A booming business
Yet somehow, despite Skechers’ history of mediocre Big Game ads, the company is doing well.
Last year, Skechers debuted on the Fortune 500 list and broke sales records with $8 billion in revenue. It expects to surpass $10 billion by 2026.
“Even though we rate these ads as not being up to par, their business is booming,” said Marcus Collins, a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan and author of the book For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be.
Collins stated Skechers has likely benefitted from a subset of the population refashioning clunky, chunky sneakers that don’t look cool on the surface as a deviant, somewhat ironic symbol of cool. Kind of like what happened to Crocs.
So what does all this mean? Is simply appearing in the Super Bowl enough to deliver results? Are some brands trying too hard to be clever and win awards instead of crafting a message that’s clear and direct, even if a bit humdrum?
“A lot of the stuff that gets attention in our industry for being new and disruptive literally didn’t even register with real consumers in the real world,” Eric Kallman, founder and chief creative officer at the ad agency Erich & Kallman, told ADWEEK in an email.
To be clear, it’s uncommon for a Super Bowl ad alone to make or break a company. That’s giving those 30 seconds way too much weight. At the same time, however, marketers are under pressure to connect ad spend with sales lift. Paying up to $7 million to boost brand awareness doesn’t cut it anymore.
It could be Skechers knows what works and has decided to stick with it.
Consider the company’s growing direct-to-consumer business, which has higher margins than wholesale. Statistics from market research firm Circana show last year Skechers increased the number of U.S. customers in its D2C channel, as well as spending per customer. For its quarter ending Dec. 31, Skechers’ D2C segment represented more than 50% of total sales for the first time.
“Skechers’ strength is communicating the features and benefits of its footwear, and this works very well in a direct-to-consumer environment,” said Beth Goldstein, footwear industry analyst at Circana.
And the company does invest in advertising. Figures from iSpot.tv estimate the footwear company spent $75.9 million on national television last year, up 38% compared to the year prior.
