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I’ve been stating that I absolutely love the Icon Knit from K-Swiss. I’ve also stated that the only store in Memphis carrying the sneaker is City Gear’s “The Vault” Sneaker Boutique. The shoe may be in other locations, but I’ve only seen the shoes there. As dope as I think that shoe is I did an analysis of why it would have problems.
I haven’t really seen much from the VaynerMedia camp on K-Swiss lately and only in my search of sites to see what’s happening in kicks did I run across this new podcast from the brand, K-Swiss Presents.
Description
Acid Leopard Sneakers In Grey Synthetic Fibers In this new podcast, the K-Swiss team talk to the young entrepreneurs who inspire us, and who we can learn from as we find out what they do and how they did it. At K-Swiss we believe these entrepreneurs are the new heroes of culture, as more and more people aspire to build their own business and create their own futures. This has inspired our new brand mission; To inspire and outfit the next generation of entrepreneurs. The Acid Leopard Sneakers In Grey Synthetic Fibers podcast is produced and broadcast from K-Swiss global Headquarters in the heart of Downtown LA, and is hosted by K-Swiss President Barney Waters and Global Marketing Director Patrick Buchanan.
When you look at the description the first thought that I had, as an older entrepreneur is something I recently told Clare Duffy at the Portland Business Journal about adidas marketing. I told her that, “adidas has done an incredible job of connecting the past to the present and future. They have tied in the old guard to the new guard. In their marketing they used Brandon Ingram and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. They flipped the script on the imagery associated with Snoop’s first album. They have taken rebel culture and marketed it after a presidential debate.” I told her all of this to explain that adidas targeted youth culture/young adults but they did so by connecting to the past. It didn’t alienate.
My immediate thought when reading the description is that K-Swiss has a history that connects better to the 30-40 year old demographic than it does the 20-30 year old demographic. To launch a campaign focusing on young entrepreneurs is similar to everyone failing to understand that Sneaker Culture started with Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop is now 40 years old and those people that are 40-50 still collect sneakers and love the culture. Speaking with “young entrepreneurs” who inspire is limiting the reach of a line that 30 and 40 somethings would happily add to their sneaker rotation as they have done with Allbirds (another sneaker company targeting startup and tech companies). Going young only is similar to when analysts think sneakerheads are relegated to pimply faced 15 year olds trading kicks at sneaker shows. I know dudes that are 45 with 100 pair of kicks. You know what’s crazy is that those guys don’t even have a pair of K-Swiss although they rocked the all white classics just as much as Air Force 1s.
I like the idea of this campaign and now that it’s rolling I think it is what it is… but the brand has a winner; unfortunately I think that winner isn’t being presented correctly.
Sneakers KL52420 White Lthr.
