Aligning 3,500 people globally around one brand idea
Dr Martens had spent five years developing its core brand idea: Rebellious Self Expression - but the organisation had grown faster than the story could travel. The team had expanded rapidly across global markets, with new hires joining at every level, and a generational transition was underway: the old guard who’d built the brand through instinct and institutional memory, and a new generation who needed the idea made explicit.
The thinking wasn't wrong, but it existed in fragments - research documents, strategy decks, workshop outputs - spread across years of work and understood fully by only a handful of people. Without a single, clear articulation of what Rebellious Self Expression actually meant, different teams in different markets were interpreting it differently. The brand idea that was supposed to unite the company was creating confusion instead of clarity.
Dr Martens needed to take five years of complex strategic thinking, distil it into something every employee could understand and act on and then launch it globally in a way that felt like the beginning of something. The brief was alignment at scale: 3,500 people across the world, from the leadership team down, telling the same story about what Dr Martens stands for and where it’s going.
We started by boiling everything down. Five years of research, insight, and strategy compressed into a brand one-pager - a single document that explained the essence of Rebellious Self Expression, why it matters commercially and culturally and what it means for every part of the business. Simple enough to pin on a wall. Rich enough to guide decisions.
From there, we designed and ran a two-day workshop for the senior leadership team. Not a presentation — a working session that gave leaders the space to interrogate the idea, challenge it, and make it theirs. The workshop served a dual purpose: it aligned the top team, and it generated the raw material we needed for the global launch.
That material became two things. First, a video that traced the evolution of Rebellious Self Expression — from DMs countercultural origins in the 1960s through to their commitments to diversity, sustainability and community today. It connected heritage to ambition, showing staff not just where the brand came from but where it was going. Second, an internal magazine that followed the same narrative and invited every employee to see their role in driving the idea forward. Both were designed to make abstract strategy feel tangible, personal and actionable.
The video and magazine were distributed to 3,500 staff globally and received an overwhelmingly positive response from the leadership team. As Head of Brand Strategy & Insights Michelle Faure put it, the work shaped a complex set of ideas into a simple, effective articulation of the brand - without losing the depth of thinking behind it.
The real impact was operational. A global team that had been interpreting the brand differently now had one shared narrative - what Dr Martens stands for, who it’s for and how Rebellious Self Expression should guide decisions across product, marketing, retail and culture. The work bridged the generational gap between the old guard and the new: honouring the heritage and rebellion that made the brand iconic, while giving a new generation of leaders the tools to carry it forward commercially.
Disjointed ideas became one global narrative. Abstract strategy became tangible actions. We didn't change the brand, but made sure everyone in the building was telling the same story. For a company growing as fast as Dr Martens, that alignment is worth more than any campaign.
Brand strategy one-pager
Two-day leadership workshop (design, facilitation, feedback)
Global strategy launch video
Internal brand magazine (Edition #1)
Disjointed ideas → One global narrative
Abstract strategy → Tangible actions
Past → Linked to future ambitions
“Corke Wallis shaped a complex set of ideas into a simple and effective articulation of our brand. They did this without losing any of the depth of thinking that made up the initial brief.”
— Michelle Faure, Head of Brand Strategy & Insights, Dr Martens
