NPD Says 50 Cent Was More Influential In Sneakers Than Kanye West, Adidas Marketshare Dropped

[WSFGDan]

Kanye stans are so upset in his mentions

The music industry and the sneaker business have been entwined for decades. We only need to recall Run-DMC and what they did for Adidas, or The Ramones wearing Chuck Taylors to understand the importance of this relationship. Brands have “seeded” the celebrity market for years to get exposure for their products.

In recent years, sneaker brands have begun doing footwear collaborations with musicians, artists and celebrities. Many of these collaborations are highly coveted by collectors and fans. The goal of this blog is to explore the reasoning and value behind these collaborations.

For the most part, the main goal for collaborations is hype. The hype works both ways. The celebrity and the brand both hope to gain prestige. The celebrity is typically not compensated (beyond free shoes for friends and family). The celebrity gets bragging rights for having a shoe with their name on it, while the brand gets to bask in the celebrity’s glow. Retailers who are chosen to sell them get an aura of coolness as well. All hope to get mentions in the fashion and sneakerhead press.

The celebrity’s design involvement is very limited. First of all few celebrities have real design talent and none have any shoe building skills. The brands will ask the celebrity about preferences and desires (“Teal is my favorite color”; “I love unicorns”) and these personalized elements are incorporated into an existing shoe design.

These shoes are not sold in commercial quantities. The pairs available are typically less than 5000. (By contrast, according to my analysis of the data from www.sportsonesource.com, Americans bought more than 300 million pairs of shoes last year). All the collaborations added together would barely move the sales needle for the industry.

Because these shoes are limited in availability, they are often in high demand and can claim high multiples in re-sale price on the Internet. Because these limited shoes are in high demand, there is often a mistaken assumption that they could or would sell well in commercial quantities.

Recent history would argue against that. A decade ago, Reebok tried to commercialize their relationships with artists Jay-Z and 50 Cent, two very important artists of the time. I was in the Villa store on N. Broad in Philly for the first S. Carter drop (Shawn Carter is Jay-Z’s real name). The shoes sold out very quickly. The atmosphere was electric.

Reebok decided to try to build on that small success, by making many more pairs and opening up to a much broader distribution. The next, slightly larger, delivery did very well, so Reebok ramped up production even more. At the same time they made the G-Unit shoe for 50 Cent, again trying to commercialize the relationship.

Both mass market efforts failed miserably. There simply was not enough of a market for the amount of pairs manufactured. Markdowns were taken, orders cancelled and the bulk of the shoes were liquidated through off price retailers. No further shoes were released and the relationships ended.

Similarly the Pharrell Williams/ Reebok “Ice Cream” collaboration went down in flames. The Pharrell/Palladium deal never got off the ground. I cannot recall a single celebrity collaboration has been commercially meaningful at scale.

The lesson here is that limited means limited. Just because a shoe blows out at retail on a small number of pairs does not guarantee broad commercial success, regardless of how popular the artist may be and how commercially successful they are. High resale value is not an indicator of broad commercial success.

Adidas has signed endorsement contracts with Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, both highly regarded music artists and cultural icons, just as Jay-Z and 50 Cent were.

Brands that are paying artists for their endorsement concerns me for two reasons: First, fans and sneakerheads now know that these artists are getting paid, reducing the specialness that comes from collaborations and two, the brands will now be pressured to monetize these relationships by selling a lot of shoes.

Brands who try to commercialize limited edition products do so at their own peril. If history repeats itself the Adidas/West and Williams collaborations will not be commercially successful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpowell/2014/05/01/sneakernomics-will-kanye-west-help-adidas-sales/[

 

[Monoblock]

Matt Powell be dropping hard facts on those clowns.

 

[Zach Lowe]

yeah the supposed failure of a limited upscale line is the reason why a giant company that does most of its business in gym clothes and $70 runners is falling off

seems like the body of the article (not your headline) says Fif's wack ass shoes sold for $20 to soccer dads while Ye's joints sell for thousands and bring prestige to his name I wonder which is better

 

[WSFGDan]

yeah the supposed failure of a limited upscale line is the reason why a giant company that does most of its business in gym clothes and $70 runners is falling off

seems like the body of the article (not your headline) says Fif's wack ass shoes sold for $20 to soccer dads while Ye's joints sell for thousands and bring prestige to his name I wonder which is better

So 9000 that made 250k for Addias is better than 3.8 million sold for Reebok now?

This is business not hype, as Matt Powell says. If Kanye's sneakers are so hot why won't they test a mass market sneaker?

Kanye isn't making much from these sneakers as of yet, That could change but it is what it is.

 

[Zach Lowe]

So 9000 that made 250k for Addias is better than 3.8 million sold for Reebok now?

This is business not hype, as Matt Powell says. If Kanye's sneakers are so hot why won't they test a mass market sneaker?

Kanye is making much from these sneaker, as of yet that could change but it is what it is.

their motive obviously isn't just to maximize profits

they're not even making enough adidas Yeezys to meet the demand why would they make a corny $60 sneaker for Coli posters who dress like Kay Slay

 

[L. Deezy]

50 wasnt going up against the sneaker game as it is today..

Retro sneaker game and everything else coming out now wasnt out then..

 

[Sonic Boom of the South]

got em aggy

 

[NvrCMyNut]

I believe.

50 is swagless but in 03 he was one the biggest (black) cultural phenomenons the world had seen since Mike Tyson

Kanye is all hype, the industry props him up, 50 was blackballed from the industry & became a huge star in spite of that

 

[Tunez]

Both sneakers are trash tho

 

[NvrCMyNut]

their motive obviously isn't just to maximize profits

they're not even making enough adidas Yeezys to meet the demand why would they make a corny $60 sneaker for Coli posters who dress like Kay Slay

 

[High quality poster]

Them Kanye addidas is

fukking ugly man. nikka thought them shyts was finna change the game


Jay and Fif made bank off of Reebok that's all I know. Nike threw Kanye to the bushes. And the rest of them clothes he made for addidas is ugly as fukk too. Addidas is a sports wear line, fukk is all that extra shyt, big ass knitted sweaters and shyt.

If it ain't shell toes then to the bushes it goes.


Still love Kanye tho, that's that nikka, but he put too much into trying to launch clothing lines, he's a good poster boy for the fashion industry, usually the shyt he wears becomes trends 6 months down the line.

 

[WSFGDan]

Both sneakers are trash tho

You know you bought those blue G-Unit sneakers after banks said it in Stunt 101 stan.

 

[Monster]

it's not fair to compare 50 to ye.

it's like shark to baby seal or something

 

[ignorethis]

their motive obviously isn't just to maximize profits

they're not even making enough adidas Yeezys to meet the demand why would they make a corny $60 sneaker for Coli posters who dress like Kay Slay

are you ever not caping for Kanye?

 

[eastside313]

50 wasnt going up against the sneaker game as it is today..

Retro sneaker game and everything else coming out now wasnt out then..

Retro Jordan's been dropping for 15 years