Hey Dude is just several months into its renewed efforts to grow brand awareness. But the Crocs-Inc. owned comfort shoe brand has already made a splash with several new campaigns, product launches and key hires.
In the last six months, Hey Dude has onboarded a new brand president and chief marketing officer and has rolled out a longterm global partnership with Sydney Sweeney, positioning the actress and producer as a brand spokesperson. Just last week, the brand partnered with country star Jelly Roll on a limited edition collaboration that sold out within minutes.
That momentum is set to continue in 2025, as Hey Dude continues to build its relevance in more unexpected ways. In an interview with FN, Hey Dude’s chief marketing officer Paul Nugent said that the brand will continue to lean into partnerships and styles in 2025 that challenge expectations.
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“We like the idea that we turn up in a place that people aren’t expecting to see Hey Dude and it gives them a chance to reappraise the brand and actually start to realize what the depth of this brand can be,” Nugent said.
To Nugent, Hey Dude’s presence at New York Fashion Week and its recent partnership with Sydney Sweeney, highlights this strategy. In the latter case, this strategy has started to pay off. The Sweeney campaign has become Hey Dude’s best performing content launch on Instagram and has helped the brand’s TikTok following outgrow its Instagram a testament to the brand’s success with younger audiences.
“We loved the tension it created,” Nugent said of the Sydney Sweeney partnership, noting how not all of the feedback from the launch was necessarily positive. “It reiterated to people who know the brand that this brand has scope and scale, and can actually go beyond maybe some of the wearing occasions that they thought was was possible. And we introduced the brand to new people who probably didn’t know a lot about it or maybe had a preconceived view what the Hey Dude brand was.”
When it comes to product, Hey Dude’s strategy still revolves around driving awareness and relevance around the brand’s most popular silhouettes: The Wally and Wendy. After launching its “Comf” collection for fall, a comfort-focused upgrade to the Wendy and Wally silhouettes, the brand on Tuesday launched the Wendy/Wally slippers, sherpa lined versions of the brand’s iconic silhouettes.
Sydney Sweeney will appear in the campaigns marketing the new slippers to help introduce the style and brand in a new context.
“We love this opportunity to iterate and grow the idea of what the core can be,” Nugent said. “We’re really excited to see the reaction from the community of Hey Dude for this product, because it is different for us and is going to be something which maybe people aren’t expecting.”
