When Brands Collide

Hi all -

The other day I bought a pair of shoes. Anyone that knows me knows that this can be a huge undertaking. Usually, it involves at least a lap and a half around Arundel Mills mall. For those of you who are counting, there are 19 stores in Arundel Mills that sell men's shoes. 19! I usually have to stop at every one, just to make sure I'm not missing any.

So the shoes I bought are shown here (well, those are like mine - mine actually have white in the back where the black is....):













Guess what type they are? Most people know that the three diagonal stripes comes from the Adidas brand (four is K Swiss, two is Steve Madden). But it clearly says Goodyear on the side of the shoe. What the heck?

Well, being the brand-phile that I am, I had to buy the pair of shoes that had not one, but TWO brands incorporated into the shoe. Now, I'm not sure how it all went down, but I can totally rationalize why both of these companies probably got together on the deal where Goodyear would supply the rubber for the soles of an Adidas shoe.

My guess is that Goodyear marketing executives were sitting around the conference room table thinking about innovative new ways to get the Goodyear name out in front of their target audience, which I'm assuming is largely Males 18-35 that are into the performance of their automobile. And if you've been reading my other blogs, you know that breaking through to this group is harder than ever....

So someone probably started thinking of how they could cross promote with other brands that are popular with this audience. Maybe they even thought - "hey, maybe we could provide free Goodyear rubber in exchange for prominent brand placement." Someone probably started thinking about what brands use rubber...."hey, shoe companies use rubber. What's a popular shoe brand with Males 18-35? ADIDAS."

Then, someone gets on the phone with Adidas' marketing department and makes the offer to supply the rubber for the soles at no charge, in exchange for them putting out a co-branded shoe. Pretty cool idea, and in my opinion I think it works well. If nothing else, it shows innovative marketing. And I have to say it produced a pretty cool darn shoe. Which, incidentally, is a damn good shoe for driving - it's excellent for the heel and toe downshifting method!

So the lesson here? I think that brands big and small need to look further into cross promotions. I think this is going to be an even more effective way to enhance your brand awareness as time goes by.

Cheers, that's all for now...

Garret Ohm