Crocs: Chinese Brand Tagline Creation – Create connection

Crocs is not the only brand that sells comfortable footwear, so many brands do. Apart from their products, what makes a brand stand out from competitors and create deep connections with consumers is the brand tagline creation.

The fourth iteration of the ‘Come As You Are’ global campaign of Crocs is a proclamation to their fans. As the tagline stated, the brand’s global ambassadors (Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Yang Mi, Zooey Deschanel, Kim Sejeong, and Suzu Hirose) were all lined up and offered the perfect mix of star power and authentic representation to help CrocNation feel empowered and emboldened to own who they are.

For a brand with global markets in over 90 countries, creating culturally fit messaging in different languages is extremely crucial, and is often the most challenging part of the brand localization efforts.

Challenge

Unclear Local Brand Communication Tone of Voice
Although this was the fourth year of Crocs’ “Comes As You Are” global campaign,  this was the first time this campaign ever launched in China. The brand did not have an explicit tone of voice when communicating with Chinese consumers.

Keep Brand Consistency
Creating a Tagline in Chinese is complex as numerous cultural factors need to be taken into consideration. What makes the creative process even harder is to create a Chinese tagline without losing the core value and message embedded in the original English version.

Be Simple and Strong
Although being simple and strong is not exclusive, it is hard to keep the line crisp while punchy. It takes lots of efforts to research, create, and most importantly, test.

Creation

We conducted a brand tagline audit to identify the latest trend of tagline creations, gain understanding of how brands express themselves and communicate with consumers through different approaches. A comprehensive analysis was done for Croc’s brand tagline creation from 3 creative angles: brand perspective, value proposition and consumer insights.

After rounds of research and analysis, we created the Chinese brand tagline “天生自在[tiān shēng zì zài]” for Crocs. The tagline reflects and celebrates the free spirits of being comfortable in every second of your life. It smoothly and naturally communicates the freedom and comfort embraced in crocs’ value to audiences.