Hesh Rephun: January 2008 Archives
GSA recently had the opportunity to enjoy tacos and some killer guac with Skins Footwear President and CEO Mark Klein. The result was a meaty convo that removes a couple layers of mystery from the man behind the brand:
GetSkinnedAlive: Naturally, we've got a lot of questions for you, but first, this guacamole is amazing, how did you find this place?
Mark Klein: (laughs) I've been running around a lot the last few years, from country to country and I'm always grabbing stuff on the go. When I find really good Mexican food, I remember it.
GSA: Should we tell the readers what country we're in now?
MK: Let's leave it a mystery.
GSA: Speaking of mystery, what's up with Skins? You've kinda kept quiet for the last month or so.
MK: For one, based on feedback we received from a very successful consumer partnership program and a self- limited soft-launch, and the retail summits that we held, we were able to make substantial improvements to the Skin and Bone. We've changed how the product is packaged, sold, displayed...we radically enhanced the fit of the Bone, all based on feedback from customers and retailers.
GSA: By "self-limited", you mean -
MK: When I say it was self-limited what I'm referring to is the fact that we purposely launched in only 20 locations, even though the initial interest in Skins, the excitement, industry awards, and press were really unheard of for a new shoe. We chose outlets in places from Los Angeles, CA to Richmond, VA, and Pittsburgh... we wanted to get the widest feedback possible, and we did. And through the consumer partnership program, our early adopters, people who came out and bought that first gen product, knew up front that there would be a next gen Bone and that they would get it for free.
GSA: Can you tell us about some of the specific improvements?
MK: Since this is a compartmental technology, customers and salespeople were a little daunted by a shoe that comes in pieces. We now sell Skins in a Combo Box, in which one of the shoes is already put together - the Skin, Bone, and insole; the salesperson can build the other shoe in front of you - it was really important to our customers to have this feature, and we responded.
We've also joined forces with a leading authority on footwear fitting and technology, so we've got a large group of esteemed scientists coming to us to talk about these issues.
We've designed a broad range of new styles for men and women, and have put the new shoes through countless steps in extreme temperatures...we've put our product through that kind of rigorous testing to get to where we are now.
GSA: And where are you now, in terms of launching the next gen?
MK: We're in the middle of production, looking at a launch the first week of March. We're gonna launch in stores countrywide this time, hitting all major markets, many times what we did with our soft launch.
GSA: There's been a lot of chatter out there, good and bad, some of it directed very personally at you, some of it not so nice. How do you deal with that kind of stuff?
MK: To make this product the best it can be, we ran the risk of seeing some negative chatter, some reaction to a lack of availability. But the major concern we will always have is that we're giving the consumer and our retail partners the best product we possibly can. So the risk was acceptable.
This technology has huge long-term potential in terms of applications; when we say something is "Powered by Skins," that reflects our hope that in time you'll be seeing this technology applied in different market segments, to future collaborations with other brands, etc.
If you follow the biz-oriented blogs, you also have to factor in that a lot of the negative messages and criticism come from people playing a short-term game. It's not the game we play as a company or that I play personally.
On a personal level, I gotta tell you, Mark Klein is the single largest shareholder of this company and I have never sold one of my shares, not one. If there's any single pursuit in my life it's the quality and integrity of Skins Footwear - and whatever that means in terms of potshots at me, who cares? The big picture is honoring that commitment, and whenever you're doing something disruptive and revolutionary, you're putting your ass on the line - and at some point, the commitment becomes bigger than your ass. Did that come out right?
GSA: I think so. A while back, we wrote about a video contest you were collaborating on with our buddies at SLAM; our post generated some real excitement, and we hear this is turning into a bigger thing than expected. What's the scoop?
MK: We'll be rolling out more info on the contest very soon. Naturally, the last month or so, we've been focused on the next generation Skin and Bone. Now, we're ready to solicit submissions for the contest. By the way, for Skins this contest is a big deal - we're a young company, we're very into arts and education and supporting voices of originality. You saw that with our event at the MOCA in LA, supporting their Architecture and Design exhibit, and you're about to see it with some new film and video pieces we've done. That's why we're looking for 'inspired' submissions and not 'branded' ones. We're really hoping to get some interesting and adventurous films from this effort.
Our non-traditional marketing efforts are really about message - our audience is creative and discriminating, and - most importantly - once they get their bone on, as I like to say, they're part of the family. And we treat them as such.
GetSkinnedAlive: Naturally, we've got a lot of questions for you, but first, this guacamole is amazing, how did you find this place?
Mark Klein: (laughs) I've been running around a lot the last few years, from country to country and I'm always grabbing stuff on the go. When I find really good Mexican food, I remember it.
GSA: Should we tell the readers what country we're in now?
MK: Let's leave it a mystery.
GSA: Speaking of mystery, what's up with Skins? You've kinda kept quiet for the last month or so.
MK: For one, based on feedback we received from a very successful consumer partnership program and a self- limited soft-launch, and the retail summits that we held, we were able to make substantial improvements to the Skin and Bone. We've changed how the product is packaged, sold, displayed...we radically enhanced the fit of the Bone, all based on feedback from customers and retailers.
GSA: By "self-limited", you mean -
MK: When I say it was self-limited what I'm referring to is the fact that we purposely launched in only 20 locations, even though the initial interest in Skins, the excitement, industry awards, and press were really unheard of for a new shoe. We chose outlets in places from Los Angeles, CA to Richmond, VA, and Pittsburgh... we wanted to get the widest feedback possible, and we did. And through the consumer partnership program, our early adopters, people who came out and bought that first gen product, knew up front that there would be a next gen Bone and that they would get it for free.
GSA: Can you tell us about some of the specific improvements?
MK: Since this is a compartmental technology, customers and salespeople were a little daunted by a shoe that comes in pieces. We now sell Skins in a Combo Box, in which one of the shoes is already put together - the Skin, Bone, and insole; the salesperson can build the other shoe in front of you - it was really important to our customers to have this feature, and we responded.
We've also joined forces with a leading authority on footwear fitting and technology, so we've got a large group of esteemed scientists coming to us to talk about these issues.
We've designed a broad range of new styles for men and women, and have put the new shoes through countless steps in extreme temperatures...we've put our product through that kind of rigorous testing to get to where we are now.
GSA: And where are you now, in terms of launching the next gen?
MK: We're in the middle of production, looking at a launch the first week of March. We're gonna launch in stores countrywide this time, hitting all major markets, many times what we did with our soft launch.
GSA: There's been a lot of chatter out there, good and bad, some of it directed very personally at you, some of it not so nice. How do you deal with that kind of stuff?
MK: To make this product the best it can be, we ran the risk of seeing some negative chatter, some reaction to a lack of availability. But the major concern we will always have is that we're giving the consumer and our retail partners the best product we possibly can. So the risk was acceptable.
This technology has huge long-term potential in terms of applications; when we say something is "Powered by Skins," that reflects our hope that in time you'll be seeing this technology applied in different market segments, to future collaborations with other brands, etc.
If you follow the biz-oriented blogs, you also have to factor in that a lot of the negative messages and criticism come from people playing a short-term game. It's not the game we play as a company or that I play personally.
On a personal level, I gotta tell you, Mark Klein is the single largest shareholder of this company and I have never sold one of my shares, not one. If there's any single pursuit in my life it's the quality and integrity of Skins Footwear - and whatever that means in terms of potshots at me, who cares? The big picture is honoring that commitment, and whenever you're doing something disruptive and revolutionary, you're putting your ass on the line - and at some point, the commitment becomes bigger than your ass. Did that come out right?
GSA: I think so. A while back, we wrote about a video contest you were collaborating on with our buddies at SLAM; our post generated some real excitement, and we hear this is turning into a bigger thing than expected. What's the scoop?
MK: We'll be rolling out more info on the contest very soon. Naturally, the last month or so, we've been focused on the next generation Skin and Bone. Now, we're ready to solicit submissions for the contest. By the way, for Skins this contest is a big deal - we're a young company, we're very into arts and education and supporting voices of originality. You saw that with our event at the MOCA in LA, supporting their Architecture and Design exhibit, and you're about to see it with some new film and video pieces we've done. That's why we're looking for 'inspired' submissions and not 'branded' ones. We're really hoping to get some interesting and adventurous films from this effort.
Our non-traditional marketing efforts are really about message - our audience is creative and discriminating, and - most importantly - once they get their bone on, as I like to say, they're part of the family. And we treat them as such.
