Dr. Martens Presents turns insight into cultural impact 

Dr. Martens is a brand with culture in its DNA. But in an ever evolving world, it needed to prove its relevance to a diverse youth audience for whom culture and experience is everything. To do that, we wanted to understand the barriers faced by the creatives setting the cultural agenda. 

Covid-19 has had a cataclysmic impact on grassroots culture, amplifying pre-existing pressures, displacing communities and reigniting cultural activism. While Government support was delayed, and many brands went quiet, Dr. Martens were ready to step up and support them.

Dr. Martens Presents defines a new and innovative role for the brand in culture. This purpose-led platform takes a multi-channel approach to support next generation talent who embody the brand’s values, engaging youth audiences with diverse cultural experiences. 

With experiences driven by creators themselves, the platforms’ varied output and themes don’t just move with the cultural current, they help define it. From hard hitting video series (Madanii, Berlin), to production of community music studios (Batu, Bristol) and collaborative design of creative zines (Hotel Radio Paris, Paris). 

This refreshingly meaningful approach has seen the brand and the artists it supports reap the rewards, setting the tone for all cultural activities moving forward

IDEA

Dr. Martens Presents is the brand’s ongoing culture platform, delivering brand purpose through a long running series of meaningful artist partnerships. At its core, it exists to provide much needed support for the new generation of creators. Ensuring the brand shows it’s understanding and authentic alignment with diverse subcultures, the platform features regular collaborations with emerging grassroots creatives and their collectives across a range of genres and creative disciplines. Working to an open brief, Dr. Martens Presents gives these artists the opportunity to realise their ambitions and promote their culture while also raising awareness for local or personal causes.

BRIEF/INSIGHT/STRATEGY

Dr. Martens is a brand with a long standing cultural legacy, but it needed to prove it’s cultural relevance and values to a younger, more diverse audience. Following extensive research into the target audience of Gen Z and Millennials, four key pain points emerged that helped guide our strategy. 

The fight for personal identity & expression against entrenched stereotypes

Financial pressures stifling creativity

Restricted access to culture

Demand for social change, diversity and inclusion

With the arrival of Covid-19 and the re-ignition of global movements for social change like BLM, each of these was only further emphasised, taking on added significance and urgency.

Our strategy to address these pain points was to identify the next generation of cultural talent who embodied the Dr. Martens spirit, working collaboratively with them to push things forward and tackle the obstacles they faced. In doing so, we would be able to engage our culture hungry audience with fresh perspectives and cultural content that aligned with their beliefs and passions and spoke to the issues they themselves confront.

EXECUTION

Bringing the brand’s purpose to life - supporting emerging creators and sharing their resilience with the world - the platform launched in the UK with a wide range of artist-led creative output that has deepened and diversified the brand’s cultural standing whilst simultaneously bringing the next wave of British cultural talent to a wider audience. 

Thanks to the success of these initial partnerships, we were able to expand the platform across EMEA in 2020. When faced with the challenge of Covid-19, the artist-led, channel agnostic nature of the platform allowed us to continue to provide compelling cultural brand experience and genuinely support emerging creators at a time when they needed it most. Rather than chasing short term gains, we doubled down on the brand’s authentic investment in culture at a time when other brands were pulling the plug.

Provided Liverpool’s Melodic Distraction with a temporary home following their eviction, supporting them in their mission to fundraise for their new studio

Helped Berlin’s Madanii build a platform to explore racial stereotypes and create wider discussion in their scene

Created a community studio with Batu in Bristol, opening up free access to recording facilities and mentorship for the city’s emerging creators

Developed Come Back Better, an initiative in collaboration with The Windmill and Goat Girl that promotes greater inclusivity and representation across the grass roots music scene

These unique, diverse stories are designed to grab the attention of cultural media. Each is documented through content that showcases the collaboration, and shared via Dr. Martens owned channels, PR and media partnerships with The Face.

RESULTS

Dr. Martens Presents continues to successfully engage a new, younger and more diverse audience in their purpose, supporting emerging artists across a broad array of subcultures.

To date, the platform has supported 10 creators in realising their creative visions with funding, mentorship and invaluable PR and marketing assistance that has amplified their work to a global audience. Due to the media & PR investment, several of the artists we worked with saw accelerated growth in their social followings. The brand has continued to grow across EMEA and has seen a 48% sales uplift during this period.

Expanded across EMEA in 2020

3m+ views across DMs and artist social channels

4.5m+ reach with cultural media partners 

75m+ earned PR

48% sales uplift during this period

EVOLVING THE PLATFORM FOR 2021

Over the next 12 months, Amplify will help bring to life a number of projects that tune in to new voices, sounds, people, and ideas, supporting the next generation of cultural innovators to reshape the music industry.

Dr. Martens Presents platform continues to evolve working to identify and support emerging music talent. The Tough as You initiative opens access to creative opportunities for under-represented talent, shaping the future of the music industry. 

TESTIMONIALS FROM CLIENTS / TALENT 

Amplify's unique and innovative approach to experiential marketing has seen us connect with artists and consumers in a truly authentic way via our Dr. Martens Presents platform. Our passionate team has shaped a plan that we feel offers real support to emerging talent; helping shape their creativity and empower their communities. We welcome this collaborative approach and look forward to another year of exciting plans ahead.

Amber Henry - Dr. Martens DTC & Culture Lead - UK & Ireland

It’s been a real step-change for our business. We’ve gotten really strong purchasing intent from the events, and we’ve also been able to develop better relationships with the artists involved. We’ve been able to support those artists, give them a platform, and we’ve seen really good results. Amplify have really strong ideas and helped create some amazing events. They can create strong content and strategy, too, so they’re very multipurpose for me.

Michael Boaler - Dr. Martens Marketing Manager - UK, Ireland & Nordics

Through ORI3NTATION for Dr. Martens Presents we were enabled to create something meaningful and sustainable for and with our community in Berlin and beyond. It helped us reach out and grow our network organically and tighten bonds with our collaborators, friends and fellow artists. To be able to redistribute some of the funds at our disposal was also immensely helpful in these hard times for artists. We received so much heartfelt feedback from all over Germany and are extremely happy we got to address topics close to our heart. Everyone in the team was lovely and easy to work with and we’d be more than happy to collaborate again in the future.

Dena Zarrin - Madanii - Berlin

Working with Dr. Martens and Amplify was such an amazing experience and opportunity for the station. It was incredible to have the support after such a difficult few months of being forced to leave our space. We wouldn’t have been able to relocate to a temporary home and run a kickstarter to fund our new home without their help.

Josh Aitman - Melodic Distraction - Liverpool