Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Birkenstocks, Brand, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Cannes, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Dysgraphia, Empathy, EvilGenius, Fear, Holiday, Imagination, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Otis, Paula
So I’m back.
And after an October where I went to Fiji, Australia, China and America … November is wonderfully static.
Don’t get me wrong, I love travelling … but that was ridiculous.
For all the talk of how COVID would change the way companies would work and interact, I’m meeting more and more people who are travelling more than they did pre-pandemic.
And that’s scary for a whole lot of reasons.
Personal, environmental, commercial.
Scarier than the that day where ghosts and ghouls are supposed to come out and haunt us. Also known as the day kids keep coming to your door demanding sweets.
Yes … that’s a terrible link to the point of this post, but I wrote it to originally appear on Halloween, but then I went to the US and missed my chance, so here we go.
Halloween in NZ is definitely less full-on than the US.
Oh my god … they love holidays and Halloween is one they embrace full-on.
When we lived in Manhattan Beach … it was like a community event.
The whole street would basically come out, all dressed in god-knows what, embracing the mood and the moment.
Obviously I hate that level of sociability … but even I got caught up in it, buying a ridiculously sized baby head from a shop, which I tried on in the car before casually looking to my right and seeing [1] I was next to a bank and [2] I had a security guard looking at me as if I was going to rob the joint.
Good times. Ahem.
Anyway, to keep with the ‘scary’ mood, Otis recently became the proud owner of these …
Yep … Crocs.
Fucking Crocs.
I know we talked about them recently in our ‘Strategy is constipated, imagination is the laxative’ talk … I know I have some sort of grudging respect that they are cool with charging $8 for each ‘personalised attachment’ you can add to the shoes … I know, with Otis’ dysgraphia, they are much easier for him to put on than many others … I know I can’t talk with my love of Birkies … but, but, but THEY’RE FUCKING CROCS.
Seriously, compared to them, Birkenstocks are liked pieces of art.
And yet they continue to live.
To thrive.
Like cockroaches of the footwear category.
Which means I have to salute their brand management and imagination.
Which is better than 99% of brands out there.
Which is why we put them in our Cannes talk.
And why I felt scared enough to put them in a post that was supposed to appear on halloween.