The Hey Dude brand has the pulse of its targeted customer base.
According to new brand president Rupert Campbell, a survey of nearly 7,000 consumers in North America and the U.K. said its core customer was male and between ages 31 to 45, who value comfort and styles that are easy on, easy off. There is also a sizable female consumer base — she’s between ages 32 to 45 — that buys the brand for herself as well as for her family members.
Campbell, a former Adidas executive, joined Crocs Inc. in March 2025 as global chief commercial officer of the Hey Dude brand. In November, he was promoted to executive vice president and brand president of Hey Dude, giving him oversight for leading the brand’s product, marketing and commercial go-to market strategy.
Campbell told Footwear News in an interview that the goal of the survey was to get an update on customer insights, and to really understand what consumers thought about the brand, what would make them buy more, what would make them stay with the brand, and what did they like — or not — about the styling and fit of the shoes.
Those insights will play a big role in turning around the fortunes of the Hey Dude brand. When parent firm Crocs Inc. posted fourth quarter results last week, the company reported that Hey Dude revenues fell 16.9 percent, while direct-to-consumer revenues were flat and wholesale revenue dropped 40.5 percent, with the latter due in part to a cleanup of inventories at its retail accounts.
“From that whole plethora of information, which we had a lot, we disseminated all of that and we created what we call internally our game plan based around [those data points]. That was the thing that guided our priorities for [the near term and over the long term],” Campbell said.
He noted that all Hey Dude team members from both the international and North America businesses also provided input, which resulted in four priorities.
The first centers on scaling the core franchises, which are the Wendy and Wally lines, and adding more options where possible. Second involves using marketing campaigns that help to build communities from a grassroots level to get the word out about the brand. Third is a focus on distribution, with a priority on the U.S. and North America across wholesale, retail and e-commerce businesses, followed by the “planting of seeds” to foster international growth. And finally, the fourth priority is ensuring that issues surrounding insights on product fit and comfort are corrected, where needed.
Insights on fit also spurred the trial of a new category around sizing for the brand. “We’ve been doing a trial for five months now on half sizes, which has been very, very, very good for us in terms of what we’ve done,” the brand president said. The trial in half sizes are in the key size range for 8, 9 and 10 in men’s, with Campbell noting that “we are seeing less returns and more sales as a result of that.”
Tackling the half size trial had its share of challenges. “You make more inventory and if you do that, what if it doesn’t sell? I think it was smart from Kerstyn [Chang], our chief product officer, to just picking the sweet spot of the sizes — rather than doing it for everything — that drive 60 percent of our business,” Campbell said.
Other learnings indicated that both male and female customers are asking for the same things, which are comfort, easy-on and easy-off, and a shoe that fitted correctly. And the brand used to have a European last and a U.S. last, which Campbell said, “We’ve fixed that.”
Delineating who is part of the core consumer base — dubbed “Reliable Ryan” and “Everyday Emma” — also will help with sales at the brand’s wholesale and retail customers.
That’s because the brand a year ago was targeting a younger female consumer between ages 18 to 24 or 25. With the profile of Everyday Emma in mind — she’s also a no-fuss mom who neither buys the most expensive things nor the cheapest products — Hey Dude has started shifting its marketing to be more in lock-step with its slightly older female consumer.
The brand’s customers are seeking a shoe that’s a cross between athletic performance and casual lifestyle. They’re not hard-core athletes, but they go to the gym and want an element of performance in their shoes. They’re more inclined to walk than run throughout the day, and because comfort is a priority, a sneaker-style shoe like Hey Dude’s Sirocco slip-on provides the balance of comfort, style and performance.
“We’re not building for the athlete. We’re building for comfort now, and this could post- or pre-sport,” Campbell said. “So, what you find is a lot of people will do whatever the sport is — hunting, fishing, golf,… — and they will kick off the shoes that they use for [that sport when done ] and then they’ll put on their Hey Dudes. That’s how we see our brand now.”
Over time, Campbell sees the brand evolving further as a lifestyle product, one that retains the comfort factor but isn’t sport-focused, although it maybe sport-inspired. “Our plan is to focus on the core and [at some point] we will add more. But [right now], our Wendy, our Wally, our Hey2O, our stretch socks, our stretch jersey — we have a long way to go in terms of penetration with all of these products,” Campbell said.
Hey Dude has 75 retail doors, but its core consumers also shop online and head to the shopping malls. And there’s also a growing digital base via the social selling platform TikTok Shop. During Crocs’ fourth quarter earnings conference call, CEO Andrew Rees told investors that Crocs is the No. 1 footwear brand on the social commerce platform while Hey Dude last year was the No. 2 shoe brand.
Campbell said TikTok Shop is a great vehicle as an incubator where the brand can test for an early read on certain products. “There are a number of products that you will see us launching in earnest this year that we have already tested on TikTok Shop and have worked for us,” he said.
One example is sandals, a category that was launched on TikTok Shop in the second half of 2025. “We got some really good reads on that [which] has helped us in our plan for 2026 in terms of how early we bring them in, how many we bring in, what colors they are, and how they work,” the brand president said, adding that while the TikTok audience is primarily female and younger, the influencers do help to create a buzz surrounding the brand.
The younger male counterpart, dubbed as College Campbell, is college age who finds it cool to wear products that aren’t the ones that everyone sees every day.
“For the third quarter this year, for the first time, we will be doing a back-to-college campaign targeted at College Campbell,” he said. “These are the consumer who play a lot of sports, and they want to kick their cleats and then they want to put on their Hey Dudes when they finish their sports. These are the people that we’re trying to get to.”
Internationally, the brand has a strong business in Italy, and a good business in Spain. “We are working with difference ambassadors and influencers in the U.K.,” Campbell said, noting that Hey Dude just signed on Scottish singer and songwriter Lewis Capaldi as a brand ambassador. “He’s heading up the stretch jersey campaign for Europe right now,” he said.
For the first time, the brand also signed the U.K. soccer club Huddersfield Town, the professional football club in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in England. These are actions that are seeding the brand for international growth down the road as the Hey Dude team focuses its concentration first on strengthening North American sales.
The Wendy and Wally stretch jersey shoes from Hey Dude. Courtesy of Hey Dude
