The StockX commercial below originally launched in November of 2018. The spot doesn’t feature any famous people. The commercial does include a lot of famous kicks; which makes it appear that the ad is targeted to ‘sneakerheads’ but with the shifting nature of the consumption of media by young people and the fact that the ad originally aired at the start of the NBA season, who was really the target for the ad?
On YouTube or social where the spot has aired, the obvious target is teens and young adults who know what “Grails” are, but StockX is doing something in the commercial that I stated was happening via sales I’ve made on the site.
A quick note from Forbes during last season’s finals, “So far this season, the WNBA has seen a 36 percent increase in viewership in adults age 18 to 49, a 29 percent jump in men in that age group and a 50 percent increase in women. Through June, WNBA games on ESPN2 are averaging 250,000 viewers, a 39 percent improvement from last year and the best start for the league since 2013. The June 28 game between the Sparks and the Seattle Storm drew 378,000 viewers. It was the most watched regular season WNBA game on ESPN2 since 2011.”
This is where things get interesting for a company like StockX vs the competition. While watching the Seattle Storm vs the Connecticut Sun this Sunday the spot aired and immediately I realized that StockX is not settling for hype. I already understood this as my data from selling on StockX in 2018, I shared this information in my book, Nike’s Consumer Direct Offense, Amazon and StockX, showed that almost a quarter of my sales where under 100 dollars on shoes that were not “grails”.
An ad spot for footwear and apparel during live sports doesn’t really relate to the IG crowd. Kids aren’t really sports fans the way my generation was and still is. Sports fanaticism in the U.S. is centered around the college experience in many cases and around the aspirations of kids who want to be pro athletes. The people who watch sports either played, wanted to play or cheer on their alma maters and athletes who come from their schools. In other words demographics of sports fans are completely different than the people who StockX was originally created to reach: the resale market.
Yet, on a Sunday afternoon on ABC during a WNBA game StockX was running a commercial telling those watching, “Now You Know” and for me it was evidence that StockX is willing to spend the dollars to find their next customer. It’s something urban accounts with 100+ brick and mortar locations aren’t doing and are incapable of doing and that’s a threat. It’s also something larger retail outlets for sneakers aren’t doing and again, that’s a threat.
StockX, like Uber, doesn’t have inventory. It is completely reliant on a third party. That third party traditionally acquired inventory from urban accounts and traditional retailers. As brands become more invested in DTC the third party sellers on a platform like StockX are acquiring their inventory from brand doors. StockX is only one shift away from creating a ‘Fulfillment’ for brands and possibly opening their own doors in ‘key cities’ throughout the U.S. While I touched on this briefly in my book, the more I see where and how StockX is advertising the more I realize how quickly the footwear industry is moving.
Now You Know… well kinda, but I’m working on that.
