Sneaker brands have been in the news more than normal recently.
Adidas (ADDYY) was in the middle of a huge shoe deal with musician Kanye West, or ‘Ye.’ when the celebrity made anti-Semitic comments that left Adidas in a pickle. Adidas chose to pull out of the deal because it was the “right” decision. It chose to not proceed with the deal after the rapper’s unsavory comments.
More negative news hit as Olympia Sports and Shoe City filed for bankruptcy after financial difficulties. Shoe City had been in the red for a couple years, before the company realized the best option was to close its doors. Olympia Sports met the same demise as Shoe City, both filing for bankruptcy leaving shoe brands like Nike, Adidas, Skechers (SKX) and other shoe brands as creditors left holding the bill.
Nike (NKE) came onto the stage with Amazon’s new movie about Michael Jordan and the shoe deal featuring the basketball G.O.A.T as a rookie in “Air: Courting a Legend.” The movie follows the story of Nike doing something unheard of at the time, developing a shoe completely around a rookie. This move was risky, but lucky for Nike, the rookie was Michael Jordan, and the rest is, well, history.
Skechers Brings In Mr. T
Skechers is taking a page out of Nike and Adidas marketing campaign books, but in a very different way than its competitors. Nike risked a lot doing a deal with an unknown rookie. Now Nike is featuring lots of rookies and getting deals signed with lesser known young talent hoping for the next big thing, like LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who each got major deals with Nike that worked out for both parties.
Skechers latest marketing campaign is all about nos’T’algia and is using its name which is has the ‘T’ sound in the brand name, but the ‘T’ is left out. So, bringing the ‘T’ to Skechers is none other than Mr. T, known to many as B.A. Baracus from the 1980's NBC-TV show "The A-Team." Mr. T is well known for his distinct look with a mohawk hairstyle, layers of gold chains, gold rings and tank top to show off his muscles. He looks like no one in their right mind would mess with him.
In the Skechers commercial, Mr. T is sporting different Skechers shoes while he participates in several different activities like playing pickleball, karate, arm wrestling and grilling out.
“The people have spoken and it’s about time there was a ‘t’ in Skechers,” according to Mr. T. He continued with his famous catchphrase, “I pity the fool who doesn’t see how easy I find my way into every comfortable pair!”
“The letter ‘t’ has never been part of our name but sometimes computers and voice-to-text apps autocorrect it the wrong way,” said Skechers President, Michael Greenberg. He continued, “Not that we are considering changing the spelling of our name, but it would have been foolish to say no to Mr. T – the only ‘t’ that belongs in Skechers.”
Shoe Brand Marketing Genius
Skechers has partnered with other celebrities like Snoop Dogg and other sports stars like Tony Romo and Cris Carter. Skechers branches out with its latest commercial showing Mr. T, who is a 1980's celebrity and will appeal to a totally different generation of shoppers, instead of those who just want the latest sports stars sneaker to play sports in, Gen X.
While some older millennials may remember Mr. T, it is more likely that Gen-X will smile and appreciate the 80's muscle man icon and know his iconic catch phrase. Showing that Skechers shoes are great for more than just basketball, but other sports and just hanging out as Mr. T is just chilling by his van, is also reminiscent of the A -Team van.
Whether Gen-X will choose to buy the Skechers brand over any other may not come down to whether or not Mr. T makes them or inspires them to, but probably more about comfort for this target audience at this point. The shoe commercial bringing back Mr. T is certainly amusing enough on its own.
