CROCS.
My life works in mysterious ways. 2 weeks ago, I went into a David Z store on Broadway because my cousin and I got caught in a heavy rainstorm. She wanted to pick up a pair of Crocs. I was always curious about the shoes. They're such a phenomenon among some people. And them completely meaningless to others. So I tried a pair on and I gotta say, it was THE most comfortable thing i put on my feet. Did I buy them? No. Because they are the strangest thing man has every created. But I was actually "THIS" close to adding Crocs to my shoe collection. I think that says a lot about the brand. I left David Z very interested in Crocs and the power of function over form. Then not a week later, out of the blue, I got a call from them! It was really weird.
I was asked to attend a small gathering of very interesting people that was organized by Crocs. You might know them as those odd looking shoes that little kids wear. Well there must be a shit load of little kids wearing Crocs because the little ugly shoe that could; is now a $350 million publicly traded conglomerate with over 1100 employees. They got myself; along with others like Josh Spear, editors from Lucky Mag, and about 6 other "in-the-know" people to talk about what the brand means to us, if anything...and what it could mean in the future. Barring the corporate shinnanagins, it was very interesting to have the handful of us in a room together for a couple of hours. We all came from different paths and after tonight, will continue on our different paths. I thought the convergence of our personalities was more interesting than anything else that came from this session.
Small, private and very talented. A nice group of individuals...
...Oh to be a fly on the wall while we were talking....hey...wait a minute! Whats that?!?
Crocs will be expanding beyond the "ugly-shoe" marketplace and entering the "decent-shoe" marketplace soon. No but for real, if you try Crocs on, you will very likely buy them based on comfort alone. If I was going to be on a deserted island and had to bring one shoe, it would be Crocs. (So long as I was promised no other humans would be on said island and i would never be rescued.)
posted by jeffstaple | 11:56 PM
6 Comments:
hey jeff,
was anyone from texture media there? they are the interactive agency of record for Crocs and where i first started in this game waaaaaay long time ago.
just curious.
Did a Staple/Crocs collab ever come up in conversation? Was that the purpose of this meeting?
Are you advertising for them on your blog? Cause that's what it sounds like with the whole I would bring them if I was going to the desert bit.
Jeff, dude, maybe you should invest a few moments in a spell check...shinnanagins aint even close to the real spelling!
eeeeeuuuuwwww crocs
those canvas crocs are still uglier than sin. i just had this conversation with a friend a few weeks back, my argument being that if crocs could convince the early adaptors (in other words, slags like us who would ever read this blog) that the undeniable comfort of crocs outweighed their visual ugliness, then they might have a chance beyond the thirtysomething treehugging soccermom/dad liberal class of america. sure enough, they were on to that. anyone seen the dockshoe crocs? if that's what jeff staple meant by "decent-shoe" marketplace - regardless of how much crocs paid him as a consultant ('cause he didn't do it pro bono) - he's way off.
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