ¹ On average, these Snapchatters tried on the sneakers for 20 seconds via the Lens. And on top of this in-app engagement, nearly 250,000 Snapchatters swiped up to the New Balance website to further explore the sneakers. ¹

When coupled together, the Shoppable AR Lens and Snap Ads proved to be effective in driving lift across all measured brand metrics, including a +5pt lift in Ad Awareness, +3pt lift in Brand Favorability, and a +2pt lift in Purchase Intent. In the lower-funnel, the campaign was also effective in driving incremental purchases, with a Snapchat conversion lift study showing 3.3% purchase lift with a $55.68 cost per incremental purchase. ²

The full-funnel impact – from reach, to awareness, to incremental sales – driven by New Balance’s activation speaks to the strength of AR as a format for driving business results for footwear and apparel brands.