As a loyal Yahoo!, I have been anxiously awaiting the new limited-edition kicks that Yaho! was cooking up with resurgent sneaker brand Pony, once I got wind that they would be dropping soon. Available for pre-order now here, the exclusive run of purple and white kicks will help to kick-start the new "Start Wearing Purple" branding campaign.
Yahoo! CMO of Buzz Marketing Sean Florio took some time out of his purple-pimping to answer a few questions for Sneaker Blogger's readers and tell them how to get their hands on the new kicks before they are gone.
Sneaker Blogger: What’s it been like working with Pony—and how did you decide to collaborate with them? And how much input did Yahoo! have in the design process?
Sean Florio:A few of us on the team have always loved sneaker culture and wanted to take our brand to a new place with something we haven’t done before. We knew we wanted to work with a brand with some history that had some amazing products in the pipeline, so we approached Pony. They’ve been amazing to work with on the program – we had an initial meeting with them a few months back, and Kyle Pulli, their VP of Design, came back with some great designs. Our creative direction was pretty simple – interpret purple. Soon after the meeting we were looking at cool purple concepts for the collaboration sneaker.
SB: Can you explain the idea behind the“Start Wearing Purple”campaign?
SF: "Start Wearing Purple" is a figurative call-to-action by Yahoo! for people to live life as an individual – and with an exclamation point. Through this program, Yahoo! is emphasizing its roots through the color and spirit of Purple, which has been core to its DNA since it began. Purple emphasizes individual spirit, imagination and innovation.
SB: How limited are the shoes? And where can people pre-order them?
SF: We’ve ordered 2400 pairs of the shoe, in both purple with white accents, and white with purple accents. People can get them at our Start Wearing Purple Store link here.
SB: Are there other limited edition items as part of the campaign?
SF: After meeting with Pony, we explored other “purple” collaborations. Simone Legno, creator of tokidoki, is being featured in our “Start Wearing Purple” campaign here, and so we also asked if he’d create some limited edition adult and toddler tee’s. He came back with some phenomenal limited-edition creations, which are for sale on www.startwearingpurple.com. We also collaborated with Mimoco to create a cool 1GB Mimobot Code Ninja USB Flash Drive, limited to 1500 pieces that will be the first in a series of three designer USB flash drives.
on October 1, 2008, 3:35 pm