{"id":2867,"date":"2012-02-24T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T17:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2016-05-16T19:02:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T02:02:17","slug":"what-k-swiss-can-try-because-theyre-small-but-does-it-sell-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/what-k-swiss-can-try-because-theyre-small-but-does-it-sell-shoes\/","title":{"rendered":"What K-Swiss Can Try Because They&#8217;re Small, But Does It Sell Shoes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.funnyordie.com\/embed\/1a2af1fab6\" width=\"620\" height=\"397\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/k-swiss-blades-kenny-powers.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"k-swiss-blades-kenny-powers\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2879\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is one way to try and sell shoes &#8230; and an HBO sitcom. Jody Hill directs the latest K-Swiss &#8220;Kenny Powers&#8221; short [NSFW], &#8220;Blades,&#8221; with actor Danny McBride and agency <a href=\"http:\/\/www.72andsunny.com\/\">72andSunny<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>(The Hill\/McBride collaboration, which goes beyond the HBO series &#8220;Eastbound and Down&#8221; starring the fictional character Kenny Powers, started back at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. (The show began its third season this last Sunday, February 19.) 72andSunny is also behind the provocative Benetton ads, which features different political leaders kissing each other. The spots use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.funnyordie.com\/videos\/1a2af1fab6\/k-swiss-blades-by-kenny-powers\">FunnyOrDie<\/a> for its online distribution, whose audience skews older.)<\/p>\n<p>In an interview last year with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/43731147\/K_Swiss_Kenny_Powers_Ad_Draws_Attention_Questions\">CNBC<\/a> regarding the initial <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XI_9Yxr0blo\">&#8220;Kenny Powers &#8211; K-Swiss CEO video (Uncensored)&#8221;<\/a> video:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;What attracted me to this company was the fact that we can take risks to get noticed that the other bigger brands wouldn&#8217;t take,&#8221; said Chris Kyle, the company&#8217;s vice president of marketing, who joined K-Swiss from Adidas [in 2010]. &#8220;Adidas can outspend us by massive amounts, so our job as a little company is to do our best to make some noise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That noise has come at a significant cost. The company is expected to pull in $281 million in sales this year. That means that they do 1\/100th the sales that Nike does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.funnyordie.com\/videos\/634f52e7d2\/kenny-powers-the-k-swiss-mfceo-uncensored\">second campaign<\/a> followed suit and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcocreate.com\/1679194\/kenny-powers-returns-for-second-k-swiss-campaign\">Fast Company<\/a> commented on the metrics:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The campaign was notable for a few reasons, not least of which was the simple fact that a marketer was putting its brand in the hands of such a spectacularly non-aspirational (fictional) athlete. But the campaign also marked an unusual three-way co-branding exercise, simultaneously promoting Tubes, season 2 of Eastbound, which was scheduled to launch a month after the campaign broke, and a Hollywood star on the rise.<\/p>\n<p>Powers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 return is an indicator of the success of that inaugural campaign, and not just as a giant Eastbound promo. The videos earned millions of views online (a million on FunnyorDie), resulted in a 1256% increase in Facebook fans and landed the brand atop the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153biggest buzz\u00e2\u20ac\u009d list in industry trade Footwear News. Perhaps more to the point, K-Swiss also reports a 250% increase in online sales post-Powers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But take a look at the stock. In an article two days ago on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/general\/2012\/02\/21\/will-this-iconic-brand-name-survive.aspx\">The Motley Fool<\/a>, K-Swiss is still losing money &#8230; fast:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>K-Swiss&#8217; abandoning of its bread-and-butter classic tennis-shoe business is particularly disturbing given how long the company has tried to angle the company toward the sportier side of the market and failed. It&#8217;s been more than four years now, and in that time the company has burned through a good portion of its cash. In the past six years, it has lost nearly 60% of its revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Are these ads helping save K-Swiss&#8217; bottom line? Perhaps a little bit. Despite being entertaining and opinionated content, and despite being part of a year-long campaign, K-Swiss may be faced with the Old Spice effect: brand awareness isn&#8217;t enough for massive changes in consumer behavior. (See our <a href=\"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/old-spice-and-old-school\/\">guest editorial from Jack Feuer<\/a> on this 2010 campaign.)<\/p>\n<p>What hasn&#8217;t helped is the management decisions to run K-Swiss like a Swiss Army knife: jack of all trades, master of none. (They spent a bundle of cash recently going after a line of karate apparel.) What has helped is the creative decisions to go over-the-top to help K-Swiss appear like a super shoe. This is totally the right move for a company that needs to go all-in. Does a bump in online sales move the needle of profitability? Despite being a digital world, that&#8217;s not enough and perhaps the foul-mouthed approach is a dud. Because at the end of the day, sales is king.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one way to try and sell shoes &#8230; and an HBO sitcom. Jody Hill directs the latest K-Swiss &#8220;Kenny Powers&#8221; short [NSFW], &#8220;Blades,&#8221; with actor Danny McBride and agency 72andSunny. (The Hill\/McBride collaboration, which goes beyond the HBO series &#8220;Eastbound and Down&#8221; starring the fictional character Kenny Powers, started back at the University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6141,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions\/6141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}