Bricks & Wood – Bricks & Wood (bricksandwood.us)
K-Swiss went all in on the hype around Gary Vaynerchuk and entrepreneurship. They did so at a point when they had created an incredible sneaker to rival the NMD and New Balance 247. When the brand abandoned their tennis roots and their designers to chase the trend of motivational entrepreneurship, it was a strategy I disagreed with. I began to deliver image after image of Gary Vee wearing Nike sneakers. As a self-professed sneakerhead, Gary Vee was telling his followers to flip sneakers, including his own K-Swiss models. He wasn’t telling his fans to love K-Swiss. It was all very problematic. I was eventually attacked by the President of the company at the time in a public forum. You can read about that in the post below. In this post, I was able to talk about the acquisition of K-Swiss by Chinese brand XTEP. I talked about whether K-Swiss’ pivot away from entrepreneurship and collabs with Gary Vee was authentic. They shifted to their roots of performance tennis, Los Angeles culture and they began to highlight their association with Black people throughout the years.
I hadn’t checked in with K-Swiss since I wrote the post above. The brand hasn’t really focused on marketing as evidenced by their YouTube channel last posting a video over 10 months ago. Browsing through all of the social channels it appears the brand is still attempting to nail down what will give them a share of the market. When ownership is rooted in another country and the teams around the globe are attempting to nail down an image, it’s an extremely difficult process. A company can fall back into attempting to be all things to all people anCheck d that is a dangerous thing to do. This collaboration with Bricks & Wood is a solid follow up to the YG campaign and video concept from Barron Davis’ team. The focus on L.A. is understandable because it is a key city where fashion can shape a broader swath of people. Right now, there is a lot of mystery around this pop on May 20th. Will this be contained to L.A.? Will K-Swiss and B&W create content for all social channels? Is Bricks & Wood padding their stats, or will the collection drop really be about that action? Whatever takes place, it’s nice to see K-Swiss pushing forward with a diverse plan of action. I only hope the results keep the door open for more activities from the classic brand.
Check out the Bricks and Wood IG for images of the sneakers and the short video framing the event. The New Balance collab was a hit for Bricks & Woods, this collection appears to be very on point from the sneakers to the concept video:
