Good morning, folks! It’s your boy Sykes, back again with a new thread. Hope your week is going great so far.
I wanted to follow up on our Drake conversation from Monday and kind of broaden things out. So, it’s clear we live in the era of collabs now. We talk about the every week — from Drake to Slack to Justin Bieber.
It’s clear that the market has become oversaturated with activations like these. And something is coming next. But what? I’m not sure. That’s what I want to ask you. How does the collaboration game advance from here? What’s the next logical step, in your opinion?
What I definitely wanna see are collabs that are more in-tune with the culture, and not just some random artist. I mean, drake and Scott are fun and all, but like, they just there to make money, make some bread, u know? I'd appreciate a collab for the culture, like Nelly and Air Forces again as like a throwback of sorts, or you know, someone who has a genuine love for sneakers. I always hear about P.J. Tucker, and like, FR! He needs some kicks. But ion wanna see no collab with SLACK.
I honestly don't mind scarcity with collabs. They should be one-off type things to me — collector's pieces. I think that makes them special. What I do hate, though, is that they consistently get pillaged by bots and not real fans.
First off, I'm salty that you called out the Drake collabs, Sykes. I was pumped as hell when I got those 12's for retail from OVO and I still love them. They're clean as hell.
But, like Slick Rick and Outkast, I miss the art of storytelling. It's one of the reasons why I think SB's are back and killing it. The recent Atlas release is perfection through and through, from the weathered materials and overall look to the nautical-themed merch and accessories. I want more of that from the bigger collabs. Highlight something from the culture that you love or that is overlooked. Make me hyped to tell someone about why I love what's on my feet.
Don't get me wrong, fam! I love the look of the OVO 10's and 12's. They're clean. They're just kind of...boring lmao.
I think there's so much more room for them to pop off with some color or add a detail that tells us a story outside of the owl or the prayer hands. That's why I'm so excited for the CLB stuff. It's different. There's so much more to it. They can build off of this.
I think what'll happen is the market will decide which collabs are successful, and which aren't, and those that aren't will either remain irrelevant forever or until they change, or die out. I think you'll have four tiers: your hyper successful collabs like Ye and Travis Scott who become real market leaders and incredibly influential, your great / successful collabs where something works out really nicely and well (Puma and their strategy comes to mind here for some reason?), Your okay collabs where it's not the most relevant but it's good enough to continue long term, and then ones that just totally bomb and die out (looking at you awful slack shoes).
It's such a weird time right now though because it honestly feels like people are buying ANYTHING. Like, these Crocs joints for example. 5 years ago, there's no way that this works. You pour a bunch of money into a thing, get a big name and people go for it like crazy.
I wonder, with the Cole Haan thing, would they perform well if they attached a celebrity name to their shoe? I think so. And that's just weird as hell to me because it's Cole Haan! lol
At least Cole Haan at one point had a connection to sneaker culture through Nike. I believe even Salehe Bembury worked there back in the day. And, honestly, anything is better than Allbirds for these SF tech bros.
But, I agree. No way you get away with this 5 years ago.
What if, now hear me out, the taper off and only good ones continue?
I think over saturation and then a long tail of forgotten about celebs will come out with some whack kswiss collabs and then even nike will be like, lets chill with the collabs
I'm of two minds on this stuff -- On the one hand, it's clear that younger generations are more driven by collaborations with brands and influencers than they are athletes (just look at how easy it is to cop most athlete signatures). On the other hand its very easy for a company to slap an "x" between their brand and an influencer's, release an incredibly limited amount of product, and get a bunch of free PR about how their collab sold out instantly.
I think the question is, do these collabs actually motivate a wider audience to align themselves with the brand? Or do they just speak to a handful of resellers looking to make a quick buck? For a challenger brand like Crocs the answer is probably yes, but for the more established sneaker companies I'm not so sure.
Either way I think we can expect to see brands stick to this formula for a while, bouncing from collaboration to collaboration looking for their Travis Scott (unlikely) -- video games, vloggers, TikTokers are all fair game here. In my opinion all of these collaborations are trying to solve the wrong problem: instead of trying to find the next celeb to sell out a capsule, brands need to figure out who isn't buying their stuff, and target the influencers that resonate with them.
Fam, this is brilliant. Nail on the head. It's crazy bc I had a conversation with someone who worked for a brand I will not name and we were talking about the resale game.
A lot of these companies do see their stuff on StockX or whatever as a gauge of how they're doing. That's their incentive. It's so wild to me.
I mean as long as the collabs get consumed we'll continue to get them, regardless if we ask for them or not. I wish the brands would collab more with true fans of the culture but I understand that they're just going to go more of the route of "who can get us the biggest ROI". I would love to see Sue Bird (who btw deserves her own signature at this point) or PJ Tucker design something up.
Yeah, like, I absolutely loved seeing PJ finally get his own PE. And Sue Bird has always brought the heat. But both of them deserve something a bit more than just PE's of someone else's kicks, right?
I wonder if some of the exclusivity that brands seems to be fixated on can be leveraged to better serve fans of the collaborator.
For a future Travis Scott shoe, could there be a geofenced SNKRS drop just for fans at the show? Or some other way of making access to shoes/apparel tie into experiencing the artist's work in a more authentic way.
You could do this with art galleries/museums, tie drops of signature shoes to specific games. I know things kind of like this have been done, but as we (one day) return to large gatherings and events, tying those events in to releases might be even more desirable.
It's funny that you mention that, because I thought we saw a ton of that this year.
Most notably at this year's NBA All-Star game in Chicago, there was so much fire that you could only get if you were there. I appreciated that as a fan of the culture but hated it because I wasn't there lmao.
I do think that's a way things could go, though, that would make this so much more enjoyable. It makes everything an experience.
What I definitely wanna see are collabs that are more in-tune with the culture, and not just some random artist. I mean, drake and Scott are fun and all, but like, they just there to make money, make some bread, u know? I'd appreciate a collab for the culture, like Nelly and Air Forces again as like a throwback of sorts, or you know, someone who has a genuine love for sneakers. I always hear about P.J. Tucker, and like, FR! He needs some kicks. But ion wanna see no collab with SLACK.
PREACH.
I think collabs are cool. But if you are gonna collab wit someone, one make it creative and make it avaliable for more than 10 people.
I honestly don't mind scarcity with collabs. They should be one-off type things to me — collector's pieces. I think that makes them special. What I do hate, though, is that they consistently get pillaged by bots and not real fans.
First off, I'm salty that you called out the Drake collabs, Sykes. I was pumped as hell when I got those 12's for retail from OVO and I still love them. They're clean as hell.
But, like Slick Rick and Outkast, I miss the art of storytelling. It's one of the reasons why I think SB's are back and killing it. The recent Atlas release is perfection through and through, from the weathered materials and overall look to the nautical-themed merch and accessories. I want more of that from the bigger collabs. Highlight something from the culture that you love or that is overlooked. Make me hyped to tell someone about why I love what's on my feet.
Don't get me wrong, fam! I love the look of the OVO 10's and 12's. They're clean. They're just kind of...boring lmao.
I think there's so much more room for them to pop off with some color or add a detail that tells us a story outside of the owl or the prayer hands. That's why I'm so excited for the CLB stuff. It's different. There's so much more to it. They can build off of this.
I think what'll happen is the market will decide which collabs are successful, and which aren't, and those that aren't will either remain irrelevant forever or until they change, or die out. I think you'll have four tiers: your hyper successful collabs like Ye and Travis Scott who become real market leaders and incredibly influential, your great / successful collabs where something works out really nicely and well (Puma and their strategy comes to mind here for some reason?), Your okay collabs where it's not the most relevant but it's good enough to continue long term, and then ones that just totally bomb and die out (looking at you awful slack shoes).
It's such a weird time right now though because it honestly feels like people are buying ANYTHING. Like, these Crocs joints for example. 5 years ago, there's no way that this works. You pour a bunch of money into a thing, get a big name and people go for it like crazy.
I wonder, with the Cole Haan thing, would they perform well if they attached a celebrity name to their shoe? I think so. And that's just weird as hell to me because it's Cole Haan! lol
Honestly? I would not be surprised! Some people really will wear anything if its endorsed by someone they like
At least Cole Haan at one point had a connection to sneaker culture through Nike. I believe even Salehe Bembury worked there back in the day. And, honestly, anything is better than Allbirds for these SF tech bros.
But, I agree. No way you get away with this 5 years ago.
What if, now hear me out, the taper off and only good ones continue?
I think over saturation and then a long tail of forgotten about celebs will come out with some whack kswiss collabs and then even nike will be like, lets chill with the collabs
At some point some of these folks with trash collabs are going to realize that these collabs are sort of a waste of money and resources for them lol.
More collabs like Joe Fresh Goods x New Balance, Fear of God x Nike, Aime Leon Dore x NB and fewer Slack/McDonald's type collabs, hopefully.
JFG is a problem!
I'm of two minds on this stuff -- On the one hand, it's clear that younger generations are more driven by collaborations with brands and influencers than they are athletes (just look at how easy it is to cop most athlete signatures). On the other hand its very easy for a company to slap an "x" between their brand and an influencer's, release an incredibly limited amount of product, and get a bunch of free PR about how their collab sold out instantly.
I think the question is, do these collabs actually motivate a wider audience to align themselves with the brand? Or do they just speak to a handful of resellers looking to make a quick buck? For a challenger brand like Crocs the answer is probably yes, but for the more established sneaker companies I'm not so sure.
Either way I think we can expect to see brands stick to this formula for a while, bouncing from collaboration to collaboration looking for their Travis Scott (unlikely) -- video games, vloggers, TikTokers are all fair game here. In my opinion all of these collaborations are trying to solve the wrong problem: instead of trying to find the next celeb to sell out a capsule, brands need to figure out who isn't buying their stuff, and target the influencers that resonate with them.
Fam, this is brilliant. Nail on the head. It's crazy bc I had a conversation with someone who worked for a brand I will not name and we were talking about the resale game.
A lot of these companies do see their stuff on StockX or whatever as a gauge of how they're doing. That's their incentive. It's so wild to me.
I mean as long as the collabs get consumed we'll continue to get them, regardless if we ask for them or not. I wish the brands would collab more with true fans of the culture but I understand that they're just going to go more of the route of "who can get us the biggest ROI". I would love to see Sue Bird (who btw deserves her own signature at this point) or PJ Tucker design something up.
Yeah, like, I absolutely loved seeing PJ finally get his own PE. And Sue Bird has always brought the heat. But both of them deserve something a bit more than just PE's of someone else's kicks, right?
100%
I wonder if some of the exclusivity that brands seems to be fixated on can be leveraged to better serve fans of the collaborator.
For a future Travis Scott shoe, could there be a geofenced SNKRS drop just for fans at the show? Or some other way of making access to shoes/apparel tie into experiencing the artist's work in a more authentic way.
You could do this with art galleries/museums, tie drops of signature shoes to specific games. I know things kind of like this have been done, but as we (one day) return to large gatherings and events, tying those events in to releases might be even more desirable.
It's funny that you mention that, because I thought we saw a ton of that this year.
Most notably at this year's NBA All-Star game in Chicago, there was so much fire that you could only get if you were there. I appreciated that as a fan of the culture but hated it because I wasn't there lmao.
I do think that's a way things could go, though, that would make this so much more enjoyable. It makes everything an experience.