Johnston & Murphy Declares It’s ‘Not Your Dad’s Shoe Company’ in New Campaign

The campaign aims to tell consumers that the brand is no longer just a place for dress shoes.

After taking several steps to reposition its business over the last few years, Johnston & Murphy is ready to be more vocal.

In a new campaign called “’Not Your Dad’s Shoe Company,” the Genesco-owned footwear brand is telling consumers that it’s no longer just a place for dress shoes.

Developed by creative agency Wolfgang, the company sees this new campaign as a “strategic pivot” to broaden Johnston & Murphy’s appeal, aiming to refresh and expand its consumer base while maintaining its core clientele. With a confident and playful approach to the direction, the ad feature generation-spanning talent, representative of the brand’s own customer base, in old world settings.

The campaign also features a new tagline, “Made for the Moment Since 1850,” which, the company said, “harkens back to the American familial connection that many customers have to the brand while aiming to establish a forward-thinking narrative for the important and celebratory moments in life.” This thread will carry through in future campaigns, the company said.

Danny Ewoldsen, president of Johnston & Murphy, told FN in an interview the brand has been moving in a more casual direction for some time now, but that the pandemic really kickstarted its turnaround.

“The pandemic was a moment that we had to really think hard about if we’re going to really reposition some things, now’s the time to do it,” Ewoldsen said. “And so, we very aggressively retooled our assortment and retooled the positioning of the brand. We came out of the pandemic swinging, playing some offense, and it’s really benefited us. We’re really swimming in a much bigger pond now, just based on how broad our product assortment is today. We’re still very proud of our heritage of dress shoes, but the category is now a much smaller part of our business because of the growth of all the other categories that we brought to play.”

According to Ewoldsen, some of the changes that took place in over the last few years included broadening out the capabilities of the team, with the biggest investments in product development, marketing and operations. “We needed to make sure that we had the talent to really bring innovation into our product line, and continue to move things along aesthetically as well,” he noted.

As for how this campaign fits into the brand’s overall repositioning, Ewoldsen told FN that the company is just getting started.

“The idea of this campaign is to give Johnston and Murphy a stronger brand voice with a stronger top of the funnel approach around acquiring new customers into our brand,” he said. “What we know is that we have incredible loyalty for the customers that shop us. So once were discovered the old school idea of quality products and tremendous service is one that still works, it brings people back. For us, it’s about bringing more awareness to our brand. And so, this is just the starting point, you know, this is a voice that we want to build on over time, both in terms of the tone of the voice, and in terms of the marketing spend, for a broader reach.”

The campaign introduces Johnston & Murphy’s spring 2024 collection featuring styles from the growing casual athletic and apparel lines. At the heart of the campaign are silhouettes that feature proprietary technology that enhance the comfort and performance of the footwear while keeping the classic and versatile styles that Johnston & Murphy is known for including the Amherst 2.0 Knit Plain Toe, Kinnon Perfed Jogger, Miles Knit Lace-Up, and Daxton U-Throat.

The hero of spring 2024 is the Amherst 2.0 which is a new iteration from the bestselling Amherst family engineered with a lightweight and flexible design with a Trufoam sole and temperature-regulating Smart Degree Technology.

This latest campaign launches at a time when the company is achieving notable sales growth across all product categories, a position that has been recognized by its parent company through its continued investment in the brand.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, Johnston & Murphy reported net sales of $97.6 million, an increase of 9 percent over the same period last year. Net sales for fiscal 2024 increased 8 percent at Johnston & Murphy to $339.4 million, up from $314.8 million in 2023.

The “Not Your Dad’s Shoe Company” campaign can now be seen across Johnston & Murphy’s 153 retail and factory doors, including 24 airport locations.