Red Wing Shoes is the premier boot for tradespeople across the world. It has a legacy of offering quality work boots to a passionate fan base of established tradespeople. However, Millennials don’t have a strong connection with the brand and frequently purchase competing products at lower price points. The challenge was to bring Red Wing’s brand purpose, “To Build a Legacy of Work Done Right,” to life and to raise awareness of Red Wing work boots among millennial tradespeople.

A call for submissions began on June 26, 2017, encouraging epic story submissions via #AmericaWorking. This was supported by redwingshoes.com, organic and paid social, retail signage, ambassador forums and email. Finalists were selected and on March 12, 2018, we unveiled the Wall of Honor at Red Wing’s HQ in Minnesota. We invited five honorees to the physical wall unveiling, where we gave each a uniquely Red Wing experience. This included factory tours, meeting Red Wing Shoes employees, and witnessing their actual boots being hung on the Wall. We captured videos of each honoree’s emotional reactions, and released these pieces on Labor Day 2018 - to remind everyone of the importance of celebrating work done right.

For our audience watching at home, a digital version of the Wall of Honor was created as a content hub to let fans dive deeper into the stories behind each boot and the tradesperson who wore them.