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Last night, my fiancée and I went to a friend’s place in preparation for a 20-mile hike this Labor Day weekend. My friend, an avid outdoorsman and the primary force behind our weekend, answered the door wearing a pair of dirty pink Crocs™.
“Oh no, not you, too,” I lamented, sparking a quick run-down of why he loved his Crocs.
“They’re lightweight, comfortable, anti-microbial, a great way to get out of your hiking boots, and they’re pink, so no one will steal them. They’re perfect.”
While contemplating reasons to steal them other than for my own gain, I knew I couldn’t argue with the logic behind his pink footwear. The thought behind the shoes is the strongest asset the brand has, and I appreciate smart, well thought-out things. Yet I cannot convince myself to try a pair on because of my aversion to their appearance.
Between him and me lies the rift that exists between so many other people, who, through their love or hate of Crocs, cannot ignore them. It is that strong sentiment that Crocs, Inc., wants to capitalize on with its new promotional Web site, crocslovehate.com.
A unique aspect of the Crocs brand is that it forces people on each side to defend their positions fiercely. Crocs recognizes this and smartly draws lovers and haters together to stir up more conversation.
According to its home page, crocslovehate.com serves “as a way for you to tell us what you think - and to help you share your feelings about Crocs™ shoes with others.” The creator of the winning “Love” or “Hate” video wins a trip for two to Denver, CO.
When I saw a commercial announcing the site I thought, “Opening up discussion and channeling both the love and the hate to the same place? Crocs is doing something to encourage online conversation. Brilliant!”
Upon visiting the site, I was disappointed. The “conversation” had been limited to video and a rating scale of 1-5 stars. There is no forum for discussing the shoes, nor are video comments available, making the site less functional than YouTube, where people can, and already do, comment and interact with Crocs and each other.
The most recent of the 18 videos were posed on July 30, two weeks before the commercial I saw promoting the site. Each video has a distinct “corporate” feel to it. The slickness of the site and its content detracts from its credibility because the videos don’t appear to be produced by the site’s market, but rather look like they came from the company’s marketing department.
The site feels eerily lifeless. To build awareness and interaction, and ultimately submissions, the site needs to offer an open venue for discussion. For a venture that promotes speaking one’s mind in a public forum on the Web, life is breathed through the conversations occurring on it.
Because Crocs failed to facilitate a full conversation on crocslovehate.com it is happening elsewhere. Both videos in this post come from YouTube where Crocs is also actively encouraging the discussion. The Don King spot (above) has been seen nearly 6,000 times, and the video below has nearly 60,000 views, sparking 63 text comments by Crocs’ supporters and detractors.
For its new promotional Web site to be more successful, Crocs should connect the conversations and user-generated content on YouTube with its video contest, followed by outreach to outside love/hate sites like littlerubbershoes.com and ihatecrocs.com.
The video contest will no doubt yield some interesting entries, and Crocs has certainly found some unique ways to build buzz around its functional shoe. In the case of crocslovehate.com, functionality and substance is lost to style. Following the path of the little rubber shoe and focusing on functionality might just yield the right mix for discussion.
And as far as my personal feelings towards Crocs, they are best summed up in this video Crocs, Inc. posted on YouTube below. I’m happy to be a part of the conversation.
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