Funerals, Fashion, and the Fine Art of Goodbye — Chupps’ Bold Sustainability Storytelling

Most brands talk sustainability in soft pastels, recycled-paper textures, and politely optimistic taglines.

Chupps clearly didn’t get that memo.

Instead, their latest campaign opens with funeral processions across rural India — not exactly the usual playground for footwear marketing.

But that’s precisely why it works.

Launched on World Soil Day (which already tells you someone on the strategy team thinks in poetic metaphors, not merely metrics), the campaign introduces the Chupster range — a 100% biodegradable line designed to return to the earth in under 24 months once disposed.

The premise: if life ends, shouldn’t the things we create end too?

It’s dark humour with a conscience and the tension is the point.

A Script That Walks the Line Between Mortality and Marketing

Developed by INTO Creative, the four-film campaign is structured around nature’s classical elements: Soil, Earth, Fire, Water.

Each film begins as a sombre, cinematic tribute to a departed soul. We follow mourners through dusty roads, incense smoke, muted tears — until the tone shifts.

The twist lands: the deceased isn’t a person, but a pair of Chupps.

It’s cheeky. It’s bold. And it’s one of the rare examples where the joke doesn’t trivialise the message — it intensifies it.

The films were shot in Satara, Maharashtra — giving them texture, atmosphere, and a grounded authenticity urban campaigns often miss.

The soundtrack features lyrics by Sufi saint Khwaja Fariduddin Ganjshakar — a quiet nod to introspection and impermanence. Again: not accidental.

This isn’t performance sustainability. It’s philosophy served with grit.

A Category That Needed a Shake — And Got a Funeral March

The footwear industry isn’t shy about innovation — sports performance, cushioning, fashion collaborations — but end-of-life design has been the awkward elephant in the room.

Most shoes outlive their owners… and their owners’ grandchildren.

Yashesh Mukhi, Founder of Chupps, frames it clearly: “Sustainability isn’t about doing less harm, it’s about restoring balance.”

That’s a brave sentence in a country where mass production and mass consumption are accelerating at velocity.

For a middle-class India buying fast fashion faster than ever — the metaphor of designing for endings isn’t just intelligent — it’s needed.

Paddy, Dark Humour, and the Courage to Say the Unsayable

Credit where it’s due: this campaign has Paddy’s fingerprints all over it — the irreverence, the theatre, the unapologetic clarity.

Pair that with Amol Jadhav’s direction and gritty visual ecosystem, and you get a narrative that doesn’t politely suggest sustainability — it confronts you with it.

It’s campaign thinking that’s not afraid to walk right up to discomfort and turn it into emotional imprint.

And in advertising, that’s gold.

Why This Matters to Marketers

Because the age of hollow claims and green-washed copywriting is ending.

We are entering an era where:

• Sustainability must be designed, not declared.
• Storytelling must be felt, not forced.
• Messages must be brave enough to be remembered, not safe enough to be forgotten.

Chupps isn’t just launching shoes — it’s reframing how consumers think about the lifecycle of what they buy.

If brands want loyalty in a world where younger consumers question everything — they’ll need to do more campaigns like this: emotionally intelligent, culturally grounded, creatively fearless.

Brands spend billions selling the beginning of the journey — new shoes, new seasons, new looks.

Chupps is one of the very few asking: What about the end?

And in a marketplace drowning in “eco-friendly” wallpaper, this campaign is a rare moment of truth: brave, uncomfortable, and unforgettable.