I love it when brands come up with creatives strategies to show us they’re aware of who their audience are. It’s too easy to say that Start-Rite Shoes are aimed at any parents with a child - wayyy too easy. They know full well most of their customers will be women aged 25-35 with children under 3 years old.

We’re the sort of mums who make a fuss out of buying shoes; beaming and coo’ing over our confused children as their feet are measured. We’re the mums who take our trusty Canons into store and horrify staff with our desperate attempts to get the perfect shot (“Smile Dexter. Smile. No seriously - SMILE”). We’re the mums who whip out our iPhones every time our child does something remotely clever and hover above them for an hour waiting for them to do it again. They know full well who we are and how to speak to us.

Their latest creative campaign is really fun. Every pair of first shoes purchased (be that boys, girls, baby girls or baby boys), will come with a little leaflet inviting parents to make a special video to commemorate the “first shoe” experience. Not just limited to shoe-buying, we’re asked to trawl through our Facebook photos to seek out those remarkable moments that have defined our little person’s life to-date; first steps, first smile, first mouthful. Rather than a frivolous gimmick, it’s actually really well done.

Click HERE to see Dexter’s Start-Rite Vid

Dexter’s first Start-Rite shoes (so technically a first) are these seriously cool walking shoes; Start-Rite Super Soft Sam, Brown Leather Boys Riptape First Walking Shoes (- Seriously… trying saying that when you’ve had a glass of wine!)

I’m a little bit in love with these shoes. They’re more grown up than the traditional velcro fare and have a variety of adjustable points across the outer arch to ensure a snug fit. In fact, he struggles to take them off on his own which is fabulous if you want them to stay put during an outing - Dexter once famously threw a £40 shoe out of a moving train window.

I love Dex in brown shoes as I hate black shoes and blue jeans (isn’t that right Craig!???). The contrasting yellow trim helps it look every inch the dinky footwear us mums go doe-eyed over, with a flash of baby blue for our cool little dudes.

In terms of fit, they’re spot on. I really like how you can easily remove the tongue and loosen the front part of the shoe to ease their feet in - Dex’s previous shoes from another BIG kids shoe retailer have definitely required more pushing. Once on, those laces and velcro bits really come in useful as you can tighten to hug his feet. His outer arch isn’t exposed to any harsh seams or plastic bits either as the tongue is nice and wide.

This is our first experience of Start-Rite as we have several other shoe retailers in our town with their own shopfronts to act as a prompt. There is however a Start-Rite section in our local John Lewis and we won’t be so quick to dismiss them next time. If price is your motivation, they’re often part of John Lewis’ seasonal sales so you can still pick up a bargain.

Here are some of their other cute designs in the First range:

You can visit startriteshoes.com to browse the latest styles and collections and also look for inspiration on Facebook & Twitter. If you want to make your own video, you’ll be given a code upon purchasing your shoes and will need to head to startritefirstshoes.com to upload those precious first photos. Have fun!