Real action results in real change. That was the thinking behind Liberty Group South Africa’s campaign to help shoe the more than seven million learners who have never owned a pair of school shoes and who walk many kilometres to get to school.
It started with a powerful image, one Retroviral’s Mike Sharman posted on LinkedIn. “Look closely at the image below,” he urged readers. “It is not a drone shot of a rural road..”
It was, in fact, an image representing the bare foot of a child who walks five kilometres to school and back each day.
“We wanted to tell the story of Liberty’s CSI Winter Shoe Drive in a way that couldn’t be ignored,” says Happy Friday Creative executive creative director, Jonathan Wolberg. “The visual observation of aerial rural landscapes almost resembling the underside of feet, gives people a new perspective on the vast distances that some school kids make every day.”
Photographer David Prior shot the image. “We wanted to partner with the best craftspeople to bring this idea to life. With his extensive portfolio of award-winning and captivating work, spanning over many years, David Prior was our top choice,” Wolberg says. “Our bigger vision is to also turn these into art pieces and David’s knowledge and experience in fine arts was an important factor to help us achieve authenticity.”
One hundred thousand pairs of school shoes have already been distributed. But this past weekend, Liberty and its agencies put the power to make a difference in the hands of Sandton City shoppers.
Four plinths were erected in Sandton City Mall, marking out one kilometre’s worth of shopping centre distance. For every kilometre a shopper walked, Liberty donated one pair of school shoes to a child in need. To date, shoppers have walked 147 kilometres.
“We’ve all heard the adage: ‘To truly understand someone you first need to walk in their shoes’, and so this was an easy way of getting South Africa to do exactly that!” Wolberg explains.
Taking actual steps
“The real experience can never be fully translated. The contrast is just so vast when comparing a luxury shopping mall to underprivileged communities,” he says. “So from an awareness point of view, the best we could hope to achieve was to get South Africa to take actual steps that could translate into more school shoe donations through Liberty’s initiative.”
The activation resonated with shoppers.
“The importance of school shoes for children is to give them dignity and hope for the future. So I completed five kilometres so that I could be able to donate the most amount of shoes. Five kilometres equals five happy kids,” said one. “I’m happy about that. I was able to do that today. Dignity is important for school children to give them a fresh start at life.”
Another said, “I walked 1.36 kilometres. School shoes matter for a child because it’s super important to their education. I would say someone walking past go ahead and do it and walk five kilometres if you can.”
And another added, “It’s for a really good cause and I think that if five kids today, if I have five kids to get a pair of shoes then yeah that’s for today that I feel like my work is done.”
Creative approach
Next stop? Liberty employees will be challenged to walk the walk too.
“We wanted to find a way to get South Africans involved in this incredible initiative not just with likes and comments on social media, but with real action that could result in real change,” Wolberg says.
School shoes are presented not just as a practical necessity but as a symbol of dignity. How did that emotional truth shape the creative approach?
“The emotional truth was pivotal to our creative approach – we really wanted to tell this story with a strong element of hope and optimism, instead of pity. Research shows that when kids have something as simple as a pair of school shoes, it can change everything; their attendance, their participation in class and even their grades,” he adds.
Instead of relying on statistics, the campaign focuses on the human reality. As Wolberg says, “ We used real people to not just tell this story, but to tell their story. People have almost become desensitised to data, and especially for a brand like Liberty, that focusses on empathy and humanity, we wanted people to connect and feel the journey that these children take.”
Wolberg paid tribute to the partners who worked on the campaign and pulled it off with remarkable speed.
“This campaign would not have been possible without the immense efforts from all our clients and agency partners. From the get-go, everyone was so passionate about the idea that it just took on a life of its own. It’s a campaign that we’re all very proud of. Massive shout-out to Retroviral, Lucky Hustle and Run Jump Fly for helping us get this off the ground!”
