How To Get Rid Of The Ups And Downs Of 100 Year Cloth Shoes Keds Usher In The Golden Age?

The white stockings of the calf, legging, and a wide edition. T-shirt With a pair of white. Cloth shoes If a girl wears such an American campus in the 1980 years, it will be regarded as a "fashionable girl".

Such a picture appeared in the 1980s American drama "Saved by the Bell" and "Full House". It also appeared in the movie "Dirty Dancing" which was popular in the 1980 years. In all these films and television works, the white cloth shoes come from one. brand Keds.

Keds is 100 years old. In 1916, U.S. Rubber set up its 30 shoe brands to form a new company, initially named "Peds", which means "feet" in Latin. However, the name was registered at that time, and Peds was renamed Keds, meaning that it could walk quietly without being discovered.

At the beginning of the establishment, Keds's target consumers were quite broad. From 1920 to 1940s, the brand wrote slogans of "Feel like everyday" s a Saturday on advertising posters, advocating that people of all walks of life in the United States should choose sports and leisure activities. Their products are simple and light, with rubber soles, similar to the basic style of the Chinese back and jump shoes, which contrasts with the popular leather high heels at that time. In the 1952 year of the year, it was worn by Marilyn Monro in the movie "Clash by Night". 15 years later, a pair of black flat bottomed ankle shoes were again worn by Audrey Hepburn in the movie "Two for the Road".

Marilyn Monro wore Keds cloth shoes in the 1952 movie Clash by Night.

However, even Hollywood stars did not bring this brand into the golden age. Its real good times happened in 1980s.

At that time, the social status and lifestyle of American women changed dramatically in 1960 and 1970s. They came into campus and offices and appeared in more and more social activities. Keds quickly became popular among young girls and girls in the United States.

For some people who advocate gender equality, it is a manifestation of gender equality progress that women take off their complicated skirts and high heels instead of wearing casual clothes and put them into public leisure activities. It is also a recurring scene in Keds's advertisements. Casual wear liberates women from high-heeled shoes and corsets, allowing them to dress comfortably and move freely like men.

According to the point of view of Deirdre Clemente Clemente, an American fashion history researcher, there are two important signs of leisure clothing, one is lightweight fabric, the other is comfortable and not too close to the body. If this definition is applicable to footwear, then Keds can obviously be attributed to it. Its cloth is lighter than the cortex. Compared with the leather sole, rubber soles are famous for their lightness, shock absorption and grip strength.

In 1950s, more than 70% of American families worked as fathers, while mothers stayed at home to take care of their children. In 1980s, only 15% of households were employed. From 1950 to 1990s, the proportion of women who got bachelor's degrees increased from 24% to 53%. Women's view of marriage has also changed in the shift of family work. In 1960, 28% of American women aged 20 to 24 years old did not get married, which was more than 58% in 1985.

Those little girls born in the 1960 years of the feminist movement have also grown up. They are more eager to be free and equal than those of the previous generation. They are not willing to wear high heels and long skirts all the time, but tend to be more relaxed and casual.

This has become an opportunity for Keds. According to a report by New York Times in 1990, Keds hired an advertising agency on Rhodes island in 1988, to publish advertisements in magazines targeting young female readers, pushing its classic white flat shoes to provide shoes for young women who are eager for simple sneakers. This is the first time that it has narrowed the target population from female consumers to female consumers.

What happened next helped Keds a lot. In 1980, the "preparatory student Official Handbook" was published, which described the "guide" of the standard school of American elite school preparatory students in the next 10 years. Boys wear cotton white shirts, V collar Golf sweaters, khaki trousers, and other quality belts. Girls are advised to wear diamond shaped sweaters, Bermuda skirts, knee pleated skirts, pearl necklaces and earrings, plus a pair of leather shoes.

In the first group of high school students who went to the United States to dress up the university campus, some high school girls followed suit. However, at that time, the most popular K-Swiss brand leather shoes were 40 to 50 dollars, compared with the price of Keds as low as 20 dollars, which was more attractive and soon became popular among high school girls. In line with the image of Keds flat shoes appeared in popular culture such as "Dirty Dancing" in 1980s, the trend of wearing Keds swept through the late 1980 to the mid 1990s. "Socks and Keds shoes" quickly became the standard dress for campus cheerleaders.

Jennifer Grey danced in the 1980s movie Dirty Dancing wearing white Keds.

By 1989, sales of Keds rose from $60 million in 1986 to $227 million - at a price of 30 US dollars, which means that Keds sold about 7 million 560 thousand pairs of shoes in 1989, according to the US population at that time, equivalent to a pair of Keds in every 30 people. According to a report in 2003, the market size of Keds surpassed Adidas in 1990 years.

But everything changed again after 1995.

People have had an aesthetic fatigue for its simple design. Spice Girls' muffin shoes, Sketchers colorful sports shoes, grunge boots on behalf of grunge wind... The popularity of these shoes in the middle and late 1990 years, and the popularity of Converse and Vans brought about by skateboard culture among young people were much better than that in 1960s. The Keds of "retro" and "classic" lost their competitiveness. By the end of the 1990s, women with nostalgia had bought Keds again, but this did not create a trend in the United States.

In the face of the atrophy of the female market, Keds's ability to respond and innovate quickly was challenged. In the late 1990s, apart from introducing more colors on the basis of classic white and black flat shoes, Keds did not aim at developing new products for the sluggish female market.

Even Mrs. Bush, Barbara Bush, had some regrets about her favorite Keds, though she still expressed his love for Keds. "Although there are thousands of sports shoes now, it's really not easy to buy Keds that is a bit out of date (old-fashioned)." She wrote in her autobiography of 2003.

Keds put more revival plans in the male market during the downturn. In 2005, Keds co operated with hip-hop music producer Damon Dash to restart the Pro-Keds product line launched by basketball players in the 1940 years. After a year, Keds restarted its Keds Triumph series, which was first launched in the 1926 year of the year. It was a male target consumer (it used to play in the movie "Aviator" when Leonardo Dicapril played Howard Huges).

These cooperation failed. Among them, cooperation with Damon Dash was also named "the worst hip-hop musicians and sneakers cooperation" by sneaker website SoleCollector.

Keds Triumph series

One mistake made by Keds is that it mismatches the competition in the male market. In fact, when Keds launched a series of sports and leisure shoes for male consumers in 2005, sports shoes brands including Adidas, Nike, Converse, Puma, Vans and so on had already taken the lead. Nike SB Dunk, Air Force 1, Dunk, and the cooperation between Beckham and MS. For Keds, who has spent more than 10 years in attacking female consumers, it lacks market base and lacks the ability to innovate in competition with big companies.

It disappeared in popular culture, and this decline did not change until Taylor Swift signed in 2012.

"Just like people will encounter identity crisis, so is brand." Kristin Kohler Burrows, then president of Keds, described the dilemma of Keds in 2011. At that time, he said, Keds is looking forward to marketing activities to "awaken people's understanding of Keds, which is actually a landmark brand".

A year after that sentence, Keds was bought by Wolverine World Wide. In the same year, Taylor Swift became the latest spokesperson and announced that the product line should be updated.

Taylor Swift wears his own endorsement Keds.

That's when Taylor Swift is in the ascendant. At that time, the 23 year old singer just released her fourth album RED. Before that, she had won 6 Grammy Awards, and each album sold more than 4 million copies. In the "Q Scores" score, which is recognized as the pop star index, the average score of Swift is 24 points, higher than that of ordinary stars 7 points, while in the 13 to 24 year old female audience, the score of Swift is 26 points, and the 6 to 12 year old audience is 45 points.

In fact, before signing Swift, Keds also launched a series of marketing activities. Including the "TheOriginalSneaker" website on the 2010 year of the year, combing the history of its 94 years, in 2011, Keds launched the "How Do You Do" marketing campaign in the United States, held a circuit tour in American universities, and invited 20 year old college students to create works on canvas shoes. "Being attracted by creativity, believing that they can make the world different and open mind and pursue multiculturalism", Burrows hopes to attract creative young consumers through a series of activities, and let them re recognize the history of the brand.

Keds also launched cooperation with Alice + Olivia in 2010, launched baseball inspired shoes in 2011 and Opening Ceremony, and collaborate with Whitney museum to organize art events, but none of them has reached the topic of Swift.

Cooperation between Keds and Alice + Olivia

Cooperation between Keds and Opening Ceremony

Until the signing of Swift, Keds began to appear frequently in media such as Teen, Teen Vogue, MTV and other teenager girls as the main target audience. This group is also the most beloved target group of Swift.

In 2012, Keds and Swift launched a joint venture Taylor Swift x Keds: the red hot flat shoes were marked with "RED" (the name of Swift 2012 year) in dark color, the yellow songbird prints were covered with vamp, and white spots were displayed, revealing a half head cat pattern. This is no doubt a breakthrough compared with Keds's traditional simplicity, and is more in line with contemporary young people's aesthetic appreciation of fashion elements.

In 2013, Keds spent $20 million to launch a marketing campaign entitled "Brave Hearts". In the official website and marketing occasion, the slogan "welcome you, brave girl, high head, open your heart" and "if you are dreaming impossible", will further target consumers to teenagers and young girls. They also set up a scholarship funding scheme and organized a large female conference.

Behind all this is Rick Blackshaw. The professional manager who served as vice president and general manager of Converse joined Keds in 2012, and promoted Keds and Swift cooperation.

"We find that if you have the ability to connect yourself with the consumer's thoughts and ideas through excellent products and marketing, you can go through all the unhappy business cycles." Blackshaw said in an interview.

The "excellent marketing" referred to by Blackshaw is probably the topic related to women. In the recently launched "Ladies First Since 1916" 100 year anniversary marketing campaign, "Women Empowerment" has become the key word frequently mentioned by Keds on many occasions.

This is even reflected in the company's internal structure, and has become an aspect of marketing. In 2015, Keds hired CMO Emily Culp. The woman manager who worked in Rebecca Minkoff, Estee Lauder and Unilever has repeatedly appeared in various media interviews after he took office. "The members of the Keds product team are 90% women." In an interview with the Huffington post, she said that the senior officers, including Vice President of sales and vice president of products, are also women.

It's easy to think of the brilliance that Keds won in 1980s. More than 30 years ago, it was women's yearning for free lifestyles and comfortable wearing that made Keds a new breakthrough. Now, women's society is undergoing another revolution. From Washington to Hollywood, discussions on women's rights and gender equality are endless. The first presidential candidate in American history has also emerged. Brands including Dove and Always have won good acclaim with the topic of women as a marketing theme. Keds is embarking on this road. For the 100th anniversary marketing, it invited women including Taylor Swift, actress Allison Williams and singer Ciara as spokesmen for its image. But unlike what was 30 years ago, it faces more competitors at the moment: in addition to Converse, Vans, Adidas, Nike and Puma, Keds may also face more competition for casual wear brands, including fast fashion such as H&M and Forever 21, which have a larger consumer base.

Ciara

In July 6th, Ciara released a photo of Keds wearing classic white cloth shoes in Facebook, which received 461 commentaries, 504 sharing and 5.7 million points.

Keds is hoping that these young spokesmen can make waves, but the fact is that no one knows whether the new round of marketing will become the second turning point in its history. So far, Keds has not yet announced the innovation plan for its products. It is only from the reaction of social media that Keds should be anxious. Because on the Facebook home page of Keds, the status released in July 7th was only shared by 1, 1 times and 91 times. The official introduction on the left side of the page is somewhat dazzling at this time. It reads, "The iconic American sneaker brand established in 1916", which was founded in 1916.