Tom's Shoes
1. The success of TOM’s Shoes centers around the phenomena of Cause-Related Marketing. Blake Mycoskie, entrepreneur and self proclaimed ‘Chief Shoe Giver’ of TOM’s, traveled to Argentina originally and identified a need: that of children needing shoes. This need had the identifiable consequence of disease, which could be easily avoided were shoes to be supplied. It was then a process of identifying a target demographic (in his case, young people between High School and College age) and the vehicle: one pair of shoes to a child for every pair sold to a customer.
In this way, Mr. Mycoskie uses his cause as his primary means to sell his product. This can be seen even by his choice in the name for his company: TOMs Shoes, which stands for Tomorrow (an allusion to how each person who buys a pair of his shoes is contributing to that end). He even makes reference to the “viral marketing” of word of mouth advertising (‘look at these shoes and guess what buying them is doing?’) not to mention social mediums with impacting pictures of the very children he places shoes upon to further his company’s goals.
2. Blake created the strategy first by fashioning the concept of the one pair for a child for each pair sold to a customer and applying it to the shoes he wished to sell. He identified the market he wished to sell to (the demographic of High School to College age kids) once he established the strategy.
This does matter, as our customer base is what is most important, depending on which comes first, we need to always keep our demographic in mind. For instance, if one scans the market first, one should develop a strategy with the demographic in mind. In this case, Blake targeted the demographic with his strategy in mind.
3. If Blake has succeeded in his strategy, these two goals will be mostly one in the same. His original intention was to create a for profit company that also placed shoes on the feet of needy children. However, the vehicle used for this
In this way, Mr. Mycoskie uses his cause as his primary means to sell his product. This can be seen even by his choice in the name for his company: TOMs Shoes, which stands for Tomorrow (an allusion to how each person who buys a pair of his shoes is contributing to that end). He even makes reference to the “viral marketing” of word of mouth advertising (‘look at these shoes and guess what buying them is doing?’) not to mention social mediums with impacting pictures of the very children he places shoes upon to further his company’s goals.
2. Blake created the strategy first by fashioning the concept of the one pair for a child for each pair sold to a customer and applying it to the shoes he wished to sell. He identified the market he wished to sell to (the demographic of High School to College age kids) once he established the strategy.
This does matter, as our customer base is what is most important, depending on which comes first, we need to always keep our demographic in mind. For instance, if one scans the market first, one should develop a strategy with the demographic in mind. In this case, Blake targeted the demographic with his strategy in mind.
3. If Blake has succeeded in his strategy, these two goals will be mostly one in the same. His original intention was to create a for profit company that also placed shoes on the feet of needy children. However, the vehicle used for this