Ep 645 · 60 min · Mon 20 Jul 2026

Why Converse Lets Creators Break Its Own Brand Rules with Dave Dullens

Dave Dullens, Conquest Sports

The Chuck Taylor was built for 1920s basketball and it's still here.

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In this episode

In 1917 the Converse Chuck Taylor was a basketball shoe. Flat sole, bit of canvas, worn with a singlet and shorts out on the court. That was the uniform right through the 30s, 40s and 50s. A hundred years later the shoe looks almost exactly the same and it’s a cultural icon. It got there for one reason. The brand followed the consumer instead of dragging the consumer along.

Dave Dullens has spent 20 years keeping brands like that relevant. He runs brand and consumer at Conquest Sports, the longest-running Converse licensee in the world, and his whole career has been inside iconic footwear: Converse, Vans, Timberland, Dr. Martens. I first met him on stage at Patten’s Future of Social event. We had 20 minutes and I walked off thinking I hadn’t asked him half of what I wanted to, so I got him back for the long version.


The consumer decides, not you

Every brand Dave has worked on has one product that’s outlasted the generations, and it’s always the same story. The Dr. Martens 1460 came out of the 60s. The Timberland yellow boot came out of the 70s. The Chuck Taylor goes back to 1917. All still relevant, all barely changed. And here’s the bit I loved. None of them are used for what they were built for. The Timberland was made for freezing winters and ended up in New York hip hop videos. The Chuck was a pro basketball shoe and got adopted by skateboarding, music and art.

“The consumer always brought those brands across. It’s about following the consumer where they take it, and then how do we be useful to that consumer now.”

You can’t force this. Dave’s clear that you don’t shove your way into a community where you don’t belong. Converse got pulled into those scenes because the people there chose it, and that’s exactly what lets the brand show up without feeling fake. He also knows where not to play. Powerlifters love Chuck Taylors because they’re flat and stable, but Converse stays out of the gym. It’s not what the brand’s for. Knowing where you don’t belong is half the job.


The algorithm will never build your brand

Meta’s new models want you to throw everything into one campaign and let them sort out where the customer is and drive the result. I get the appeal, but Dave put his finger on the problem. Left to its own devices, the algorithm chases conversion, keeps serving the same product to the same people, and never does the work of building the brand that makes people want you in the first place.

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“We can’t always rely on the algorithm. It doesn’t understand the brand priorities, it understands conversion.”

So a couple of times a quarter his team ringfences budget that has nothing to do with conversion. They run it for awareness and reach, get a message in front of new people, then feed that back into an ad set that pushes towards a sale. A brand sells hundreds of products, and some of them need their own air to find an audience before the funnel can touch them. Dave’s line for defending this internally is the best thing in the whole chat. Brand is planting the trees. Performance is harvesting the fruit. If you never plant, there’s nothing to pick.


Build a creator pyramid, not a one-off

Converse leaned into creators because its campaign content just wasn’t hitting the scale the social feeds want. It became the first business in Australia to use Patten Creators to pull together what used to be a nightmare of DMs and one-off contracts.

What Dave’s built is layered. At the bottom sit nano and micro creators, mostly people who already love Converse and tag it anyway. They get product, a discount code and an affiliate cut, so there’s something real in it for them beyond a free pair of shoes. Above them are lookalike creators with bigger audiences, then the Converse All Stars community he funds as partners, then contracted influencers, then global ambassadors at the top. Every layer does a different job. The polished stuff is built to stop the scroll. The UGC is built to blend in and entertain.

“Some are really polished high end assets built to disrupt the feed. Then you’ve got UGC, built to just work in and entertain.”

Worth a flag for Aussie operators. Dave’s honest that affiliate is still finding its feet here and he wasn’t even sure it suited footwear. He runs it anyway, because it rewards good content and quietly builds a community that’s ready to go the day something like TikTok Shop actually lands.


Brief creators to what they’re good at

Dave’s biggest change came from getting it wrong. They started with one brief for every creator, and the nano and micro ones took it word for word. Everything came back looking like the brief, which meant it all looked the same. Now the briefs point people back at their own best work.

If that’s right, the question stops being “how good is my website” and becomes “how good is my product data.” Nobody has fully cracked what the commercial model around a global catalogue looks like, and Martin’s honest that he doesn’t know either, even after sitting in the conference room where they talked about it. But the practical move is obvious. Getting your catalogue clean while most operators aren’t thinking about it is a genuine opportunity. Furniture marketplaces, niche category storefronts, micro-sites for a single campaign, all of it gets cheap to spin up once the data underneath is right.

“Sometimes we’re even like, here’s some things you’ve done before that we really like. You lean into what they do well.”

It makes total sense. If you spell out exactly what you want, you’ll get five unboxing videos, and you could’ve filmed those yourself. A creator can’t sell your product features with the authority the brand has, so stop asking them to. Let your own assets carry the message and let the creator do the thing their audience already turns up for.


Letting go of the brand rails

For a bloke whose whole job has been protecting the brand and saying no, handing a stranger a pair of shoes and telling them to do whatever they want is confronting. Converse tried steering creators towards how it wanted to look and it flopped, because it wasn’t them. The surprising stuff is what works, because it feels real.

The example Dave keeps coming back to is a woman who filmed her worn-in Chucks with the insole popping out. She shoved it back in and captioned it something like “I’ll get another six months out of these before I buy a new pair.” That cuts against every sales target Converse has. And it worked, because it’s true. Anyone who’s broken in a pair of Chucks knows that feeling, you don’t want them to end. People clicked through and bought.

There are hard lines, of course. No drugs or alcohol, no profanity, and some stuff just never gets posted. But inside those guardrails Dave’s default is now “it’s not offensive, let’s try.” That’s where the wins are hiding.

Where Dave’s looking next

Two things. Reddit, which has come back to life as an AI source of truth, though being there properly is a big organic commitment. And, more interesting to me, offline. This generation lives online and the screen time is genuinely alarming, so Dave reckons the next connection people actually crave is in the real world.

He’s had a crack at it before. Pre-COVID he opened a Converse community store called Renew Labs, built around keeping the shoes you already own alive, cleaning them, fixing them, customising them. Commercially it didn’t stack up, but the community part absolutely did. People came in just to talk about their shoes and the stories behind them. The best brands take a moment like that, film it, push it back online and let the FOMO do the reach. Which lands you right back where you started. Plant the trees, then harvest the fruit.


The Takeaway

Keeping an iconic brand relevant isn’t about clever campaigns, it’s about following the consumer instead of dragging them along. Converse, Dr. Martens and Timberland all got adopted for things they were never built for, and the brands leaned in. The winners read where the audience takes the brand and stay useful there, ringfence budget to build brand while everyone else chases conversion, and hand creators enough rope to make something real. Dave’s been doing this across footwear for 20 years, and his line sums it up: brand plants the trees, performance harvests the fruit.


The algorithm will happily optimise you into talking to the same people forever. So who’s discovering your brand for the first time, and what are you doing to reach them?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a licensee and distributor model in retail? It’s a business that licenses a brand and runs it in a particular market. Conquest Sports holds the Converse licence for Australia and New Zealand and runs the lot locally: direct-to-consumer, wholesale, marketing, warehousing and distribution. The global owner sets the brand direction, the local team adapts it and makes it work here.

How do you keep an iconic brand relevant across generations? You follow the consumer instead of forcing a direction. Converse, Dr. Martens and Timberland all became icons because people adopted their products for things they were never designed for, and the brands leaned into those communities rather than fighting them. Staying relevant means watching where your audience takes the brand and being useful to them there.

How do you justify brand budget in a business obsessed with conversion? Measure it. Get a baseline on what your consumer thinks with brand tracking and research, put KPIs on brand lift, activate against a clear goal, then measure again down the track. Dave’s team uses Tracksuit for always-on tracking. Once brand is measurable it stops being the fluffy thing finance rolls its eyes at and becomes real projects with real outcomes.

How should brands brief UGC creators? Point them at their own best work instead of handing everyone the same rigid brief. When every creator gets identical instructions, the content comes back identical. Showing a creator the past posts of theirs you liked leans into what they do well, while your own brand assets carry the specific product message.


Read the full transcript Auto-generated

Dave Dullans: Without the brand, it's hard to push down the funnel and the funnel only gets you so far. It's just a shoe until I put it on and then it becomes part of who I am, what I do. You can't really do the second one without the first one. If you're not planting trees, you're not harvesting anything. I'm Dave Dolans from Conquest Sports and in this episode of Add to Cart, I talk about managing global brands in local markets.

Nathan Bush: In 1917. 1917, the converse Chuck Taylor was a basketball shoe. Flat sole, bit of canvas, worn with a singlet and shorts out in the court. It was the go to.

Nathan Bush: Over 100 years later, it's still a cultural icon.

Nathan Bush: And it got there for one reason.

Nathan Bush: The brand followed the consumer. It didn't drag the consumer along.

Nathan Bush: My guest Today has spent 20 years

Nathan Bush: keeping brands like that relevant.

Nathan Bush: His name is Dave Dullens and he is the head of brand and consumer at Conquest Sports. They run Converse here across Australia and New Zealand. Now, if you've not worked with a licensee or distributor model before, here's the short version. They run the lot D2C wholesale marketing

Nathan Bush: right down to the warehousing.

Nathan Bush: And I think Dave might know more

Nathan Bush: about footwear, or at least streetwear footwear in this country than anyone else. His whole career has been inside of these brands.

Nathan Bush: Converse, then Vans, Timberland, Doc Martens, and then over at Accent Group and then back to Converse. I actually met Dave for the first

Nathan Bush: time on stage at Patton's Future of Social event.

Nathan Bush: We had about 20 minutes on stage

Nathan Bush: together and I walked off that stage thinking that I didn't get to ask him half the stuff that I really wanted to. So this was a chance for the extended cut and disappointingly, he recorded not wearing any shoes at all. Not very on brand.

Nathan Bush: But here is what I loved about this conversation.

Nathan Bush: It's not really a creative tactics episode.

Nathan Bush: It's a masterclass in keeping an iconic

Nathan Bush: brand relevant across generations.

Nathan Bush: We get into the case for brand

Nathan Bush: when everyone else in the business is

Nathan Bush: obsessed with conversion and what it takes to let go of brand control.

Nathan Bush: Including a great example of a dirty sneaker video that broke all of Converse's rules and still did an amazing job.

Nathan Bush: Now, just quickly, before we get into today's episode, I want to say a huge thank you to our partners at Shopify and at Klaviyo for making Add to Cart possible.

Nathan Bush: We could not bring you this show without their support. And if you want a cheat sheet, if you want to get all the links, the really Short version of all the tips, the practical tips that Dave gives in this episode. Head on over to add to cart.com au and sign up for our free newsletter.

Nathan Bush: I send it out on the afternoon

Nathan Bush: that the episode goes live to give you the quick cheat sheet of everything that you might have missed. So here is head of brand and consumer Dave Dullins from Conquest Sports.

Nathan Bush: Dave, welcome to add to Cart.

Dave Dullans: Dave, how are you, mate?

Nathan Bush: I'm well, I'm. Well, I'm excited about this conversation because we were on stage at the pattern future of social event and that was when I met you for the first time and we had a great conversation on stage. I really enjoyed it and I got off that and I was like, Dave, I didn't ask half the questions that I wanted to ask. We had about 20 minutes. You really opened up my eyes into how big brands and established brands can use influencers in ugc. But I got a feeling there's a lot more to what you do than that.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, that's. That's a tip of the iceberg and probably what we spoke about. But yeah, it goes pretty deep. So no, that was a good chat. I enjoyed that. It was a good little session up there in Sydney. So, yeah, nice to connect and chat all things marketing and. And content on social.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely, definitely.

Nathan Bush: So tell me, you are the head

Nathan Bush: of brand and consumer at Conquest Brands of which you, as I understand, look after mainly Converse in a licensee and distributor mode. So firstly, tell me about Conquest Brands and what it means because a lot of people might not have been in a licensee and distributor business before. We're either in brands or we're retailers. What is that?

Dave Dullans: Yeah. So Conquest Sports, it's been a Commerce licensee for close on 45 years. So longest global licensee for Converse around the world. So it's pretty much a business that licenses the brands and manages it in the country and in the jurisdiction that they have. So we are across Australia and New Zealand for Converse brand and we also do some kids brands. So we also manage kids apparel for Nike, Jordan and Commerce as well. We also have the distribution rights for Hurley and that's going to subcontract it out to another partner who runs Hurley across Australasia. So yeah, funnily enough, my whole career has been with licensee brands. So, you know, I started my marketing career at Conquest working with, you know, the Converse brand and then some other brands. We did at the time went over to Accent Group, which is another licensee distributor model, worked across bands and Timberland, Doc Martens, stance and then found myself back at Conquest Sports, back on a commerce brand. So, yeah, we, you know, the way it works, we work really closely with global brands but ultimately manage the brand in the market.

Nathan Bush: And are you responsible for EE Comm

Nathan Bush: and D2C as well in the market?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, yeah. So we pretty much run everything. We run DTC wholesale, obviously marketing. Anything that, you know, shows up. Commerce or distribution is managed through us. We warehouse and, you know, dispatch everything ourselves. Bring it in, send it out.

Nathan Bush: And from a career perspective, has that been intentional by you or you've kind

Nathan Bush: of just fallen into not just licensing distributors but also footwear? Like, you must be the person who knows the most about footwear in Australia.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, like not intentional. I've kind of just landed there and then kept down that path. I don't have any fetish with feet or anything like that. There's nothing on that side. I'm just attracted to like brands that are appealing to like a youth audience and there's opportunity in footwear. So yeah, across, you know, Converse vans, Timberland, Doc Martens had some great brands to sort of, you know, work with and work on and yeah, just found myself there.

Nathan Bush: This could be a dangerous question given that you're recording from home, but what have you got on your feet right now? Are you rocking Chuck Taylor's?

Dave Dullans: What's your go to in complete transparency? We are shoeless house. So I have a pair of socks on.

Nathan Bush: Not great for business work from home, is it?

Dave Dullans: That is that is it. So. But Chuck tails tends to be the go. I've got some pretty special ones in the wardrobe that come out every so often and then, you know, the standard beaters that are beats of shit but they look better. So.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Dullans: Bit of a mix. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: Awesome. And in your role as head of brand and consumer, what does your remit look like? How far do you go? Because we had a question in our community and it was from Tina Tranker Mead and she said, how do you localize a global brand for this region? Because Converse, such a well known brand. Right. And how do you localize that for Australia? And how comfortable do you feel when providing pushback when maybe overseas or head office are pushing what they think is best? So that was from Tina in our community.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, so it's, it's a good question. Thank you, Tina. So obviously there's a brand sti art and some things that, you know, globally we're trying to all align on whether that's product or messaging. But local voice is extremely important in each market that commerce operates in. So I think gone are the days where a global campaign just lands everywhere and off you go. It's really important to understand the nuance of each market across any brand and really adapt that to hit the local consumer. For someone in Australia to hear a message in an Australian accent that's talking directly to them and maybe a neighborhood that they recognize has far more impact than a face they don't recognize or something that's come down globally. So understanding the local consumer is really critical. And then understanding, I guess, the line between what you are able to produce, like both from a directive point of view and a capability versus, you know, what's stepping over the line. You know, you got to stay true what the brand stands for. And I guess my job as head of brand consumers to understand what that is and implement it locally.

Nathan Bush: I'm interested in your view here because we've had a lot of guests recently. It feels like the surge towards the US Market is opening up again from a lot of the people that we're speaking to. And that seems to be the next play over the next 12 months. It's always been strong, but I think tariffs put a little bit of a dent in the ambitions for a little while. Given what you've seen in the market, how do you describe the difference between Australian consumers and. And US consumers?

Dave Dullans: I think locally we're a lot more multicultural, and you sort of see that coming through in a lot of the messages and who shows up in content and campaigns and things like that, where we're a lot more influenced by what's happening in sort of Southeast Asia and Korea and Japan and China. We sort of get a bit of that roll back here. So I'm sort of seeing a little bit more of that influence coming our way, rather than maybe us. Like US is always going to dominate because, you know, locally sport plays a huge role in what we do, and we've got big eyes over in. In North America and what's happening in whether that's NBA or, you know, any kind of things that are happening over there. Athletics. So, yeah, I. I do think the multicultural piece in our market, especially in Australia, plays a much bigger role than it does probably in North America.

Nathan Bush: So that's interesting, isn't it? So US has more volume, obviously, but you can probably address that, that audience with a more generic brand, but at a bigger scale.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, look, I don't want to speak. I'm spending some time in America, but I don't want to speak on behalf of Americans. But, you know, from my knowledge, locally, I think. Yeah, that multicultural piece does kind of cut through a little bit better, just as there's so many, you know, examples of when you put something out and it'll appeal to a consumer that you kind of were targeting, but you just hit them anyway based on who was in the campaign. So, yeah, I feel like that's a

Nathan Bush: bit of a. Yeah. To bring that to life for people who may not have worked in global brands before, whether that be at Conquest or in your past experience. Have you got any examples where you've had a campaign or a brand positioning come to you from a global team? And obviously, it goes to more regions than just Australia and New Zealand that you've had to then actually go.

Nathan Bush: We can take bits of this, but

Nathan Bush: then we've got to localize it to really make it connect here.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, there's a few things that, you know, a few programs and things that I've brought to the market probably in my time at Accent Group. So Vans. The Vans brand had a platform called House of Vance, which was like a music venue situation where they put on shows. And we really had to localize that to hit our local flavor, you know, so, you know, obviously local bands and local acts and get really into the communities and the niches of what really appeals here. Where, you know, it was probably, if you look at a US point of view, it's probably a lot of pop, punk and that sort of stuff appealing to a band's consumer. We're down here, you know, we put the Chats on as the headline band who are like, so Australian, like, it hurts. So you really gotta lean into what works here. More so than just a cookie cutter. Hey, just drag and drop. Look, it comes to campaigns, too. We're always trying to find, you know, a true representation of what Australia is when you're putting people in front of the camera, you know, a diverse mix of people and backgrounds and beliefs. You know, we do a lot of work with. We have a Pride campaign with commerce we bring out every year. So we work closely with local communities and local organizations. -18. We work closely here. Always getting their point of view on what works. So it's about getting into those communities and getting the real feedback that matters to who you're trying to target.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So that leads to my next question, and it may be more me being introspective than a reflection on you, but you've been in the game for 20 years, where, I think a similar age. How do you stay cool like when you're dealing with streetwear and youth culture, how do you stay on top of it all?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, well, the early lesson you're going to learn is just take yourself out of it. Like, you're not the consumer. Like, stop trying to lean into what you think is cool, because that changes pretty quickly, like when you hit four in front of you. So I think it's just like, I

Nathan Bush: feel like kids kill it as well. I used to before kids.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that just, just puts a stop, stop. And on that cool, cool journey. But like, it's, again, it's. You just got to stay close to what's happening. You know, if you're into culture, you stay into it. Whether that's, you know, fashion or it's music or whatever it is, you tend to lean right in and. And, you know, you have to be curious and you have to keep kind of exploring and understanding what's happening. So I think that keeps you on the pulse. But then you also got to surround yourself with good people, you know, you can't do it all, you know, so my team, my teams have always been fantastic and always younger. You know, you're trying to getting people that are closer to those communities and have a good point of view and trust them to, you know, steer the brand in the direction or the brands that they should be going.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, that makes sense. I can imagine that with a brand like Converse, it would be very easy to slip into nostalgia territory. And how do you make sure you keep brands moving forward and being relevant and desired by new generations as they come through?

Dave Dullans: It's a really interesting one. When I look back on my career and the brands that I've worked with, there's always been an iconic product that stood this test of time over generations. It's really fascinating to me. Like, if you look at Doc Martens, they got a 1460 boot, like the classic Doc Martens boot, which came out in the 60s and it still is relevant today. Look at Timberland, they've got the yellow waterproof boot, which came out of the 70s, again, still relevant today. And the Chuck Taylor, you know, came out in the early 1900s.

Nathan Bush: Did it really?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, 1917, so. And like, still 100 years plus later, still relevant today. And like most mostly unchanged. You know, you see that silhouette and it's pretty similar to what was back then. And that is because the brands need to continue to evolve with the consumers. You don't get to this position with any of these brands by standing still and standing by your morals and the interesting part is the consumer always brought those brands across. What those products are being used for now aren't what the products were made for. Like a Timberland boot was made for the dead of winter, waterproof, like in North Hampshire, freezing cold and it's worn on the streets of New York and in hip hop videos. You know, a Chuck Taylor was made for basketball. You know, a professional on court basketball shoe. In the 1920s and 30s, Lorna Jane

Nathan Bush: built a whole brand on the idea

Nathan Bush: that MVMT is medicine.

Nathan Bush: And it turns out their customers took that literally because they do not stand still. They'll discover the brand in a store, shop online a few days later, then tap through the app sometimes. All of this happening in the space of a couple of days, that is

Nathan Bush: beautiful for loyalty but a nightmare to keep up with.

Nathan Bush: Especially when like Lorna Jane, your email and SMS are stuck in two completely different systems. So they brought it all together with Klaviyo. One platform, one customer profile and a shift from blasting campaigns to nurturing proper life cycle. Join journeys, post purchase upsells alone. Now drive three to four times the order rates. And across the last year They've pulled an 84 times ROI on email and SMS. 84 times. For a brand that swears that movement is medicine, that is a very healthy result. Head to klaviyo.com au and see how brands like Lorna Jane are doing it right.

Nathan Bush: I can't get an image out of my head. I really want to see like a black and white photo of someone in Chuck Taylor's in like 1917 aren't going to be wild.

Dave Dullans: The crazy thing is literally throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s, it was the uniform for basketball. It was like you wear a singlet, you wear a pair of shorts and you wear a pair of these shoes and that's what you're playing. So and now like it's unfathomable that that is the performance product that you would put on your feet to play basketball. So it's about following the consumer, where they take it. So you know, through the Doc Martens example in the 60s, it was a, you know, a work boot and it was adopted by the punk rock movement and that took him in a certain direction and the attitude of that kind of the brand leaned into to be like, okay, let's let him push back against it. Same with Timbaland and hip hop. Same with, you know, Chuck Taylor's and skateboarding and music and art and that whole creative community who treated it as a blank canvas. It's like Cool. This is like, you know, a shoe that I can wear and be myself. So we take that attitude, or I've taken that attribute all the way. Where do the consumers lead us? And then how do we be useful to that consumer now?

Nathan Bush: So there's three really good examples of massive brands with iconic products that have moved away from. Well, not moved away, but. But evolved from where the core was originally into new cultures and subcultures. And are you saying that most of that happens organically? Like, when you are working with brands, are you trying to push into new cultures and subcultures?

Dave Dullans: I don't know if you. You can, but it can be pretty forced. You know, you don't want to force yourself into a community where you don't belong. So we've always kind of been across the brands I've worked with, like, ingrained in those organically, and then allows you to lean in with some authenticity. You know, you belong there because the people there have chosen you to belong there. You know, there's many canvas shoe brands around. Those consumers could have chosen any one of those, but they've chosen this one, you know, so, you know, you lean into that. And look, there's other communities where, you know, converse is a part of that. We don't kind of actively play there, strangely enough. Like, the powerlifting weightlifting community loves Chuck Taylor's because they're flat.

Nathan Bush: You know, I see him in my gym all the time.

Dave Dullans: It's like a thing that people wear in the gym because they're like, they're comfortable, they're stable. We don't actively play there because we sort of choose to be like, well, is that something that is for our brand? Maybe not. We'll leave that to more athletic brands and play there. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: How do you. How do you go?

Nathan Bush: Yeah, we'd lean into skateboarding, but we wouldn't lean into gym. Yeah.

Dave Dullans: We're not built for athletics. And I think skateboarding is kind of more creative.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: Okay.

Dave Dullans: So, you know, it's. There's a craft of skateboarding and, you know, you gotta put your body on the line and you gotta come up with something new that hasn't been done before in a new spot. Enough to have a dig at weightlifters, but just lifting heavy stuff, you know?

Nathan Bush: Yeah. Is it true in your brand guidelines, you've just got no meatheads?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, yeah. No heavy things. Anything over 80 kilos, put it down. Yeah, I love it.

Nathan Bush: So in terms of. Then getting those signals from, where the interest might be coming from, as you're looking to Continually evolve brands and you're looking for new areas where you can expand and keep these brands relevant. Where are you picking up those signals from? Are there any particular channels or places?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, look, I like to, I'm a firm believer in like the consumer decides what's going on, they decide if they like what you've put out, they decide if they're going to buy it. So I'm, I read everything, I read the comments, I read the DMS, I read other brands comments and DMs like really staying up with what people are saying that they like and don't like. Which then allows you to sort of steer in a certain direction or another direction. Like you might have a hypothesis that is, you know, founded in something that someone's saying online in a comment section. Or you might have something that just gets canceled out because you're like, ah, it's completely wrong on that. So there's a bit of that. There's also like trend reports and things which I think have a place but it's more of a, it's more of a map than a, you know, a destination. It's like this is where things could go.

Nathan Bush: Do you like to do much formal research or do you think you get enough signals out of social.

Dave Dullans: We do a lot of consumer research ourselves just to understand where we're at in the market. So we use Tracksuit, I really like that as a sort of brand tracking platform. That's great because it's kind of always on and you get a like real time steer every month on what's happening. So across your traditional funnel and then all other channels. We also do some other market research which dives a bit deeper into some of our specifics and on our browser we want to understand versus some of the others and then you know, brand love scores and likely to buy next. And so you kind of get an understanding of where we're at, where some others are at in the market. It does feel like it has a lag. Like things that you can see because we in a wholesale and a retail environment, you're buying six to nine months ahead. So you kind of got to have an early steer on, hey, we think this is coming so let's make a place a bet there or we don't or you know, hedge your bets and go halfway. So yeah, you try to get as many singles as you can convince is really great. They share a lot of information that they have and all the brands have sort of been pretty transparent with, you know, design direction and that sort of thing.

Nathan Bush: So I'm interested in that piece that you say around signals and whether that matches up towards what you see in sales, because as a licensee and distributor, you've got obviously a lot of different sales channels from wholesale to retail to D2C. Do you find that the sales data matches up what you see from a brand and consumer perspective?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, I think sometimes it's interesting. We'll tend to get a read in our own channels before we get a read outside of that. And look, that comes down to as a brand, you'll tend to provide the breadth of the product offering to your consumer directly, whereas wholesale is much refined offer or picked and choose. So, you know, we'll test a lot of things from a product to see what's working and then we can tend to take those to wholesale partners and say, hey, there's some really good opportunity here. We think this is an opportunity for your business because you have this consumer in your business. So. Yeah, and then how they match back to the signals that we're kind of getting from our consumers and our market research. Sometimes, like, sometimes trends really push something like an iteration. You know, embroidery has been really strong for us recently from a Chuck Taylor point of view. You know, we're not getting any research that says, hey, embroidery, that's just as in.

Nathan Bush: As in people embroidering their own shoes or being as a service.

Dave Dullans: No, like a embroidered design on a shoe that's pre done. Like, you know, we'd have a floral embroidery pack and people really resonate with that. But that's not getting surfaced up in any of our research.

Nathan Bush: What's that?

Dave Dullans: Well, there's a bit of stuff like there's some macro trends that sort of happen which we're trying to, you kind of lean into, you know, at the moment this big sort of 2000 era like running and technical stuff that happens. You know, from a commerce point of view, we don't have that product, we don't play in that trend. And then there's the whole soccer samba, you know, vintage soccer jersey, World cup fever, that's also happening. So you get some big macro trends, but kind of when they get down to niches, that tends to be like a small community that really resonates with that kind of look and they find

Nathan Bush: it and they buy it.

Dave Dullans: They tell their friends and they buy it.

Nathan Bush: So, yeah, fast followers on that, on that influence piece. You've gone down the path of creator and ugc. And this is a lot of what we spoke about on stage a couple of weeks ago. Obviously with A brand like Converse, you've got to be very careful because it is a well established brand. You spend a lot of money on campaigns and brand identity globally. Tell me, what was your reasoning around opening up this to creators and ugc?

Dave Dullans: It was, it was kind of a content play. You know, we would get, we get great content from global side of things. As a distributor we would then produce our own content, local content, but we probably still weren't hitting the scale that we needed to feed the social algorithms and things that, you know, since things have changed, it's like feed the beast and it'll decide and find the right thing and you know, work for you. So it was started as a content play and then also we moved into this pattern creators platform which we spoke about. So Pattern is our digital marketing partner. They brought to market for the first time in Australia a platform called Pattern Creators, which is essentially a UGC management platform. And so we were the first organization to try to give that a try. So we saw a good opportunity there to, to test it out. So what that meant for us was onboarding a bunch of sort of micro and nano creators that were relevant to our brand that were either already tagging us in content or posting about Converse or just in that streetwear and fashion space, bringing them in and providing contra product for content in exchange. So in the past we would sort of be pretty manual, would be in people's DMs and, and then sidebarring contracts and agreements and one to ones or we'd be paying high level influencers to post content and have contracts around that. So what this allowed us to do is that that seating piece, that contra piece, just centralize it, streamline it and make it kind of more efficient for us.

Nathan Bush: So two interesting pieces there, obviously the pattern piece because I think everything managing UGC and creators sound until you realize how manual and time intensive.

Dave Dullans: So you have to actually have to do it. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Bush: It's the worst process ever.

Dave Dullans: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: So that's interesting.

Nathan Bush: I also think it's interesting that you've pulled back and gone down the micro and nano path with influencers. We couldn't even call them influencers, but just fans who are already engaged rather than trying to find your desired audience and then get them to wear Converse.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, it's sort of, it's a bit of a mix. So the starting point was probably it's an easier sell when someone likes your brand. In any case, if you're talking to an influencer, if you're talking to a wholesaler, if you're talking to anyone, if they're a fan of your brand, they're gonna listen and they'll probably wanna participate. When it's cold, you're not gonna get sort of genuine content either. So you're leaning into people who are fans already. Cause the content is gonna be better. So we start there and then we go into lookalikes and you go to people that you know, look like, smell like and then you start to grow from there. So we do layer in this piece with different tiers. So this would kind of be our mass market. Like we're going to get a lot of content for product. We have paid influencer programs, we have other community programs with a program called the Compass All Stars which is like some hand picked young people that we've brought in across the country. And we work with not as an influencer but as a bit of a partner. So we provide funding for their projects and in turn that way the product and they tag us. So we layer them into the mix of our kind of influencer sphere and then we also get great brand ambassadors from, you know, North America and global brands that we can leverage from a content point of view as well. So we've kind of got a bit of a, you know, content pyramid.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's very layered, isn't it?

Dave Dullans: Yeah. Which I think is important, you know, because some are really polished high end assets that show up well and you know, is probably built to shop the feed and then you've got UGC which is built to just work in and entertain or just excite someone about what's in their feed.

Nathan Bush: So can I test this pyramid with you? Can I kind of frame up what's in my head have we got and tell me if I'm totally wrong. Micro and Nano at the front, which is primarily your existing fans, might not have huge audiences but are really passionate, can create content. If you want, offer to send them a pair of Converse or whatever shoes you're working for, they're likely to take it and create content just because they're already in there.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. So yeah, the way we've set that up is we've brought them in with a couple of pieces. So there's an affiliate piece to it as well. And they also get a discount code to share with their audience. So there is something in it for them other than just a free parachute.

Nathan Bush: Okay. So then when they post it and they give an affiliate code, they earn a percentage back on whatever sells from that. From that link.

Dave Dullans: Yep.

Nathan Bush: And then you'll have your lookalike Audiences who I assume are people who may not be direct or outwardly fans of Converse, but you know, mirror who your fans are and maybe have larger audiences.

Dave Dullans: Yep.

Nathan Bush: And then you go into your ambassadors, potentially maybe more in that celebrity space.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, we sort of, we'll get the Converse All Stars, which would, I guess would be kind of in the ambassador tier. We'd call them community. And then we would. The next tier above, we would work with some influences which might be recognizable people that we're contracting for. Certain campaigns were relevant. And then the top of the tier would be the global talent that is contracted globally and we use those assets as well.

Nathan Bush: And then you've got partnerships as well, which is the likes of Nike and people who you're working with.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, like we have collaborations with different brands and they tend to have talent attached to them as well. Whether that's, you know, a designer or, you know, a label.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah. And then I assume then on top of all of that from a content perspective, you've got your own campaigns and your internally produced content as well.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. And then, you know, we run always on campaigns through most of the social channels, which is kind of bit more lower funnel. So, you know, we're trying to land messages in the kind of influencer space. And that content funnel, we're also trying to sell product. So, you know, we run always on ads. We do a lot of retargeting based on what they're seeing on this side versus that side. So there's plenty of content.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, there's a lot of content.

Nathan Bush: Have you got a content figure in mind that you're trying to hit every week or month to keep that cadence happening?

Dave Dullans: I wouldn't say a figure. We tend to ebb and flow. Like we'll have always on. We've got product that's always available and then, you know, we'll ebb and flow when big campaigns or big product launches come and go. So they're the, they're the peaks where we'll kind of engage the whole pyramid to create. And then other times we'll sort of just let the always on thing bubble away.

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Nathan Bush: Makes sense. There's a lot of talk at the moment, especially with Meta's new models, where they're essentially taking away your need to tell them what part of the funnel or the customer journey you're targeting. And they're saying, actually, just give us everything into one campaign and we'll work out where the consumer is on the journey to drive your results. It's interesting in that you actually don't have to guess and break down your campaigns into this is traffic, this is awareness, this is conversion. But at the same time, I think it's going to get very frustrating because everything will be pointed towards conversion or people will be measuring success on conversion.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, absolutely.

Nathan Bush: With the brands that you're working on, that, especially from your brand perspective, like that's your heritage and how do you make sure that you have a good mixture of content that keeps that brand relevant and in the minds of people and that which drives conversion.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, look, probably, probably talking to the Meta and the algorithm thing, like there's sometimes you just. You need some messages to cut through. You can't rely on the algorithm to surface the most commercial. That's fine. If, if I was selling one product and all I was worried about was converting that one product, sure, let that go. But the reality is brands don't sell one product. Brands sell hundreds of products and some things need to find an audience to be able to establish as a product. So, you know, sometimes we need to step out of that algorithm and give things its own budget to be like this needs to find an audience because this is what we want to talk about. This is what we want to grow. So we're constantly kind of, you know, working through the content that we have and navigating the algorithm where we need to, you know, set up a separate ad set that delivers to an audience and then feed that back into your master ad set that can then push them down to finance a conversion. But yeah, we can't always rely on the algorithm to. To do. It doesn't understand the brand priorities. It understands conversion. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: So have you got any examples of where you've gone? Actually, we need to fund this message. Like this is just a message that we want to get out there, especially through social content. I don't care about conversion at this point, but this is a really important message to help grow our Brand.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, look, that's a battle we constantly have. Like every month I'd say internal, external, like because you've got people with priorities. Like my priorities to drive people to the website to buy. I'm like, cool. My priority is to grow the brand so people want to come to the website and buy as well as driving sales. So you always got to play this two sides of the coin. So you know, most, you know, a couple of times a quarter we'll have a campaign that needs, needs attention. So you will carve out budget. We'll say this is non conversion, this is brand. We're gonna deliver these for awareness, we're gonna deliver these for reach and then we're gonna ladder that down into consideration conversion. But you need that first piece to get the second piece. Cause you know, if we just let the algorithm do its thing, it's gonna keep showing the same product to the same people and push them all the way down. So the chance to talk to new is different. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: What's your approach to getting new consumers into the brand?

Nathan Bush: Do you have any special messaging or

Nathan Bush: formats that you find to acquire or engage new consumers?

Dave Dullans: We tend to do a lot of lookalike targeting. You know, people who like our brand are likely to look like people who also might like our brand. So we'll do that. You know, it's, we work with different wholesale partners. We tend to use them as some positioning sometimes. So, you know, getting into the right accounts gets you in front of customers that don't come to the converse.com or don't walk into a Converse store. So I guess that's the power of wholesale and that's where you know, you'll talk to a consumer that's looking at six or seven brands as options and you're one of them. So finding the right, putting the right product in the right places is a big part of kind of marketplace management. So you know, building good relationships with wholesale partners is pretty essential to that. And so.

Nathan Bush: Well, yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Because even all the brands that you've worked across and you've mentioned so far, new consumers probably already have an opinion one way or another, even if they haven't experienced it. Because you are such real world brands, you exist like you can't avoid them. I know my 11 year old, he's basketball mad and thinks he's the coolest guy in the world even though he's 11. And we were somewhere the other day and I said, oh, look at these cons. These would be cool. He's like, no, I don't wear cons. I'm like, why not? He's like, I wear Nike.

Nathan Bush: And I'm like, he's got no grounding

Nathan Bush: at all on why it is or what it isn't. But they've got an opinion and that will change and evolve over time.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. And they. It feels like they're getting that younger and younger. When I was 11, I didn't. I was just wearing whatever my parents

Nathan Bush: got me on the side.

Dave Dullans: Put that on. Yeah. So my son's 10 and he's the same. Like, he wears Jordan's. I'm like, mate, can you put some Converse on? He's like, jordan. So, hey, look. Hey. I said, the consumer decides. He's a consumer. He's going to decide what he wants to wear. And that's fine no matter what his dad says, you know. Yeah. It's not the only thing he pushes back on either. So, you know, I want to put.

Nathan Bush: I want to go back to what you said about affiliate, because I think that's really interesting. And a model that we don't do a lot of in Australia. Very popular in the us.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, big time.

Nathan Bush: We've obviously got a few technical challenges with, you know, TikTok shop isn't here yet, I don't think. You know, it's just not part of a big part of our culture around rewarding others for producing content that directly drives sales. Do you find that the effort to work on those affiliate programs justifies the outcome?

Dave Dullans: Well, I think you're. And you're right, it's not a massive part of it. And even when we were exploring it, we're like, is this right for footwear? Like, it feels like, you know, FMCG or cosmetics and things. Feels like a place that. That really works and lands. So we thought we'd give it a try locally. It's doing what it needs to do, I think. So the effort's there, but the power's around the content. You know, we. We get great content, we then leverage that content back into our channels and, yeah, it just allows us to feed that funnel with content more so than, you know. And it pays for sale from a affiliate? Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Bush: So the direct sales is secondary to it. And it's almost like a little bit of a cherry for the creator to go.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, I think if they're doing good content, we want to reward them for it. So that's what the affiliates. Therefore, it also, you know, just allows us to start to set up when things like TikTok shop do come into market, you know, we would have a community ready to go who's used to working with us. We're used to working with them. They're creating content and then, no, it just falls into another platform and they can monetize over there as well as can we.

Nathan Bush: I'm keen to get your thought on

Nathan Bush: TikTok shop, especially after the patent event

Nathan Bush: because we had Tim from TikTok present and since then there's been a little bit of press. It feels to me like TikTok have basically put their hands up and said, if you're in Australia, don't wait for TikTok shop because it isn't happening anytime soon.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, I think it's. I still think, like from a brand point of view, brands really want it and they think they want it, but they're not producing content at the scale to justify TikTok opening it. Here is the message I'm understanding from TikTok. So until it's cut before the horse kind of stuff, like, brands are like, cool. When TikTok shop comes, we'll go like, actually, no, you're gonna go now. And then TikTok shock will come.

Nathan Bush: So TikTok isn't sitting there not driving sales at the moment.

Dave Dullans: They're doing fine. They're doing it. Yep. So. And the brands are still using TikTok and directing them back to their websites, complete the purchase. So it's not like they're missing out on what's happening on platform at the moment, but it's just like the talk that you hear out of the US and the size of what that's doing there. There's some sparkles in some people's eyes around what the potential could be. So look, well, you can only build what's here, you can only work with what's available. So you do that and then when new technology comes in, as it always does, you. You assess and you adapt. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: Are there any emerging channels that you personally have got your eye on that you think are really interesting? Like whether it's live shopping or whether it's, I don't know, long form video. I don't know. Is there anything else that you.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, like from a, like a platform's point of view, Reddit is the one that, you know, everyone's tends to talk about at the moment. Reddit's great. It's kind of had this resurgence with, you know, AI and, you know, that's been a source of truth. So that's a really interesting one. You know, brands to play. There is it's almost community management, you know, it's almost like social media comments, community management. You kind of got to, if you want to be there organically and answer questions, you're going to be there like all the time organically. So that's a big commitment for brands. And obviously you can advertise there. Yeah, I think, I actually think, and this probably goes against this podcast, but I think physical, it's the area that will start to come back, you know, this consumer and the next is chronically online. You know, the screen time is alarming. So I think the next connection people are going to want to have is offline, you know, and then from a brand point of view, always talking like brands, like, how do you, how do you show up there and does that need to be digital? Must you show up digital or can you be authentic and just be in the physical space and do something for this small group of people that are there? Is that what makes it special? But then the question is, well, how does that scale?

Nathan Bush: Yeah, how many, how many Converse stores do you have?

Dave Dullans: At the moment we've got a fleet of about 24 Converse stores across outlet for price. So yeah, there's, there's things happen there. Done some really interesting stuff in the past. Pre Covid, we actually opened a store, a combo store that was called Renew Labs, which was a more community based store, which was a pretty fun concept that I was able to bring to market. And it was about extending the life of the product you already have.

Nathan Bush: Okay.

Dave Dullans: So, you know, everyone's got Converse in the back of the wardrobe. Like we're trying to keep that in use. So bring it in and we'll clean it up, we'll fix it, we'll customize it for you and then off you go. Ultimately, commercially didn't stack up, unfortunately, but what did really work was the community piece of it that people like to come in, like to have a chat, like to talk about their shoes and the stories and all that sort of stuff in there. So there's, there's some nuggets in there that, you know, how do you bring that together? Does product play a role? You know, does those communities play a role? Is it skateboarding? Is it basketball? Is it music? Is it whatever? So I think that's the space.

Nathan Bush: I love that insight because once you have a good pair of Converse that you've worn in and you've got them to a comfortable spot, you actually get really upset if they start to fray.

Dave Dullans: That's kind of part of what you are. You've really, you know, and that's, that's a beautiful thing about a lot of, well, converse as well. Like duck ones as well. Honestly, broken in a pair of docs, you're. You're not getting rid of those like you've done the hard yards. Yep, exactly. But, yeah, look, I've got pairs of Converse in the cupboard that are trashed, but I'd never be relevant because they reflect what I've done in them, where I've been, you know, and then. But I think that's been the beauty of the brand. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, it's just a shoe until I put it on and then it becomes part of who I am, what I do. So. And that message can translate into many different places.

Nathan Bush: I agree, I agree. I think, I think too just to challenge your, your thing of. I think online's got a resurgence and just to challenge your thought around, I think offline's got a resurgence. I think you're absolutely right. But, but the best brands are the ones who are thinking, all right, well, if people wanting to show up in person, if they want those in person events, those communities, those activations, those experiences, how do we use that as a content generation activity to feed back online? So we kind of feed this bit of FOMO and to expand the reach because.

Dave Dullans: Who was it?

Nathan Bush: It was Mike from Scratch talked about this. He ran a big activation in dog park. They do dog food.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, yeah, my dog. My dog eats Scratch. Yep.

Nathan Bush: So there you go, Michael. Be very happy.

Nathan Bush: But he had this huge activation plan.

Nathan Bush: I think it went over a couple of days and it was taking over a park, huge dog, set up everything. And he's like, to be fair, I could have done that for two hours on one morning and had the hype and the event and got the community there, but just filmed everything and got a heap of content and got just as much out of it by bringing that online as having a real world experience for five days or whatever it was.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's. The measure is hard on the physical event.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Dave Dullans: It's like, did that move the needle for all of those people who came over those five days? And is that going to have a longer term effect on my brand and building that longevity and brand love and community versus I need to take this and put it, put it online to get reach and push people down the funnel. So. And that's Brandon's performance. You know, there's the, the brand feels like it's the hard one. It's the long game, it's the Slow. It's the in the trenches, in the mud, in the park with the dogs versus the, you know, the, the quick sugar hits that you're getting from the response on digital. So look, I think if you think about it like Brad, you gotta plant the trees, you gotta put them in the ground, you gotta let em grow and then performance, you harvest the fruit. So you can't really do the second one without the first one. If you're not planting trees, you're not harvesting anything. So yeah.

Nathan Bush: So for the people listening to this

Nathan Bush: who are big believers in brand and they might be working in larger companies where there is so much focus on conversion and driving direct sales, what advice would you have from your career around keeping brand relevant in a conversation and getting the budgets and getting the teams and the space and the ideas to continue developing strong brands in a culture now where it's very much X dollars equals Y dollars out.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, look, and don't get me wrong, that has a place. Absolutely. That has a place down the funnel. But like I said, without the brand, it's hard to push down the funnel. And the funnel only gets you so far. You know, from a conversion point of view, if you're starting fresh with no brand and you're just driving sales, that's cool. But that's probably going to stop and it's going to get more expensive until you start building a bit of a backbone of a brand behind that. My advice would be if you're in a business that loves measurement, you need to measure brand. You know, you need to show that the work you do has an impact on where the brand ends up. So getting a baseline on where you're at I think is really important. Understand what your consumer thinks, do some market research, get a line, propose a plan, put some KPIs on brand, brand

Nathan Bush: lift, you know, and you're using track hoop for that.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, we use tracksuit for that. We use another independent research as well. So, you know, there might be things that you're, you're wanting to move the needle on. It doesn't have to be overall brand, it might be in a certain niche. Like we want to, you know, be closer to sport, we want to be associated with sport, you know, so you measure that and then you activate in sport and you give it a period of time and you measure it again and you prove to your board or your business if it's working or not. So I think that's the advice.

Nathan Bush: That's great advice because it's turning brand from something that's fluffy. And I know it's not fluffy, but it's perceived as fluffy if you're in finance or if you're into logistics, probably someone talking about brand, you're like, oh, can you whatever. But if you're going actually, here's the outcomes that we're driving to, here's the projects we've got, here's what I'm committing to.

Dave Dullans: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: It becomes very concrete. Right.

Dave Dullans: And there's a lot of great white papers and studies out there that talk about the affiliation between brand investment and commercial output. I know Tracksuit have some great white papers out there recently that are probably worth a read for people who are trying to make that push inside their business. So it is hard to turn a finance person away from return on investment or however they're measuring versus because brand isn't cheap. You know, it's not cheap to go out and do a campaign and push that hard or put on an activation or you know, engage someone at a celebrity level. None of those things are cheap. So yeah, you kind of need to knock yourself in. Give it a crack.

Nathan Bush: Love it. And then question that I wanted to ask you when we were talking about UGC and influencers. How do you protect brand? Because the example that you gave at Pattern around the dirty sneaker on the treadmill. Tell me about that. Because I think that's a really interesting one when it comes to putting guardrails around brand and how much you let go. Yeah.

Dave Dullans: And that's like as someone who's always been a brand custodian, like sat in the chair and telling people what they can't do and saying no to opportunities and you know, because when you work for a global brand, you get so many people coming in. I'll do this. You should do this conversation to this. Docline should do this. And like you say no, no, no. Cause none of it's right. And then to then pass on a pair of shoes to someone to be like, do whatever you want can be daunting. But we've. When we first started sort of working with creators, we tried to really steer them on how we wanted to show up and it just didn't work. You know, it wasn't authentic to who they were. So we sort of had to lean into, well, this is the person who makes good content in their own voice. So let's hand it over to them and see what they come up with. And then ultimately the surprising things tend to work because they feel real people resonate with them and it's not scripted. You know, we're not brand. And advertising has changed from, you know, we're not disrupting anymore. We're not stopping people's feeds and say, look at my ad. We're sort of just trying to be part of the conversation organically. And that's where we're sort of saying, things work. So, yeah, it is hard to let go of those brand rails and look to some things that you just, you get back and you're like, we are never posting that. Like, that's not gonna happen.

Nathan Bush: Where do you draw the line?

Dave Dullans: There's some clear things that you're like, okay, no drugs and alcohol, no profanity, no this or that. So there's some things that you're like, cool, we're not touching that. But others, sometimes you just gotta try.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Dave Dullans: You know, it's not offensive. Let's try.

Nathan Bush: Tell us about that. The dirty sneaker treadmill one. Because that surprised you, didn't it, in terms of the results.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, well, there's, there's probably two. There was one with a woman in a pair of shocks walking on a treadmill with some text over the top. I don't know what she was talking about, but it just resonated and people clicked it came through and made purchases. But the other one was, and I think this is what tapped into something real. So she had a pair of Converse shoes. And it's kind of what we spoke about before. Once you've got a pair of shoes and you've worn them, you don't want to get rid of them. And the, the insole had popped out. Well, the outside popped out. So she popped it back in and the comment was like, she put over the top. You know, I'll get another six months out of these chucks before I get a new pair. So.

Nathan Bush: And that resonate goes against all your sales targets.

Dave Dullans: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we want people to buy more shoes. Absolutely. But we want them to enjoy the ones that they have. So. But I think that resonated with combat consumers because they just, they can relate to that. They're like, I don't want these to end. I put so much time and effort into these. I'm going to stretch it out a bit longer. And ultimately people click through and they made purchases. So, you know, did the opposite. You said. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Bush: And you mentioned there before around the briefing process, because I think that's really interesting and it's something that a lot of people are struggling with at the moment. Around. How much of a brief do you give influencers and content creators? What have you Changed in your briefing process and how in depth is your brief to creators?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, our briefs are pretty deep. Probably the major change that we sort of made a bit early on, we would. We started with just one brief to all the creators. Like, there'll be a pool of creators that be like, cool, do this. But a lot of these Nanos and Marcos kind of take things pretty literally. We were finding. So we were getting a lot of content back that looked exactly like the brief because we'd be like, here's some things that we like. And so we would get those back. And we're like, we don't like it that much. Like, with like, some other stuff, too. So we started diversifying some briefs. We started giving a little bit of direction on. Well, if you're going to do a video, like, here's some things to consider. If you're going to do some stills, here's some things to consider that where we tend to put it over to them, Sometimes we even like, hey, here's some things you've done before that we really like.

Nathan Bush: Oh, that's a good idea.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. So you lean into what they do well, because ultimately, you know, if you were going to have content that looks the same, you just make it yourself if you know exactly what you're going to get. But if you're working with creators, lean into what they do well, more so.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, I really like that because often when you go, hey, here are some ideas that you might want to consider, they'll go, well, that's the easiest path to creating content that I know you'll like. I'll just do your ideas. And then you get five unboxing videos.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. Which has a place. But sometimes you want some diversity in that set.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, But I love that idea of

Nathan Bush: going, hey, here are three videos that you've done recently that I really enjoyed.

Dave Dullans: Yeah. And because they're the ones that resonate with you, so likely they're the ones that the creator enjoyed making and that their audience enjoyed as well. And that's the hard part. Like, while you've got messages to land from a brand point of view, there's other assets that can do that for you. I don't think the creator has to do that for you because they're not going to understand it like the brand understands it, and they're probably not going to have the authority that the brand has when they're trying to talk about features and benefits or, you know, talking about availability and that sort of stuff.

Nathan Bush: So question for you.

Nathan Bush: Do you think the era we are

Nathan Bush: definitely in the peak or around the peak of UGC and Creator right now. Do you think it's a long term trend?

Dave Dullans: I don't. I think it'll continue to evolve. You know, this is peak now but again this will become distorted, people will start look away and they'll look at something else. So yeah, I don't know what's next but I don't think this will be long term look, I think it will have a place. The piece you mentioned before, which we don't really see in Australia is the live shopping. Maybe that emerges as something that's new. You know, the next generation will really decide what that looks like. You know those, those gen Alphas and our kids, they work differently to what we did and they work differently to how Gen Z did.

Nathan Bush: So mine don't work at all?

Dave Dullans: Oh yeah, mine don't work either. That's slightly. It's probably a good thing that they don't work. They, they act and they consume differently to the rest of us. So. But yeah, definitely no work getting done, that's for sure.

Nathan Bush: What about the next 12 months for you, Dave and your team?

Nathan Bush: Where are you focusing on? Obviously we've just come out of end of financial year where peak will be on us before we know it. And Christmas, where are your priorities in terms of you and your team?

Dave Dullans: Yeah, I think it's, you know, a budget reset is always good. We get to plan out now what the next 12 months looks like. We've got some good product stuff coming out which we're gonna focus on from a commerce point of view, which is exciting. We've just revealed Jack Purcell, which is a silhouette in our portfolio, starts to get a bit of attention, which is nice. So that's kind of what we're doing there. And then we'll sort of continue to tweak and tweeze what we're doing. The creator piece will play a big part on what we do. We're looking at some activations and partnerships over the next 12 months. You know, get into the physical space again and yeah, do it all over again.

Nathan Bush: So if people are listening and it's either, you know, got them going, I actually do need to go out and buy another pair of Converse or they just want to check out what you're doing. Maybe reignited a passion for Converse that they may have had in their teens, what's the best place, do you reckon? Where would you go to send them to check out some of your best work?

Dave Dullans: Converse.com if you're looking to buy a product, obviously no affiliate link there, but just come along and have a look. That's where you'll get the biggest breadth of range. From a socialist point of view. We're across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Converse, NZ across most of those channels. So you'll see a lot of AUGC work there if that's what you're interested in. Myself, LinkedIn, Connect, have a chat. Always love to talk shop with brand people and what's going on. So yeah, that's how you find us.

Nathan Bush: Dave, thank you so much. I'm so glad we got to have

Nathan Bush: this conversation in the extended form from our 20 minute chat on stage. I love your view over brand and how to keep it relevant not only for what what stood out wasn't only for now, but it's actually how do we protect brand and keep evolving brand for future generations. And I don't think we've had that chat on Add to Cart before. So fascinating to hear it from you, especially when you have worked on some of the biggest brands that have had those evolutions over many, many generations. So thank you for sharing all of that.

Dave Dullans: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Nathan Bush: I didn't know exactly where we were

Nathan Bush: going to go with that episode because

Nathan Bush: when we did the patent event we

Nathan Bush: talked a lot about UGC and creators and obviously I wanted to bring that

Nathan Bush: to you as well. But I was stoked that we got to talk around making brands intergenerational and that's something we haven't covered before on Add to Cart. And I think as a marketer or brand expert, that's a really exciting concept to think of how you're building brands that last for your kids or your kids kids. We probably don't stop to think about that too often. All right, here are three things that Dave mentioned that I think you can take straight into your business, whether you are a brand builder or not. The first one is that your customers will show you your next opportunity before any official research does. Dave reads everything the comments, the DMs, even the comments on other brands posts because he reckons the consumer decides that's how Converse cottoned on to the embroidery trend and saw that it was taking off within niche communities with floral packs that their customers loved. And it actually never came up in the formal research. It was all on social, so they tested into it. So watch how people are actually using your product and how they're interacting and talking about it in real time. Don't wait for research reports to come in. Run small bets into what you're seeing

Nathan Bush: and then back the winners.

Nathan Bush: The second one, if you can't measure brand, you're going to lose budget for it. Don't treat brand as a fluffy word. Dave has this battle every single month, brand against a conversion number. And his answer isn't to argue that brand is special or that it's something that other people just can't understand. It's to put numbers and real outcomes on it. He gets a baseline on what customers think, sets brand KPIs and tracks brand uplift, all always with a tool such as tracksuit. As he puts it, you plant the trees and then you harvest the fruit. You just need to be able to tell people how much fruit you're actually picking. And the third one with creators, the win isn't the affiliate sale, it's the content itself. Converse recruited micro and Nano creators who are already fans, which I love, going after your existing fans, and then seeded them with product in a gifting sense and then ran that content right back

Nathan Bush: across their own channels.

Nathan Bush: They also had affiliate links for these fans to be able to make a little bit of income off their content. But Dave's approach was that affiliate link, while it was great and it did drive sales, it really wasn't the purpose. It helped pay for the content itself, but the real value is a steady stream of authentic content feeding the machine. So treat creator content as media and if the affiliate covers its own cost, that's your bonus. Big thank you to our partners at Shopify and Klaviyo for making Add to Cart possible. We love working with them and being with the best in the business all throughout the year. Now if you got something from today, today's episode, please can I ask you to take the time. Either subscribe wherever you are or leave us a review or even if you're on Spotify, ask a question.

Nathan Bush: We love that feature.

Nathan Bush: We would just love for other people in E commerce who are nerding out on E commerce to know that this

Nathan Bush: is the place for you to go

Nathan Bush: to continue learning and to ask those questions. All right, until next time, I'll see you on Add to Cart.

Tagged

  • Brand and Storytelling
  • Marketing and Acquisition
  • International Expansion
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