Challenge
Six weeks of production and shipping was the squeeze. The order moved from the US to the UK, with four weeks of production followed by two weeks of shipping to Wareham. Anything off-spec on arrival, bent in transit, or that didn't match the brief, and the post-sale moment Relec was building would land on a different week. The marketing team had a content calendar. The shoes had to land with it.
Callum Croucher, Marketing Executive at Relec, found Shoe Zero online and reached out. The conversation moved fast. Callum opted for the design service to lock in brand alignment up front, and the order moved through to production with the polish the marketing team wanted. The handoff to Lauren Grice, also Marketing Executive at Relec, came as the order entered production.
Marketing-led B2B buyers do not order swag for its own sake. They order assets. The Relec marketing team wanted to design custom sneakers for the team that they could mark a moment with, share internally, and create content around. The shoes had to look exactly right, feel like they belonged on a marketing-team member's feet, and arrive in a condition that did not need explaining. Anything less and the post-sale moment would not work.
Most industrial electronics companies treat branded merchandise as an afterthought. The customer base is technical, the sales cycle is relationship-driven, and the brand sits in a category where marketing rarely earns the spotlight. Logoed pens at trade shows. Polos at the company picnic. The kind of swag that gets ordered once and forgotten until the next quarterly print run. Relec Electronics is in the same category. The marketing team did not behave like it.
Solution
The team had more than a delivery. They had marketing material. The next move was getting it in front of Relec's audience.
Once production wrapped and the shoes arrived at the Relec office in Wareham, Lauren's team filmed an unboxing video, with multiple angles, real reactions, and a branded backdrop. The kind of edit that does not get done unless the marketing team has already decided the shoes are worth filming. Most B2B suppliers never see a customer-produced video at all. Lauren's team built one in-house, on Relec's timeline and set. Lauren sent the video back to Shoe Zero the same week as a marketing asset. They did not stop there.
Callum picked the Classic Zero and paid up front for the design service to lock in brand polish. He handed off to Lauren as the order entered production. Brand alignment, logo placement, and finish were all signed off before production began. Lauren took ownership of the post-delivery side.
Results
An unboxing video that became a marketing asset
Most B2B custom merchandise sits in a closet or gets a single Slack mention. Relec's team built a full unboxing video around their shoes. Multi-angle, polished, ready for social. For a small business on the supplier side, an unprompted customer-produced video is the most valuable post-sale signal possible. Relec is not a Capgemini-scale customer. The video they made carries proof that does not depend on company size. The marketing team filmed something they wanted to share, then shared it back.
5-star reviews on Google and Trustpilot
After receiving the shoes and sending the video, Lauren followed up with reviews on both platforms. They went up within the same week as delivery. For a custom shoe company that depends on review proof to earn trust with new buyers, that kind of dual-platform endorsement carries weight that paid marketing cannot replicate. The reviews showed up before Conrad asked for them and stayed up after.
End-of-May social rollout that extends the case
Lauren has committed to posting the unboxing video on Relec's social channels at the end of May. LinkedIn and Instagram. The Classic Zero design is the product on screen. That extends the case study beyond the delivery moment. The shoes do not just live in the Relec office. They become content the marketing team is using to engage their own audience in a UK industrial-electronics network. These audiences are technical, B2B, and skeptical of consumer-style brand content. A real customer-produced unboxing video carries weight in that network that a vendor-produced ad never could. The case study was already complete on the day the shoes arrived. The social rollout makes it compound.
"We wanted the shoes to look exactly right, and they did. The team filmed an unboxing video the same day they arrived."
Lauren Grice, Marketing Executive, Relec Electronics
