Fook’s creative direction and video production delivered 28 digital ads that out-performed Mister Safety Shoes’ existing campaigns.

Background and challenge

Getting an audience to stop scrolling takes more than showing a product. It requires creative that feels authentic, compelling, and trustworthy to the target audience.

Mister Safety Shoes sells safety footwear through about 36 retail stores across Ontario and Alberta. Their real advantage isn’t the products they sell, but the experience they offer. They have built their shopping journey around the things that matter most to their trades customers: finding a perfect fit to provide comfort at work, and getting in and out of the store quickly after a long day.

Where some competing, larger Canadian retailers might offer a greater quantity of stores, Mister Safety Shoes offer a higher quality of experience inside theirs.

They were already running a customer-story video format on social media, but the production felt inauthentic and lacked a bit of quality. The brief to us was to bring a higher level of production, with better casting to find authentic actors, better performance direction, more deliberate camera work, clearer and more condensed scripts, and a production plan to generate numerous videos to work across numerous placements (capturing multiple scripts with multiple actors in our shooting schedule).

This was both a brand- and awareness-building assignment. The goal wasn’t a hard call to action, but instead to build trust and relevance by engaging a younger trades audience by showing, in seconds, what makes Mister Safety Shoes worth walking into. Authenticity and production quality were key aims.

Process and solution

We developed two customer stories built around a contractor and a landscaper, anchored in natural, to-camera storytelling and supported by B-roll that makes the guided buying experience visible rather than described.

We collaborated on script-writing with Mister Safety Shoes, taking their scripts and refining them to ensure key USPs were communicated, and that authenticity was maintained. Our messages were clear, succinct, and designed to build awareness around what makes their brand different.

We then storyboarded each video, drawing the key frames and determining a shot list driven by the script content.

Casting and performance were also central to credibility. We cast actors styled as tradespeople and shaped the dialogue around how people naturally speak, leaving room for improvisation so the delivery felt relaxed and real.

Because the campaign needed to run across multiple placements, we planned the shoot to work across three aspect ratios from the start: 16:9, 9:16, and 1:1. That required more intentional coverage and framing decisions upfront, so the story and the key proof moments held up cleanly through every reframe and cutdown.

We shot in an open, active store in Ontario and built the day around real customer traffic while still capturing polished, controlled footage.

Deliberate lensing, shaped lighting, and considered angles gave the work the elevation the format needed. It’s premium enough to earn attention, and grounded enough to feel like it belonged in a working retail environment.

In post-production, we refined the pacing, colour, and finishing. We animated the tagline and logo with more intention, designing the end treatment to feel consistent and considered. The campaign message stayed simple and repeatable: Better work days start here.

Result

The final campaign comprised 28 video versions: two hero spots in 30-second, 15-second, and 6-second cuts across all three aspect ratios, plus five alternate cuts and five organic social cutdowns.

This has given Mister Safety Shoes a full suite of video assets across multiple platforms, where they can rotate, test, and optimise ad performance into the future, always refining the videos and formats that are having the biggest impact on their digital marketing efforts.

The amount of completed views of the video ads was the key metric here, as it indicates engagement and resonance versus simple impressions. And because we delivered authentic, clear, succinct, and impactful videos, our creative significantly out-performed their previous ads across Facebook and Instagram in just over 3 months.

Our careful and quality video production process has given Mister Safety Shoes campaign assets that will allow them to continue to effectively build awareness and brand recognition among a younger audience of customers.