Foot Locker reinforces role in sneaker culture with new brand platform

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CMO Brett O’Brien digs into the retailer’s “It Always Will Be Foot Locker” creative, which arrives as the business begins to turn around.

Foot Locker on Friday launched a new brand platform that revolves around the retailer’s role in sneaker culture since its founding in 1974, per details shared with Marketing Dive.

A two-minute hero film anchors an integrated campaign that spans broadcast, social, digital, out-of-home and in-store channels. “It Always Will Be Foot Locker” documents the evolution of sneakers and their pop culture imprint, mixing archival footage and commercials.

“No matter the color, trend, era, moment in culture, emotion or sport, it always was and always will be Foot Locker,” rapper-actor Method Man says in voiceover.

The work follows the May debut of Foot Locker’s year-round basketball brand platform , “Hoops Lives Here.” Similar to the way creative in that platform nodded to the retailer’s basketball bona fides, “It Always Will Be Foot Locker” opens the aperture to include moments beyond sport.

“Let [us] remind you of the importance that Foot Locker has always played in sneaker culture, at this epicenter of fashion, music and sports, and the fact that that's where we always will be,” Brett O’Brien, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Foot Locker said of the creative. “We did not create sneaker culture, but we've given it a home, and we always will give it a home.”

The campaign was created with Someplace, which was also the creative agency for the basketball brand platform work. The Santa Monica, California-based shop was founded in 2022 by three Wieden+Kennedy veterans who had worked on the agency’s Nike account for years and proved a natural fit for Foot Locker because of its cultural literacy.

“There's so much richness that we can bring to life,” O’Brien said of sneaker culture. “We also wanted to make sure that we represented different brands throughout that journey, because each had their moments and each had important parts to play.”

The result plays like a microdocumentary about sneaker culture through the years that spans early styles (Adidas' Stan Smiths, Nike’s first Air Jordans), key challenger brands (New Balance, Reebok), musical moments (Run-D.M.C., Nelly), TV and film (“Family Matters,” “The Wizard of Oz”) and basketball stars (Allen Iverson, Vince Carter and LeBron James). Throughout it all, Foot Locker and its iconic Striper employees are present, in old commercials and new footage.

Foot Locker will continue to tell tales about sneakers through Sole Stories, a recently launched short-form documentary series created in partnership with Hartbeat, the entertainment company founded by Kevin Hart. The 36-episode series will roll out throughout the fall across social, digital, influencer and in-store channels and build on the “It Always Will Be Foot Locker” platform.

“Sole Stories is a really interesting way for us to start that dialog and the conversation about real people talking about what sneaker culture has meant to them, from what emotion they remember from their first sneaker to their favorite sneaker to the ones that got away — all of us can tell our own story,” O’Brien said.

The launch of Foot Locker’s brand platform comes at an inflection point for the retailer, which was acquired by Dick’s Sporting Goods in 2025. The business returned to comparable sales growth and profitability in Q1 2026, notching its first quarter of positive comps since Q4 2024. Dick’s will announce its Q2 results on Aug. 25. For O’Brien and the brand’s marketing team, the challenge is creating an emotional connection with consumers again.

“We don't have an issue with brand awareness. Everybody knows who Foot Locker is. It's really about, what does Foot Locker mean,” the executive said. “It's not forgetting our past at all — it's embracing our past. It's using that past as a guide for where we're headed and how we're going to continue to evolve.”

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Ten-figure acquisitions, new agency experiments and organizational changes are underway, but the real key may be relinquishing a sense of control.

E.l.f. Cosmetics/Oberland

Diverse representation continues to present a major opportunity for brands and could become even more of an expectation during the end-of-year period.

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