MORE THAN JUST SIMPLE TRAINERS

Today, in the world of sport shoes and clothes, in order to sell a new product it is necessary to create a "brand". That is to attribute a set of characteristics to the product so that we as buyers are influenced and end up buying it. Certain elements do call the consumers’ attention such as: modern designs, bright colors, gifts given when buying a product, fancy logos, smart advertisements, elaborated web pages, seeing a famous sports personality advertising the product, even the general look of the shoe box.

“Branding” heavily influences consumers. We witnessed the following scene: a mother was at a prison waiting room with her son, she seemed very humble. She asked another mother also waiting there with her son, who had just started to walk, the following: “Where did you buy those Nikes from?”. The answer was: “It was very difficult to find them in such a small size, I finally found them in [name of place]; they are very expensive but at least I found them”. And the first mother then said: “Yeah, but I would like him to wear a pair of Nikes... Another scene during a children’s basketball match in Madrid: a father was cheering his daughter during the game by saying: “Show them your Nikes!”

At the end of the 80s, large multinational enterprises left the manufacturing process to subcontracted companies and dedicated themselves to designing and marketing the products. Having large factories and a big number of workers is expensive (machinery, wages...) and it can cause loads of headaches (strikes, environmental regulations...). Most important of all, it is to have a name, a "soul"... a brand. The product itself becomes less important. Nowadays, companies, do not make pairs of trainers, they make emotions, lifestyles, identities. They constantly explore, "types of identity", symbols that teenagers may identify themselves with; anything that might emotionally affect consumers and associate that emotion with the product. For example, Nike noticed that a lot of white and asian kids find the way black kids from ghettos look like, attractive, and so it invented the Bro'ing brand (from the phrase “Hey, brother” that black kids use to greed each other). They just go to the areas where black kids live, they get them to wear the trainers and that brings life to the brand, giving birth to new shoe styles and designs.