Campaign Spotlight: Je T’imbs
If you’re wondering why you’ve seen Timberland everywhere in the last year, you can thank Maisie Willoughby, the brand’s chief marketing officer since October 2023.
“I would describe myself as a non-traditional CMO. What used to be solely about metrics, data and sales has completely evolved,” Willoughby told Glossy. “You have to intrinsically understand culture and the language and the spaces your consumers are inhabiting, and lean in and celebrate that conversation in a platform-centric way. If you’re not immersed in that culture, you’re not going to get the language.”
Willoughby joined Timberland with over a decade of experience in fashion, including at brands like Alexander Wang and agencies like Anomaly and Wieden+Kennedy. Willoughby said her main career objective has been to “show up in places and environments that are consumer-centric, but to disrupt and adapt that conversation in a natural and authentic way that [makes] people take notice.”
For Timberland, that has involved showing up during culturally relevant moments that are authentic to the brand’s DNA to reintroduce the brand to new and old consumers. For example, in 2023, aligned with hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, the VF Corporation-owned brand celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Original Yellow Boots with a 360-marketing campaign. It included a Webby award-winning documentary, which Willoughby helped spearhead upon joining the company, as well as pop-up music performances around New York City, which won Best Fashion Brand Activation by BizBash.
This year, Willoughby has helped drive additional brand moments including dressing pop artist Doja Cat for her headline performance at Coachella and collaborating on limited-edition shoes with Louis Vuitton.
But the biggest Timberland project spearheaded by Willoughby has been the Je T’imbs campaign launched during Paris Fashion Week in January.
The campaign was teased about a week prior to the shows via an Instagram post by Louis Vuitton creative director Pharrell Williams. The January 12 video previewed an LV x Timberland collaboration centered on the latter’s iconic Yellow Boots. Searches for the boot more than doubled that day, as evidenced by Google’s trend tracker. The boots officially dropped on July 18.
A week later, LV x Timberland styles walked the Louis Vuitton fall 2024 runway. Timberland simultaneously rolled out the Je T’imbs campaign promoting the brand’s Yellow Boot.
The campaign included takeovers on Timberland’s social accounts and e-commerce landing page. Also during PFW, Timberland enlisted influencers including Kay (@kshitij.bhatia; 164,000 Instagram followers) and Maria Beltre (@looseunicorns; 397,000 Instagram followers) to wear and style the six-inch Yellow Boot, colloquially referred to as “Timbs.” In addition, the brand hosted a pop-up at the Recto Verso café in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement offering a two-day “mini-immersion of Timberland’s culture.” And lastly, the brand sponsored an after-party where rapper A$AP Nast and Stéphane Ashpool, founder of apparel brand Pigalle, wore Yellow Boots.
“[As a creative first, marketer second], when you exist in a space so closely with your consumers, you naturally and inherently understand what excites them and what is prohibitive. This [campaign] was about magic and logic coming together … and how they mesh together to create something very fresh,” Willoughby said.
The campaign earned the company 7.5 billion organic media impressions, according to Willoughby. And, in the week of the campaign’s rollout, Timberland saw sales increase by 56% and 22% year-over-year in the North Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions, respectively. “We had a spike in organic search, up 73% in China and up 85% in NORA,” she said.
“We took a look back at the impact we’ve had culturally and wanted to celebrate that and get back to those conversation drivers, specifically in style and in fashion,” Willoughby said. “Outdoor has been a huge focus for luxury fashion … so we’ve been adapting but reclaiming our conversation in this space and celebrating it.”
