Free Shoes
February 7th, 2007 by Susan
A friend of mine works for Puma, his friend works for Tretorn (a division of Puma) and is actively trying to build up Tretorn’s brand. He’s doing that by giving away free shoes.
He’s been doing this pretty uniquely from what I can see. Giving them away to “friends” on MySpace. Because I had an “in” I didn’t need to enter the usual way. Right after Christmas I got a box at the office with four pairs of sneakers.
All I was told I had to do was wear them and tell everyone what I thought of them. So I decided, a blog post would work. I LOVE the shoes. They are fun, snazzy, colorful and comfortable and everyone constantly asks where I got them when I wear them out.
It worked.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 11:47 am and is filed under Marketing, Media Relations, Messaging & Positioning, PR, Social Media, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Fine fine but how do *I* get free shoes?
February 7th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
I vote that all Topaz blog contributors get free shoes!
February 8th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
My Step-dad wore Tretorns for tennis back in the day (late 70s). They look very cool on grass courts - got the royal/preppie/life of Englishman thing working.
I digress, where the heck are my shoes?
Wondering what strategy does Puma?Tretorn employ for the MySpace give-away offers? Do they search by age, geography, posts on sneakers, aske for friend recommendations? It would be interesting to see a bit more “behind the scenes” look in your post.
I found your friend Karl as a “Tretorn” MySpace search (not through your link which I just noticed) at http://myspace.com/armaniguy. He has the largest collection of hot babe “friends” I’ve ever seen on MySpace, but how does this serve the business of Tretorn/Puma? I’m just wondering, not criticizing.
Maybe Karl would like to comment?
February 8th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Hi All - Karl from Tretorn here.
Adam, no criticism taken : ), and you are correct, many of my original friends revolved around the most attractive women I could find on myspace. The original rational was to invite as many beutiful women as I could to my “friends” page and utilize their contacts to build a greater following. You’ll notice that the models, artists, etc seem to have thousands of friends where as the average male does not have such a following. The presence of attractive models also serves to attract more men to my site who might not otherwise want affiliation with a “fashion” brand.
A third point to mention would be that many consumers look to models and aesthetically pleasing people as early adopters of fashion or trend setters. SO if I get these people to be seen, then my grass roots marketing initiative will gain some traction.
Last week, I started adding more of the male demographic to my site, and so far the reception has been fairly positive.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Can I play Peter here? No, not the biblical Peter, the Topaz Peter, and ask what the relevance to Tech PR is? Where’s the real discussion about whether this kind of marketing works?
- Todd, who’s still grumpy about no free shoes…
February 8th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
OH MAN!! Todd, I was about to post something about this last night, but held back. I couldn’t agree with you more. What do free Tretorns have to do with “Technology and PR?” Unless you’re saying that we’re discussing a sneaker company’s marketing efforts via MySpace. That’s a major s-t-r-e-t-c-h by any means. Sorry, Susan!
February 9th, 2007 at 9:52 am
The shadowy wisdomizer and Todd are right…the entire campaign was a direct response effort, not PR. The spreading of the word via the blog used to be known as a word-of-mouth campaign, which could be construed as PR, but could also be another form of advertising. So, other than the fact that the campaigns, both of them, were done through online media, it is not technology, nor is it PR. But it was a good campaign.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Todd & Wisdomizer - MySpace as a marketing tool is a facinating area to look at. A lot of tech/PR blogs (including this one) have looked at the topic of sampling strategies - remember your phone Todd? or how about recent laptop offers?
If you check out Karl’s site (and aren’t totally distracted by his friends), you’ll find some interesting contest/raffle areas. It seems like an innovative way to build a brand and create desire for a product.
I’ll be thinking about how to employ these strategies on my clients’ MySpace pages.
Karl, thanks for jumping in - anything else we should know? How about the issue of how you find folks on the site who fit a demographic and the process of sending them product?
February 9th, 2007 at 10:01 am
It’s a MySpace story, hence it’s relevant. Unless we’re not supposed to talk about the biggest thing in social networking today.
Speaking of MySpace, what on earth are MySpace “friends” anyway? I mean, really?
Call me quirky, but high school for me was more Lord of the Flies than Leave it to Beaver. Why would I want to relive that nightmare again through MySpace? “Gee everyone, look at how many ‘friends’ I have! Look how ‘cool’ they are! Look at me talk to my cool friends! Look at my cool friends talk to me!”
Been there. Done That. Past Tense. Thank God.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:10 am
We’re not arguing that what Karl is doing isn’t relevant to this blog–all that Wizdomizer and I were trying to say is that Queen of Spin’s original post should’ve called out that relevance, rather than reading, sorry, more like a blatant promo piece. You have to go into the comments section to get to the meat of the issue–a discussion of the effectiveness of this kind of strategy.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:16 am
The question was posed and reiterated by several tech savvy bloggers who ask, “What do free Tretorns have to do with “Technology and PR?” What used to be called word of mouth advertising is now called grass roots marketing, the very fact that this is one of 6 blogs to post what I’m doing on myspace shows how the grass roots marketing fuses with PR notoriety.
I’ll agree with the assertation that on the surface a correlation between technology and PR seems a bit of a stretch. However, when you look at the medium I am using to get this message across, you’ll agree that it is technologically based. Compare it to the old days before the web when “Mrs. Fields cookies” gave her cookies away for free for almost a year before she started charging for them. She built up a loyal following and built up a business based on word of mouth.
Now, we look at what I am doing. Keeping in mind I’m an ex-system administrator and have my MBA in e-commerce. I’m building up a following, and “mailing list” of people for online word of mouth campaigns. First phase is list building, I went from 100 to 2500 people in 1 month. In conjunction with more sneaker give aways, I’ll be announcing notable events. ex. Gwenyth Paltrow on the fron of People magazine in our boots a couple months ago. These are marketing and PR attention getters. As professionals in your area of expertise, you need to also take note into how much this is costing me ? Some time, some extra shoes that I would give away to employees anyway ? My only quantitative cost is UPS ground.
Therefore, the link between the use of modern technological methods (myspace, blog sites, etc) builds a following and serves as a PR tool. For a small start up (ignore that we are owned by Puma for a second) with a small budget, we need to find crative ways to reach the masses. This very discussion is in essence PR for me.
P.S. - and yes I’ll look into the free shoes for some of you : )
February 9th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Hey Karl– trying to keep on top of comments (we moderate due to some recent spamming issues), so sorry for any lag.
Thanks for stepping in– I will add to the chorus saying this IS relevant. Branding and viral marketing via MySpace and other social media is painfully relevant to what we do– even if we don’t promote shoes (but perhaps in a way we are in this post and comments).
Thanks for keeping this going– and in no way is this comment meant as a pitch for free shoes for my size 10 1/2 feet.
February 9th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Sheesh…I guess I was just making an observation at first hand being a part of viral marketing campaign or whatever you want to call it.
Isn’t that a point of this blog?
I’m making an observation about marketing, which coincides with PR efforts, right?
February 9th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
No worries, QoS -
You set up one of our best discussions in recent memory.
Cheers, Adam
P.S. Doug, I’m also a size 10.5 - may I borrow some of your bowling-themed shoes for a weekend rock show I’m attending (Muck & The Mires at the Abbey on Saturday)?
February 9th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Is this hall of fame worthy?
Come on!! I got other bloggers in on it! Ha, Ha.
February 9th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Todd, she has a point.
Besides my attepts to piss off Citibank, have we ever had a visit from a large corporation?
Sorry Crispin, you anonymous posters don’t count.
February 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
This is a great discussion. I think you misread my comment–again, I wasn’t saying that what Karl was doing wasn’t PR-related, all I was saying is that Queenie’s original post (not the very lively and informative follow-up) left that very connection adrift–my first thought (and comment) wasn’t wow, MySpace is a great tool that is still underutilized by PR folks–it was wow, where can I get me some of those shoes… And models…
Thanks for talking us through this, Karl! It is good stuff. WOM is an important part of PR that, even with WOMMA’s help, is still underutilized and underappreciated.
Even though we, as modern PR agencies, get that the command and control PR model doesn’t really work any more, it’s still difficult to give up so much control of the conversation to the masses.
This fear manifests itself in the tendency for companies to put all their effort into their own blogs, for instance, but little effort into commenting on other people’s blogs–as John Cass tried to point out recently.
A question I’d be curious to find an answer to is this: does your company have to be cool, or want to be cool, to use word of mouth marketing, MySpace, etc.? Put another way, is WOMMA as effective with, say, a good business software tool as it is with the latest tech gadget or web 2.X portal?
Happily awaiting his shodding,
- Todd
February 9th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
By the way, I’m size 11 and promise to wear my new shoes to as many Social media Club events as I can…
February 9th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I’d say I’m being kept on my toes today by all of you.
“does your company have to be cool, or want to be cool, to use word of mouth marketing, MySpace, etc” - That’s definitely a million dollar question.
From a brand perspective, Puma is the one that strives for the popular, cool, edgy branding. Their target demographic tends to be younget and arguably more impressionable.
Tretorn goes after an older, and more sophisticated consumer who has “been there, done that.” They are still fashion focused, but do not necessarily want to jump on a trend bandwagon. Tretorn is more of a laid back brand.
Todd’s question about the actual or perceived coolness of a brand, and its affects on the success of word or mouth/viral marketing is a major concern. If we were able to quantify or qualify this advertising technique, I would hypothesize that the cooler (more desirable) brands have a higher probability of reaching more potential buyers, than does the new comer or underdog.
In short, the power of brand equity will help foster greater acceptance of any given campaign.
I would be lying if I told any of you that I did not leverage the Puma name on occasion to open doors. More to the point, once you pass the “scenery” on my myspace page, you will also notice I mention Puma and have the logo up. This in essence helps me gain some credibility with the people who have not yet heard of Tretorn.
The question I pose to you then, is what should I do different or better ?
February 9th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
One last final comment before I go on vacation next week (off to Disney)..I wore one pair of sneaks last week and someone came walking up to me and said, “I love your shoes, where did you get them?”
I told them. A very young person I might add….
My friend who is about 8-10 years old than me said, “Tretorn’s rock. I used to have about 4 or 5 pairs I loved them.”
February 10th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hi Karl,
We’re just low-level PR folks who wouldn’t know a business strategy if it bumped into our spam, but thanks for asking …
You might consider three friend-themed MySpace pages - one babes, one dudes and one bi-curious - that can all be viewed and cross channeled.
Seriously, our great new intern from Northeastern Univ. described her first impression of the site as “made by a teen-aged boy.” Now, nothing wrong with teen-aged boys (I was one 20+ years ago), but you might run the risk of people missing the survey and contest areas that I referenced above.
Interesting aside, the same intern showed me a “picturesque” (aka deeply troubling) MySpace site of a “17″ year old (she started posting hot shots around 12). I have no idea what sneakers she wears, but I hope her parents check out her site.