Vans Redefines Off The Wall for a New Generation of Creators
Vans launched 'This is Off The Wall' in April 2023 as its first global brand campaign under a new brand foundation, anchored by an anthem film directed by Will Dohrn and produced by Love Song, positioning the brand's iconic slogan as a living mindset of self-discovery and creative expression rather than a skateboarding tagline.
The campaign went live in the United States on April 5, 2023, on the Vans YouTube channel, with public reporting following on April 6, 2023, as noted by Marketing Dive. A full digital, social, and out-of-home media rollout was in place by April 7, 2023, according to Ads of the World, which recorded the work as Vans' 2023 global brand campaign. The creative agency behind the campaign was Anomaly, as reported by Marketing Dive. The campaign had been developed throughout 2022 as Vans assembled the strategic and creative infrastructure for what would become its most significant brand repositioning in recent memory.
At its core, the campaign is a human homage to creators. The anthem film features Vans ambassadors — rapper and artist Little Simz, Vans Skate Team riders Beatrice Domond and Felipe Nunes, and additional figures including Irene Kim, Cocona Hiraki, Arthur Bray, and Salome Agbaroji, as documented by The Drum. Each ambassador embodies a distinct mode of cultural creation, and the campaign positions their individual authenticity as the collective spirit of Off The Wall. Timed alongside the campaign launch was the introduction of the Knu Skool shoe — a modern reinterpretation of Vans' Old Skool silhouette — reported by both Marketing Dive and Ads of the World as a deliberate product expression of the campaign's new brand direction. Clapboard rates this campaign 73 out of 100, reflecting strong creative ambition and cultural coherence offset by limited publicly verified performance data.
Vans entered 2023 facing measurable commercial pressure. Vans' global revenue declined 12% in fiscal 2023, ending March 2023, as reported by VF Corporation in its annual filings with the SEC. That underperformance against the broader athletic footwear category made the strategic stakes of 'This is Off The Wall' significant: the campaign needed to do more than refresh the brand's visual language — it needed to reassert Vans' cultural authority in the United States and internationally.
The strategic pivot, as described by The Drum, involved reframing 'Off The Wall' from a skateboarding slogan into a shared mindset encompassing authenticity, self-discovery, and cultural creation. This shift expanded the brand's addressable creative community without abandoning its action sports roots. In the United States, where skateboarding culture intersects with music, streetwear, and youth identity, that repositioning carried real resonance. The presence of Little Simz — a Mercury Prize-winning British rapper with strong US credibility — alongside professional skateboarders Beatrice Domond and Felipe Nunes signalled that Vans was mapping a wider creative territory without diluting its core.
The competitive context reinforces why this move was necessary. Nike holds approximately 28% to 30% of global athletic footwear market share, according to Consa Insights, making it the dominant force across sneaker, skate, and apparel categories. Adidas maintains its own substantial share of the global market. Against those structural advantages, Vans' differentiation cannot be price or distribution — it must be cultural authenticity. The global athletic footwear market was valued at approximately $146.7 billion in 2023, according to data cited by Zipdo, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 5.0% through 2030. In that expanding but fiercely competitive landscape, 'This is Off The Wall' was designed to give Vans a story no competitor could credibly tell.
Director Will Dohrn shaped the visual identity of 'This is Off The Wall' with a deliberate tension between analogue nostalgia and contemporary craft. Dohrn, who joined the Love Song roster earlier in 2023, has previously collaborated with Stella McCartney, Jeshi, and IDLES, bringing a cross-disciplinary fluency that made him well-suited to a campaign straddling skateboarding, music, and fashion.
Speaking to Ads of the World on April 7, 2023, Dohrn described the creative intent directly: 'I was immediately inspired when I saw the script. I wanted the film to feel reminiscent of classic old skate videos and utilize VFX elements to make it fresh and contemporary. Ultimately, it's a subtle nod to the homemade, DIY, punk aesthetic that Vans was born out of.' That statement captures the film's central structural device — a reverence for the raw, handmade energy of early skate filmmaking held in productive dialogue with sophisticated post-production. The VFX work was executed by The Mill, whose multi-layered compositing and in-camera distortion techniques allow each ambassador to appear as a distinct and luminous aura while the environmental elements around them warp and bend in their wake.
The approach keeps the creators as the undisputed focal point. Rather than subordinating the ambassadors to visual spectacle, the effects serve characterisation — each distortion pattern reflects something specific about Little Simz's lyrical intensity, Domond's skating fluidity, or Nunes's physical presence. The kaleidoscopic scale play Dohrn describes is not decorative excess but a formal argument: these individuals reshape the world around them simply by moving through it. In the United States, where the campaign launched across digital platforms and out-of-home media simultaneously, that visual proposition translated into a film capable of functioning at both the intimate scale of a mobile screen and the expansive scale of outdoor advertising.
No independently verified campaign-level performance metrics for 'This is Off The Wall' — such as brand lift figures, view counts, or sales attribution data — are publicly available at the time of writing. What the public record does establish is the campaign's structural reach: a simultaneous launch across digital, social, and out-of-home channels in the United States on April 5 to 7, 2023, supported by a multi-platform ambassador roster and coordinated product launch in the Knu Skool, as documented by Marketing Dive and Ads of the World.
The structural effectiveness of the campaign is legible from its architecture. By anchoring the launch to a three-minute-plus anthem film rather than a series of shorter social assets, Vans signalled a commitment to sustained attention over algorithmic optimisation. The decision to feature seven ambassadors across skateboarding, music, fashion, and sport created a multiplier effect across distinct audience communities in the United States, each of whom could encounter the campaign through a figure who held personal cultural credibility for them. The Drum described the campaign as a strategic refresh introducing a new brand foundation, which positions it as a long-term brand investment rather than a short-cycle promotional activation.
The concurrent Knu Skool product launch gave the campaign a commercial anchor — a new silhouette designed to carry the campaign's aesthetic into retail. That integration of brand narrative and product storytelling is among the more structurally disciplined elements of the work, and it reflects the broader challenge Vans faced in fiscal 2023 as revenue declined. Whether the campaign succeeded in reversing that trajectory remains outside the verifiable public record.
'This is Off The Wall' is Vans' 2023 global brand campaign repositioning Off The Wall as a creative mindset. Launched in April 2023 in the United States, it was created by Anomaly and directed by Will Dohrn, featuring ambassadors Little Simz, Beatrice Domond, and Felipe Nunes across digital, social, and out-of-home media.
Will Dohrn directed the 'This is Off The Wall' anthem film, produced by Love Song. Dohrn described the film as a nod to classic skate videos updated with contemporary VFX, with post-production effects executed by The Mill. He joined the Love Song roster earlier in 2023, according to Ads of the World.
The campaign features Little Simz, Beatrice Domond, and Felipe Nunes as central figures, alongside Irene Kim, Cocona Hiraki, Arthur Bray, and Salome Agbaroji. As reported by The Drum, ambassadors were drawn from skateboarding, music, fashion, and sport to reflect the campaign's expanded creative positioning in the United States.
Vans launched 'This is Off The Wall' on April 5, 2023, on its YouTube channel in the United States. Marketing Dive reported the public unveiling on April 6, 2023, with a full digital, social, and out-of-home rollout confirmed by April 7, 2023, according to Ads of the World.
Clapboard rates 'This is Off The Wall' 73 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative ambition, a disciplined multi-platform launch structure in the United States, and culturally coherent ambassador casting, offset by the absence of publicly verified campaign performance data confirming commercial or brand lift outcomes.
The campaign honours Vans' skateboarding roots by featuring Vans Skate Team riders Beatrice Domond and Felipe Nunes as central ambassadors. Director Will Dohrn intentionally referenced classic skate video aesthetics, describing the film to Ads of the World as a nod to the homemade, DIY, punk aesthetic that Vans was born out of.
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