Case Study: Shondo - Retail - IMC Campaign
How Shondo Built Its Presence Among Vietnamese Students Through Social & Community Marketing
About Shondo
Founded in 2014, Shondo is a Vietnamese footwear brand targeting young consumers, with sandals, sneakers, and slides among its key product categories.
Students are one of the brand's core customer segments, with products designed for everyday occasions such as going to school, hanging out with friends, and other daily activities.
In particular, Shondo has developed dedicated Back to School collections and product lines designed specifically for school wear, reflecting the brand’s strong connection with the student market.
The Challenge: How to Become a Familiar Brand Among Students
In the year of 2020 and 2021, for a youth-focused brand, the challenge goes beyond simply putting products in front of potential customers. The bigger question is brand relevance: how can a footwear brand become part of the topics, stories, and content that students naturally engage with every day?
Instead of relying solely on direct product advertising, Shondo combined branding, viral content, and community marketing to bring the brand into the social environments where young audiences already spend their time.
From Viral & Branding to Activation & Conversion
During the Viral & Branding stage, Shondo appeared across youth-focused community channels through relatable content inspired by student life, alongside sponsored videos on NADASA's community channels. The objective was to expand reach, generate engagement, and build brand familiarity among students.
Viral Content → Community Reach → Engagement → Brand Familiarity
Once familiarity had been established, the communication gradually moved toward Activation & Conversion, where products, promotional offers, and stronger calls to action became more prominent.
Brand Familiarity → Product Consideration → Activation → Conversion
Social & Community Marketing Execution
The campaign was executed across Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube using multiple content formats, from social posts and viral content to branded videos and activation-focused posts.
By combining multiple touchpoints, Shondo was able to maintain its presence beyond moments when consumers were actively looking to buy footwear. The brand also appeared within entertainment content, student stories, and everyday conversations relevant to its target audience.
Social branded posts on NADASA's channel during this campaign:
Stage | Platform | Post | Content produced by | Content inspiration | Result |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | A student carefully protecting his brand-new pair of Shondo sandals. A parody of popular memes showing young sneakerheads in Europe and the US going to extreme lengths to keep their new sneakers clean, such as wrapping them in plastic bags or laying tissues on the ground before stepping.
| Views: 300K Engagement: 10K  | |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | A student taking a final exam with cheat notes written on his Shondo sandals, capturing a mischievous and relatable student moment. | Views: 100K Engagement: 4.4K
| |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | It is only October and the weather is not even cold yet, but students are already wearing socks with sandals, creating a funny and relatable school-life moment. | Views: 400K Engagement: 17.5K
| |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | A group of students all buy the same sandals, leaving the one friend who does not have a pair hilariously left out. | Views: 240K Engagement: 10K
| |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | Shondo memes inspired by student life during the COVID-19 period. | Views: 172K Engagement: 6K
| |
Viral & Branding | Trường Người Ta | Shondo | A student receiving an end-of-year reward from a teacher, with a pair of Shondo sandals among the gifts. | Views: 383K Engagement: 15K
| |
Viral & Branding | TikTok Trường Người Ta | https://www.tiktok.com/@truongnguoita/video/7091873100848991514 | NADASA | A series of fun school-themed Q&A videos produced by NADASA, with prizes sponsored by Shondo. The Shondo logo was consistently featured throughout the video series, reinforcing brand visibility across the content. | Tổng views: 9.5M Tổng engagement: 800K
|
Activation & Conversion | Facebook Group Trường Người Ta | https://www.facebook.com/groups/441568966243707?multi_permalinks=1300392200361375 | Shondo | A student-life moment sharing contest, with Shondo shopping vouchers offered as prizes. | Views: 49K Engagement: 2K
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Campaign Results
Number of Content Pieces: about 20 posts
Total Views: 11M
Total Engagement: 865K
Platform: Facebook, TikTok, Youtube
Lessons Learned
1. Reaching the right community matters as much as reaching a large audience
A community with a large following is not necessarily the right fit for every campaign. For Shondo, working with channels that have a strong student and Gen Z audience in the year of 2020, 2021 like Facebook, TikTok helped the content reach the right people within the right social context.
2. Advertising work best when placed in stories people can see themselves in
Footwear is part of young people's everyday lives: carefully protecting a brand-new pair of sneakers, wearing the same favorite sandals to school every day, or sharing funny moments with friends. By placing products within these familiar experiences, branded content can become something audiences genuinely want to engage with rather than simply another advertisement.
For students, the conversation does not always have to start with the product. Content built around school life, friendships, fashion, and relatable everyday moments allows brands to become a more natural part of the conversations young people already care about. Shondo and NADASA collaborated to produce school life contents that related, hence promoted the brand naturally
3. Viral content and conversion content can be part of the same journey
Not every piece of content needs to sell immediately. In Shondo's campaign, viral and branding content helped expand reach and build brand familiarity before more product-focused and activation content encouraged consideration and conversion.
From Community Reach to Business Impact
The Shondo case demonstrates that Community Marketing is more than simply booking sponsored posts on social media pages.
When brands choose the right communities, content, and timing, community channels can play multiple roles throughout the marketing journey, from Viral, Awareness, and Brand Building to Activation and Conversion.
This is also how NADASA approaches Social & Community Marketing for brands looking to connect with Gen Z and student audiences in Vietnam.