The Day That Counted: DECKED Helped Dads Get After What Matters
The Day That Counted: DECKED Helped Dads Get After What Matters
The Situation
By sunrise, his boots are laced and his truck is packed. He’s the guy the crew counts on: the first to show up, the last to leave, the one with twenty keys on a carabiner and a solution when plans fall apart. He’s dependable. But when the school bell rings or the soccer whistle blows, he’s often still on the jobsite.
That tension defines the lives of DECKED’s core customer: working dads in the trades.
Every hour off the job is income lost, and every missed family moment is a cost that never makes the balance sheet. These men aren’t chasing likes on social media; they’re chasing reliability, pride, and a paycheck.
DECKED sells premium truck bed drawer systems — secure, weatherproof storage that fits seamlessly into their world. Introduced in 2014, the product earned respect on job sites and spawned imitators. But the brand itself needed to catch up.
After years of performance media, DECKED could move product, but also wanted to move meaning. Sales were strong — but brand equity lagged.
THE CHALLENGE
In December 2024, we commissioned research of 2,500 U.S. adults — general public, truck owners and considerers. Combined, fewer than one in ten could name DECKED unaided, a sobering figure for a company with premium pricing and national distribution. Internally, the client put it bluntly: DECKED needed to stand for something. Not just a drawer system, but a brand with attitude, loyalty, and voice.
The challenge was as much cultural as commercial. In a noisy digital landscape, shouting louder wasn’t the answer. Our audience values quiet pride, not viral gimmicks. The opportunity was to respect the resource they hold most dear: time. And turn DECKED into the ally that gives some of it back.
The question we set out to answer: How can DECKED move from product recognition to brand admiration and prove it belongs in the lives of the audience, mostly men, it was built for?
The Research + Insights
To ground our strategy, we commissioned a second nationally representative survey of 1,006 U.S. fathers (Atomik Research, May 2025).
We asked simple but revealing questions: Do you feel financial pressure when you take time off to be with your kids? Have you ever missed an important event because of work? What would help you spend more time with your children?
DTO BY THE NUMBERS:
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Methodology: DECKED commissioned Atomik Research to conduct an online survey of 1,006 U.S. fathers age 18 years or older throughout the United States. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points with a confidence level of 95 percentage points. Fieldwork took place between May 2 and May 6, 2025.
The answers painted a consistent picture of the tension between work and family:
- 65% of dads said they had missed important family moments because of work.
- 60% said more PTO or flexibility would allow them more time with children.
- 43% said taking time off creates financial strain.
While the survey reflected dads nationwide, the insight was particularly resonant for DECKED’s core audience in the trades, where missing even a single shift can mean lost income.
Social listening around this tension across public social channels like Reddit and Facebook revealed similar themes: jokes about sleeping in the truck between jobs, pride in “being there when I can,” and love expressed through service, not words.
THE OPPORTUNITY
For DECKED, the research did more than validate our team’s audience insight. It pointed directly to a brand opportunity. The company had strong product awareness and sought strong brand equity, as well. By stepping into the conversation about time, DECKED could claim a cultural space that competitors overlooked, connecting its name with the values of the very men it was built to serve.
Father’s Day offered the rare stage where dads are celebrated not for providing, but for being present.
In 2025, nearly 46% of shoppers said they sought gifts that felt “unique or different,” and 37% prioritized experiences that created special memories (source: NRF, May 2025). That shift toward memory-making underscored our findings: presence, not products, is what matters most.
The galvanizing insight: The most valuable gift DECKED could give its customers wasn't a Father’s Day deal. It was time.
The Strategy
DECKED’s tagline, “Get DECKED. Get After It.” wasn’t born in a boardroom. It comes from the DNA of the brand’s own people: mountain bikers, Olympians, hunters, and teammates who wake up before dawn to chase hard things. If that’s the spirit behind the logo, the marketing had to carry the same weight.
Saying it wasn’t enough. DECKED had to live it.
Our challenge: translate the brand ethos into something that mattered for working dads in the trades. They didn’t need another spec sheet or product discount. They needed a brand that saw them, respected them, and gave them the one resource they couldn’t buy: time.
The strategy was simple but radical: turn the tagline into an advantage for the dads we serve. Create a program that lets them “get after it” not at work, but with their families.
THE IDEA: DAD TIME OFF
The idea: enable dads to choose presence over paycheck. DECKED would give 100 dads a one-time $500 to cover a day off — with no receipts or proof required. An investment in time - the scarce resource dads were sacrificing, and the only currency that could authentically connect brand to audience.
To prove DECKED could stand for something bigger than drawers, we worked with the client to define success not in revenue but in reputation: awareness, engagement, and brand loyalty:
- Earned Media: Secure 50+ placements with one top-tier national feature that drove home the message, "DECKED cares about working dads.”
- Engagement: Generate 100K+ campaign impressions with a 3%+ engagement rate.
- CRM: Capture 2,000+ nominations/opt-ins to build a new, emotionally primed audience.
- Brand Sentiment: Drive a measurable lift in positive mentions linking DECKED to values beyond product.
The guiding principle was connection. Every element of the program was designed to prove the DECKED brand could step out of the “click to buy” ads and into their core customers’ lives in a way that mattered — giving them a day that counted.
The Execution
We launched Dad Time Off (DTO) in June 2025, just ahead of Father’s Day. The perfect time period for appreciating time with Dad.
Nominations came from partners, children, family members and dads themselves, surfacing raw stories of sacrifice. Selection was weighted toward those who lived DECKED’s values and faced barriers to time off.
To bring DTO to life, we engineered a comprehensive, multi-channel plan:
- Emotional Storytelling: A heart-tugging hero video, narrated by children describing their dream day with dad, from “slaying dragons” to “pigging out on doughnuts,” was the creative centerpiece. This shareable content fueled social conversation and PR outreach.
- Campaign Hub: A custom landing page, DECKED.com/DadTimeOff, was created as the central hub for all program details, nominations, and the hero video.
Earned Media & PR:
- Satellite Media Tour (SMT): We prepared DECKED’s VP Greg Randolph to act as the campaign’s “spokesdad” and conduct a three-day media tour.
- Media Relations: We pitched campaign research, emotional storytelling, and the hero video to national, regional, and trade media.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): We engineered a PRNewswire release to inject campaign messaging into AI search models.
- Influencer Marketing: We tapped trusted DECKED influencers to showcase resonating “dad time off” moments: JT Van Zandt reflected on what fatherhood means to him, Kyle Strait encouraged nominations while showing time off with his kids, and Conner Sonnenberg created PSA-style content explaining the program’s purpose.
- Internal & Channel Advocacy: We equipped employees, leadership, and sales teams with assets and messaging to share with customers, dealers, and fleets.
- Social & Owned Channels: We developed a three-part email series and organic social content to extend reach, with messaging focused on the emotional benefit of family time.
Participation in DTO was simple, human, and built to scale. No purchase or proof required for a dad and a family to earn a day together.
The Results
By every measure that mattered — emotional resonance, cultural relevance, and impact — Dad Time Off succeeded.
The proof started in the nominations themselves:
- “He’s missed countless family moments—birthdays, soccer games—because work demands his all. His hands are calloused, his back aches, but he never complains, always putting us first.”
- “Whether it’s bedtime stories after a 12-hour shift or school pickups on no sleep, he shows up with love, patience, and humor.”
- “He gave up his dream of becoming a doctor to support our family… When I asked if he’d do it differently, he said, ‘Not in a million years.’”
These voices validated the insight—time is a scarce and valuable resource—and set the stage for results.
- Earned Media & Broadcast —189 stories generated nearly 600M impressions, including a USA Today feature syndicated to 162 outlets and 50 SMT segments reaching 3.4M viewers. The campaign was named a ‘creative campaign to know’ by Ad Age and ranked #1 in a PRWeek poll.
- Creative & Engagement — The hero video earned 53K+ organic views with comments calling it “hall of fame material.” Influencers added 212K+ impressions with 100% positive sentiment.
- Owned & CRM — The hub drew 33.5K visits from 22.4K users. 5,000+ nominations (400% over goal) created a new, emotionally primed CRM audience.
- Social Lift — Organic content delivered 127K impressions at a 3.7% engagement rate, while social listening showed a 3X increase in mentions tied to “family” and “values.”
- Brand Perception — A post-campaign survey shows lifts in awareness by 39%, positive brand sentiment (83%), and purchase consideration by 76% of respondents.
We built DTO into a repeatable platform. One nominator summed it up: “I was going to call and thank you all, but full-on ugly (but good) cry has engaged. The fact that a company he admires recognized him has left him speechless.”
DTO didn’t just earn coverage. It created connection, transforming DECKED from a product brand into a champion of hard-working customers.
The Press
