How to draw lots for Nike limited edition soles
At the moment when everything can be co-branded, co-branded culture has certainly bred a number of classic works handed down from generation to generation, but sometimes, some controversial co-branded products are not only questioned to levy IQ tax, but even challenge public order and good customs.
Recently, a "Satan's shoe" that claims to have a drop of human blood and costs as much as 10 18 dollars has caused great controversy in the United States. These shoes are co-produced by art group MSCHF and rapper Lil Nasx, which are obviously modified from Nike Air Max97s series. Shoes not only have anti-hook patterns, but also five-pointed stars and the words "Luke 10: 18". The biggest stunt of this shoe is that the bubble pad on the sole contains 60 cubic centimeters of red ink and a drop of human blood, which comes from six members of MSCHF.
The idea of these "Satan's shoes" comes from a sentence in the Gospel of Luke 10: 18 in the Bible, "Jesus told them that I once saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning". This pair of shoes was released almost at the same time as Lear nasr X's latest song "Montero (Call Me by Your Name)". In a scene of this new song MV, Lear nasr X wore these shoes and went down from heaven to hell along a steel pipe. It is worth mentioning that the price of this pair of Satan shoes is as high as $ 1, 0 18, and 666 pairs are sold in limited worldwide, and sold out directly at the first time.
This pair of "Satan's shoes" has caused widespread controversy in the United States because of the spread of Satan culture and the use of human blood as a marketing gimmick. Both Christians who are critical of Satan's culture and bioethicists who firmly believe that blood can't be used for marketing at will accuse these shoes of making people feel uncomfortable and even full of disgusting strange breath.
Because this pair of shoes is obviously modified on the basis of Nike Air Max97s series, Nike was initially suspected of participating in the creative and production process of this pair of "Satan shoes", so many people launched a wave of boycotting Nike. This forced Nike to clarify and took MSCHF and Lil Nas X to court. It is rumored that these "Satan shoes" were customized in Nike's customization channel, so Nike did not participate in the creativity of these shoes, nor did it authorize the sale of these shoes.
However, many well-known shoe bloggers in the United States believe that Nike is throwing a pot, and firmly believe that Nike has acquiesced in this joint way before. Just last year, MSCHF launched a co-branded shoe of Jesus Holy Water Shoes. Those shoes are also customized on the basis of Nike shoes, and a drop of water is added to the soles of those shoes, which is said to come from the holy river in Jordan, but because of this so-called "holy water", the shoes are not only sold very high, but also sold out.
At that time, this pair of Shui Sheng co-branded shoes caused an overwhelming discussion on the Internet when they were pre-sold, and also caused extensive discussion in the national media after they were sold out. It is impossible for Nike not to know about it. Moreover, this "Satan shoes" also has an overwhelming notice in the pre-sale stage, and Nike can't be unaware of it in advance. But because Satan's shoes caused so much controversy, people were angry and it was difficult to commit crimes, so they decided to sue to clear the relationship.
If adding a drop of "holy water" to the soles of shoes can only be regarded as collecting IQ tax, it is harmless, then adding a drop of human blood to the soles of shoes and widely spreading Satan culture that western mainstream society does not agree with will obviously make Americans feel uncomfortable. This is a challenge to public order and good customs in western society, and it is not surprising that they encounter resistance.
Behind the huge controversy caused by this "Satan shoe", it reflects many controversies and chaos in recent years that sports brands arbitrarily circle money through joint names. By summing up, the big sports merchants summarized the disputes of sports brand co-branded products into three kinds of chaos. At the same time, behind these joint chaos, there is a huge economic industrial chain of sneakers, from which a large number of second-hand sneaker platforms and shoe speculation institutions often get amazing benefits.
Three Chaos Phenomena of Sports Brand Co-branding
It must be repeatedly emphasized that co-branded products are one of the most dynamic ways to lead the trend in this century, and also the most successful marketing method, which has hatched a number of excellent works handed down from generation to generation. In today's increasingly prominent personalization, more and more brands choose cross-border joint names. Through the joint branding of products, the artistry and added value of goods are greatly increased, and then a number of artistic products leading the trend of the times are created. The success of these co-branded products has aroused the enthusiastic pursuit of a new generation of consumers, and at the same time, they have gained huge traffic and economic benefits, and even redefined the definition of fashion in the trend circle.
Joint name represents a new cross-border integration of life attitude and aesthetic way. The biggest advantage of cross-border cooperation for the brand is that irrelevant elements penetrate and merge with each other, thus giving the brand a sense of depth and depth, and finally reaching1+1> 2。 At the same time, however, with the wanton use of co-branded culture, many co-branded products only care about naked money, and the co-branded creativity is lacking and even controversial. At present, the chaos of co-branded products can be roughly divided into three categories. In order to prevent the dissatisfaction and discomfort caused by the co-branded products, this article will not list the specific names and pictures of the co-branded products in question, so you can sit by yourself.
First, there are more and more "stamp masters", and the joint products are not creative. They are just a simple superposition of two logo and are accused of being naked. Most of these "stamp masters" are managers, actors and singers of trend culture and have amazing appeal.
When the co-branded culture just prevailed, a large number of celebrity executives co-branded with well-known sports brands with their avant-garde fashion sense and distinctive design style, which made the product design full of tension, endowed the product with a very avant-garde and unique artistic temperament, and at the same time, the audience groups of both sides were able to get through, resulting in cross-border consumption effect. For example, Hiroshi Fujiwara, the godfather of Asian trends, and Nike's Michael Jordan series were a great success, which can be said to have created the trend of sports shoes.
However, perhaps the frequency of co-branding is too intensive, some ideas have been exhausted, and Jiang Lang is exhausted. In recent years, the co-branded products of Hiroshi Fujiwara and a sports brand have adopted a simple style. In short, it is to add Hiroshi Fujiwara's personal logo to the shoes. This was criticized as "perfunctory", "insincere", "boring stamp design" and "arbitrarily circling money", and Hiroshi Fujiwara began to be named "stamp master".
Second, in order to be unique, joint-name products lead to vulgar creativity. This kind of creativity is often born out of a tiny subculture, and uncomfortable patterns or symbols such as sex (SM), semen, blood, death, drugs and so on will appear in joint products.
Although these products are often criticized as "nausea and vomiting", "discomfort", "teaching bad children" and "too large a scale", we have to admit that the more controversial and sought after, many products are often snapped up as soon as they are launched.
Now is a pluralistic era, and many sub-cultures that were quite small and controversial in the past have suddenly become fashion trends. Punk, hippie, lost generation, beat generation and other western subcultures have all evolved into fashion elements. Therefore, in today's popular co-brands, in order to make creativity unconventional, many brands often take risks and choose to cooperate with those controversial subculture designers. This can not only ensure the uniqueness of creativity, but also leave room for future appreciation.
Third, the product aims to create joint ideas around controversial topics that are easy to violate public order and good customs, such as racial class discrimination, gender opposition, religious belief and social injustice, and deliberately provoke public nerves to create disputes.
However, Nike believes that controversy can also spread brand value. Nike not only used Capenik as the cover of the 30th anniversary series of "Just Do It" advertisements, but also designed a joint version of AF 1 sneakers with Capenik. Although this move has won quite opposing polarized comments in the United States, it has also attracted many white elites to threaten to boycott Nike permanently. However, this pair of joint sneakers sold out as soon as they went online, and the black society generally expressed its gratitude and brand loyalty to Nike. In addition, some brands often use some controversial figures who provoke gender opposition to design co-branded products, and at the same time, they successfully make a certain group become loyal fans.
In today's era when traffic is paramount, disputes often mean queuing, quarreling and value collision, which are all reflected in traffic. The idea of launching co-branded products around controversy is like dancing on the tip of a knife. As long as the dispute is properly used, it often means not only an explosion of traffic, but also a classic.
Co-branded shoes promote the economy of fried shoes: the second-hand sneaker platform is becoming a unicorn
The popularity of joint culture, in turn, makes more and more young people eager for their shoes and clothes to be different, and they are a minority, so the joint culture quickly catalyzed the rise of speculative economy.
Not only did the brand earn a lot of money, but also a large number of second-hand shoe trading platforms and shoe speculation institutions mushroomed everywhere overnight. They are also the beneficiaries and promoters of joint culture. StockX, GOAT, Flight Club in the United States, poison, Nice and other sneaker resale platforms in China have soared in market value in recent years, and they are becoming or have become unicorns, which has amazed many investors.
Real estate speculation after 70, stock speculation after 80, currency speculation after 90, and shoes speculation after 00. It has become the proudest thing for young people of generation Z to buy a joint-name sneaker with limited global sales at a high price, which directly gave birth to the chaotic situation of barbaric shoe speculation.
At the beginning, when the brand sold co-branded shoes, the price of the product itself was very high through the limited sale of this hunger marketing method. Then, when sneakers enter the second-hand shoe trading platform and the secondary market dominated by the speculative shoe corps, the price will often double or even become sky-high.
Generally speaking, when the official sells this limited-edition co-branded sneaker, it will only be sold through its own core channels, such as designated offline stores and online official website. This naturally causes an imbalance between supply and demand, and ordinary sports shoes lovers often can't get these sports shoes. At the same time, the second-hand shoe trading platform and the shoe speculation corps can get sneakers through various channels and then sell them at a higher price.
In the past two years, as more and more luxury goods began to join the army of joint brands with sports brands, the joint brands of luxury goods and sports brands often made these shoe manufacturers earn several times the price difference, and the joint products of Nike and Dior, Adidas and Prada became carnival festivals for shoe manufacturers.
In this regard, a typical case is Air Jordan 1 co-branded sports shoes, a sub-brand of French luxury brand Dior and Nike. In 2020, Dior x AJ 1 High OG co-branded shoes were still a great success under the epidemic situation. At the beginning of the design, the co-branded shoes have been preheated, and fashionistas and superstars from Jay Chou, Edison Chen, Wang Sicong, Carina Lau, Daniel Arsham and other countries are showing them.
Only 13000 pairs of shoes are produced, of which 5000 pairs are exclusively for Dior customers. In other words, only 8,000 pairs are actually sold abroad, and the price is equivalent to RMB 65,438+8,000. At that time, more than 5 million people around the world participated in the lucky draw. And in the pre-sale stage, the sneaker trading platform StockX showed that the resale price of the shoes was as high as $38,000. After the real global sale, the price of this shoe soared and became a real sky-high sneaker.
Of course, when the benefit plate of joint sneakers is large enough, even the sneaker imitation factory will have to get a piece of the action. For example, Dior x AJ 1 High OG co-branded shoes, although only 8,000 pairs are publicly sold in the world, can be seen everywhere and crash frequently. Police in New Jersey, USA and Hangzhou, China cracked related cases of counterfeiting and selling fake goods.
Co-branded shoes are frequently fired to sky-high prices, and the price of selling a car for a pair of shoes makes the post-80 s and post-90 s feel incredible. But for the young generation Z who are still eager to buy, is this a wise investment or is it paying an "IQ tax"? Perhaps, existence is reasonable, or this is a business model and trend culture phenomenon that can stand the test of time.