What can you do to make a shoe brand ad interesting? Creative agency, Thingy & Thingy®, and production company, DROOL, made Vivobarefoot’s ad weird. The UK and US campaign, Weird More, features talking snails and mushrooms and NFL’s New England Patriots’ wide receiver, Vivobarefoot ambassador and barefoot evangelist, Mack Hollins.
The campaign is a rallying cry to give ‘normal’ (trainers) the bird and embrace what’s different, starting by setting your feet free. As the barefoot category grows, brands are increasingly clustering around a set of functional benefits that no one brand can own. Weird More sets out to shift the conversation for Vivobarefoot into a more ownable, emotive place to play and connect with a growing audience of barefoot-curious consumers.
The work steps away from well-being promises. People have had enough of those. Weird More asks a different question – if being ‘normal’ isn’t making us feel good, why are we trying so hard to achieve it? Maybe normal is the problem in the first place. Rather than offering another prescription for how people should live, the campaign plays with the idea that in an overwhelming world where we feel increasingly disconnected, putting ‘normal’ to one side and getting back to what’s natural might help us find a little more freedom and connection.
However, the world doesn’t need another serious ad about empowerment and wellbeing – humour is a much better antidote than just telling people to feel good. So puppets were employed to help.
Chris Bosher, head of strategy at Thingy & Thingy®, commented, “Vivo audiences are against-the-grain kinds of folk. People who seek out their own version of what’s natural, resistant to orthodoxy, walking their own path (barefoot). We wanted to give them a badge of honor and welcome more young people into the fold – celebrated by nature, with the proudly weird Mack as their figurehead. Distinctive, cute, strange in all the right ways. Weird’s good.”
The hero commercial was directed by Tiffany Whitney Chang at DROOL Productions and the campaign was shot on location. The puppets were created by Claudia Brugnaletti of CottonClaud Studios, a live action, stop-motion puppets and props studio based in London, who has worked for renowned production houses and workshops for films including Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs.
Bayarma Clark, partner and CMO at Vivobarefoot, stated, “Thingy & Thingy® pushed us creatively and helped bring a bold idea to life in a way that feels distinctive, memorable and unmistakably Vivobarefoot. We’re really proud of what we created together.”
Thais and Darren, Co-founders and CCOs of Thingy &Thingy®, added, “We like woods and weird things in woods. And this is a film that has both those things. And barefoot shoes. Because we’re selling them.”
Tiffany Whitney Chang, Director at DROOL, stated, “From the off, we were after something really special and handcrafted – a sweet little celebration of the silly and the weird. Every character has their own elaborate lore and was lovingly hand-made to our design. We knew we were on the right track whenever something made us laugh or stayed with us.”
The campaign builds on Vivobarefoot’s Free Your Feet brand platform, launched with Thingy & Thingy® in 2025, and will run across TV, social and OOH.
Credits
Client: Vivobarefoot
Creative agency: Thingy & Thingy®
Chief Creative Officers: Thais Delcanton / Darren Simpson
Head of Strategy: Chris Bosher
Planner: Chris Bosher
Designer: Quim Marin
Producer: Izzie Haak
Production Company: DROOL
Director: Tiffany Whitney Chang
Creative Director & Co-Founder: Freddie Powell
EP & Co-Founder: Genevieve Sheppard
Producer: Ben Burdock
Puppet Maker & Technician: Claudia Brugnaletti @CottonClaud Studio
Puppeteer: Robert Tygner
Director of Photography: Patrick Meller
Production Designer: Jo Finkel
Costume Designer: Selina Wong
Editor: Flaura Atkinson @ Stitch Editing
Post-Production: Electric Theatre Collective
Colourist: Mackenzie Taylor
Music Composer: Nicolas Fleming-Yaryan
Sound Design: Matt Valentine @ 750mph
