HOKA Case Study | TwoLine Studios
HOKA is a performance shoe brand originally created for trail running. They have a mission, “... to empower all athletes to feel like they can fly. We believe running, walking, fitness and the outdoors are for everyone. We believe in representing all athletes, and in diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplace and beyond.”
The company was going through rapid global growth with a new leadership team. They needed to change their brand identity to reflect the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. They intended to have new leadership teams align with and exhibit behaviors that mirror HOKA’s DNA.
That’s where TwoLine Studios was invited to creatively collaborate with Norma Delaney in helping address this challenge.
The President and CEO of HOKA had rough drafts of what they wanted to see but they knew that without the collaboration of the core leadership team, they would never get the engagement or alignment internally. In other words, if the CEO presented them with the new core ideas, they would never stick, they needed to be co-created.
We developed an agenda, made sure the right people were in the room, and developed exercises to ensure that ideas were understood, that all voices were heard and embraced equally. Through learning and playing along the way, leadership teams met the objectives of the session and had fun bonding as a team while they did it.
We used storytelling to share emotional experiences about why these core leaders love the brand and the culture of HOKA. We used drawing as a tool to activate the whole mind, make ideas visible, and form relationships between the current brand and ideas for new solutions.
Through these drawing exercises, TwoLine created visual templates and a standing report to visualize the successes of the meetings. We used the visual templates to capture, organize, and spatially map the ideas shared in the meetings. We used foam boards to draw out the agreed and declared vision of the leadership team. Lastly, we used visuals on screens to increase understanding and insure we were all on the same page.
The graphic recordings used to capture and summarize ideas helped in creating a breakthrough moment toward the end of the session. In the last half of the day, we set up the visual summaries of the past 2 days of work. Participants were asked to “Walk the Walls” jotting down on post-it notes any ah-ha’s or points of connection. In a short period, the team was able to identify redundancies and synthesize the content that ultimately became the basis of the brand DNA “Behaviors, Values, Mission, Vision, and Purpose.”
With TwoLine’s help, the team achieved months of planning and strategy work in 2.5 days. The leadership team's alignment was concluded with a visual session summary of the meetings for optimal memory recall, print materials that were distributed to the global team, and presentations for the global marketing sessions. Later TwoLine was contracted to create an informational video defining HOKA’s brand DNA that is used for onboarding new employees and attracting new clients.
Read more TwoLine Studios Case Studies by clicking below.
Two Line Studios has been helping brands communicate virtually for years. Our facilitator-led sessions implement a Clarity Through Creativity®™ approach using visuals, storytelling, and creative inspiration — even when getting together in person is not possible. Subscribe to our newsletter below for more tools for facilitating crucial conversations.