The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 168 — We can't fix SNKRS
But we can definitely make it better, though.
What’s good, family! The Kicks You Wear is back! Thanks for rocking with me today! Appreciate you.
Before you head into your weekend, check out this week’s episode of Special Delivery at 12 noon ET! There are Legos involved! Real Legos!
Let’s jump in.
SNKRS needs to give us something, man
(Photo by Kristian Egelund on Unsplash)
This week’s KYW Thread was extremely telling. Yesterday, I asked y’all how much you actually trusted SNKRS after this disaster of an Off-White drop. I also asked y’all how you’d fix the app.
In seeing your responses, two things really stuck out to me.
First, not a single one of you say you ever had trust in this app to ensure a fair process when trying to cop up. Which, again, is extremely telling.
Second, as far as solutions, there wasn’t a ton outside of actually, ya know, having more shoes available to us.
Like I said, telling. There’s a lot of damage that has already been done and I’m unsure of how to repair it.
But I thought up some potential ways — some mentioned in Wednesday’s thread and some inspired by your responses. These won’t solve the purchasing process completely, but I think they’d make the app better.
Here are my changes.
Content: I…don’t think the SNKRS app should be about sneakers, mostly. That’s weird to say, I know. But I think it’d be better off as a content vehicle. And I know it’s already that partially, but invest deeper into it. Go bigger. Develop shows, shorts, blogs, unboxings, and the like. Use the app for it. Give people another reason to use this thing outside of shoes. They might hate it less.
Transparency: Here’s the important part. Let people know when they’re wasting their time. Let us know how hard a drop will be to get — whether it’s through stock numbers, a “heat” meter. Something. Anything. People are walking around in the dark right now and it’s totally frustrating.
Create membership tiers: Sort of how Adidas does with its creator’s club. All Nike members don’t have the same commitment. Reward people for their loyalty.
Those are just a few of the ideas I had bouncing around in my head. I think if Nike makes selling sneakers just one focus of many on the app, the experience becomes more palatable for the consumer. People are less frustrated.
That’s all that really matters. People don’t want to be lied to or led astray. And that’s how most users are feeling right now. That’s what’s happening.
The game is messed up. Between the botters, the artificial scarcity, price hikes and everything else, being a sneakerhead is about as frustrating as it’s ever been. And Nike isn’t going to shift that. That hype is what drives their marketing strategy.
But Nike still has to find a way to give manual users the reward they deserve for sticking around. Otherwise, they might disappear.
We need more love for Black women in the W
(Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash)
The WNBA is mostly Black women. It’s pretty much always been that way in its 25-year existence. The league’s biggest stars of the day are Black women. A’Ja Wilson, Candace Parker, Liz Cambage, Brittney Griner. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You wouldn’t know that from the players we see consistently in the spotlight. It’s typically your Sue Bird's, Breanna Stewarts and Diana Taurasis of the world.
And it’s the same when you dive into the sneaker space, as the homie B. Terrell points out.
He’s completely right. Just look at the landscape.
Bird and Taurasi have had numerous Nike player exclusives between LeBron James’ and Kyrie Irving’s sneaker lines.
Breanna Stewart has a signature shoe coming that we’ve talked about a ton here.
Elena Delle Done debuted Nike’s FlyEase tech on functional basketball sneakers.
This is a classic case of discriminatory and disproportionate media coverage we see at times in the W, as Risa F. Isard and Dr. Nicole Melton wrote in Sports Business Journal earlier this year.
That media coverage earns players media value, Isard and Melton write. And that matters when it’s time to get the deals popping.
Media mentions matter because they set in motion a cycle of financial benefits that at present compound to benefit white athletes. The boost starts as “earned media value.” Sometimes called marketing value, the score represents what it would have cost to place an ad with the same reach. The cycle continues as media coverage begets more media coverage, and subsequently more earned media credits. Eventually, media coverage results in sponsorship opportunities and tangible payouts. White players getting more than their fair share of the storylines means they are the winners of this media game. Case in point: Breanna Stewart, the second-most mentioned player in 2020, is an incredible athlete. But is she the only player in the past decade worthy of a signature shoe?
Sure, there are some exceptions to a certain degree. Natasha Cloud is one of the faces of Converse. Jordan Brand has a WNBA roster filled with Black women and just made Satou Sabally one of the faces of the Jordan 36. Skylar Diggins-Smith was also heavily featured for Puma’s Dreamer 2.
But that’s not enough. There are so many Black stars in the WNBA from so many different backgrounds that deserve so much light.
The WNBA, the sneaker industry, and everyone else have to find the capacity to give it.
Adidas’ Members Week is here. Let’s hope it’s worthwhile
Adidas is doing a Members Week on the CONFIRMED app starting on Monday, August 23 and it seems like it could be pretty cool.
Here’s what we know so far:
You’ve got to be a Creator’s Club member to participate in Member’s week.
They dropped another Golden Ticket launch on the 23rd that guarantees you access to one drop of your choice through the week.
It’ll include drops from Jeremy Scott (THE WINGS BYKE), Pharrell, and Kerwin Frost (Horse shoe dude).
Outside of those details, we don’t really have much to go off of. Folks are hoping for some solid restocks of Yeezy stuff. Maybe a bit of Ivy Park. Who knows?
Regardless, this is good to see. It feels like, for the first time in a while, Adidas is rewarding folks for being creator club members. And that’s exactly how it should be — rewarding customers for being around is a good thing.
Let’s just hope it’s worth it. Yeezy Week sounded a bit similar and, uh, well, we saw how that all went.
Proof there’s no such thing as a good Croc
Salehe Bembury doesn’t make bad things. In fact, he makes very good things. His 2002r run with New Balance has been incredible. He also had y’all out here buying Anta sneaks.
So here I was, being a fan and thinking “Hm, Salehe is making Crocs? Maybe this will finally be the Croc for me.”
Narrator: It was, in fact, not the Croc for Sykes. It wasn’t the Croc at all.
You know, these probably aren’t bad Crocs. I think I just need to accept the fact that I will never like Crocs no matter what form they come in or who makes them. And that’s OK.
Hope y’all enjoy these, tho.
#TheKicksWeWear
The homie Megan came through in these Maxes absolutely going nuts. This how we going to work these days.
Then homie Scooper popped out showing more Air Max love with the AM90’s. We absolutely love to see it.
The homie Amb came through in the Happy Pineapple AF1’s. That cork goes absolutely nuts.
The homie Jonathan popped out in the Anniversary Green AM1’s and, man, I cannot express to you enough how much I love these.
My guy Devin popped out CRAZY in the Stussy Spiridon Cage 2’s. Mans was not playing AT ALL.
The homie Taylor popped out in the Forest Green AJ1’s as her everyday pair. That’s what we call wealth, y’all.
The homie Rick popped out in the adidas x Nice Kicks “No Vacancy” UB’s and, man, these are just phenomenal.
The homie Janelle really got us popping with our Dunk love today in these beauties. Wow.
Then my guy Shamar got these Camo Dunks going crazy, man. These are much better than I thought. Not like I would’ve had luck getting them anyway, tho.
My guy Kirby absolutely smokes it with LOBSTER DUNKS. DOG. These are so good man. Wow.
Then my guy Alex comes through and shuts everything down in the BREDS. THE BREDS Y’ALL.
PACK IT UP.
Thank y’all so much for rocking with your boy today! Remember, check out this week’s episode of Special Delivery! It’s going to be super un.
Have a fantastic weekend, family. Peace. Love. Be cool. Be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯
I think your thoughts on SNKRS are spot on. As someone who goes a whole back with kicks, really got into it in 03 or 04, I love Sneakers but I’m not out here trying to get every drop. In the current, exhausting and annoying hype based ecosystem I feel it’s my duty to only hype or attempt to buy shoes I absolutely love so that others can get the kicks their after. All this brings me to the concept of SNKRS loyalty and engagement metrics. I think it’s concerning that SNKRS is already weighing what you engage with on the platform and how many shoes you try to get because it encourages people to be in for more and makes every drop more frustrating. Anyway. Thanks as always for your insightful writing Mike