Creating a market leading brand and product

With increasing pressure from competitor brands in the Children’s school shoe sector resulting in a reduced market share, Clarks approached Designworks to help address the situation. Designworks responded by drawing on 25 years of award-winning toy and game design and development experience, our insights and understanding of toys, trends and licensing enabled us to develop a revolutionary product concept that gave Clarks complete ownership – “the toy that hides in your shoe”. This solution applied to both girls and boys, creating a platform to grow the sub-brand – YoToY™. 

Developed entirely in-house at our Windsor studios, the year on year brand direction, design and prototyping provided a platform from which multiple target audiences could be reached, resulting in over 14M YoToy™ sales. The end result has a strong aesthetic appeal and play value, whilst accommodating technical constraints relating to shoe manufacture, budgets, target costs and toy safety, Designworks has manufactured all product whilst providing a complete logistics and distribution solution via our dedicated Hong Kong team. 

YoToY™ has changed the shoe buying experience transforming it into an event of high-level brand engagement and consumer delight, which has removed the ‘pain’ previously experienced by parents when having their children’s feet measured. The estimated retail sales value due to the introduction of YoToY has reached over £180 million, additionally, the YoToY™ characters Jack Nano and Daisy have become brands in themselves, with their own adverts and comics, helping Clarks connect with children in a way that wasn’t previously possible.