Marketing
05 May 2022
Collab of the Week: The crossover appeal of clogs
New drops from Crocs and Dr. Scholls show how to make brand collaborations stand out.

General Mills and Crocs are mixing cereal and footwear. (Photo via General Mills/Crocs)
New drops from Crocs and Dr. Scholls show how to make brand collaborations stand out.
General Mills and Crocs are mixing cereal and footwear. (Photo via General Mills/Crocs)
Consider clogs.
They are timeless footwear, yet always evolving. The original wooden versions in Europe were often associated with the working class, then became recognizable as an expression of culture (think dancing).
In more recent times, clogs became known by names like Crocs and Danskos. The former gave them the panache of high fashion before settling in to the landscape as a comfort shoe. Bringing the whole thing full circle, Crocs became the “it” shoe of the pandemic because of their comfort, and are now recognized as a DTC success story, as Bainbridge Growth recently detailed.
The styles have changed over the years, and they’ve been adorned with everything from hand-painted designs to Jibbitz. In this sense, they often reflect the times. A trio of collaborations this week offer a look:
Two classics, both bursting with SZA charm. Make each step a lot more enjoyable. \u200b\n@sza X Crocs at https://crocs.shoes/SZAXCrocs\u00a0 #SZAXCrocspic.twitter.com/KPGWg8WI4q— Crocs (@Crocs) 1651755609
R&B singer-songwriter SZA is collaborating with Crocs in a timely release for Mental Health Awareness Month in May.
Available via raffle, the woodgrain slide and clog have custom Jibbitz (aka the shoe charms that Crocs acquired in 2006 in a bit of consumer goods-style vertical integration).
“Literally, every single outfit, they look so cool with my Jibbitz, no disrespect to anybody else’s Jibbitz,” SZA told The Cut in an interview. “With my Jibbitz, it’s, like, little gold accents and the cool pattern they form just make everything look super-cute and quirky, and I appreciate that.”
Along with style, the collab is showcasing mental health and self-care. SZA partnered with three people who advocate for Black mental health: Sage Adams, Yaris Sanchez, and Donte Colley. In turn, Crocs made a donation to three organizations of their choosing.
Given the current advocacy throughout our culture to prioritize mental health, the balance between self-expression and mental health here shows how a collab can reflect the public consciousness.
(Photo via General Mills/Crocs)
Cross-category collabs are in focus with another recent drop from Crocs.
The brand teamed with General Mills to release Cinnamon Toast Crunch-inspired clogs on April 27 via retailers like Foot Locker and Eastbay.
Like SZA’s, this pair of clogs has a brown-and-white pattern. But in this case it’s designed to evoke cereal rather than wood. They’re accented by Jibbitz that show facial expressions and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch logo.
The unlikely pairing was a big hit on TikTok before it even dropped. An unboxing video garnered more than two million views back in March, with the teaser sweetened by word that the clogs would smell like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Given the success, General Mills and Crocs aren’t stopping at one brand. It’s planning a full cereal collection, dubbed “Rise N’ Style.” Trix, Honey Nut Cheerios, and Cocoa Puffs are all set to get the Crocs treatment in July.
The latest collabs are by no means the first limited-edition product partnerships for Crocs, as the brand has worked with everyone from Balenciaga to Justin Bieber. Crocs have also paired with food before, having collaborated with KFC and Peeps.
In some ways, these collaborations appear made for the internet, with a novelty factor that’s designed to stand out on social media. But while some may seem random, collabs are a concerted strategy that aims to be responsive to the brand’s loyal fans.
“We’re trying to go after either a trend from a product perspective, or a cultural insight from a brand perspective, which really allows us to do what makes sense for Crocs in the moment,” Crocs CMO Heidi Cooley told Forbes recently.
It also shows how there is room for brands from different industries to work together to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
E.l.f. Beauty, another brand at the forefront of food partnerships, dropped its latest collab with Dunkin’ in April, offering five cosmetics products inspired by donuts and coffee. One of the items sold out online in 10 minutes, boston.com reported.
(Photo via GANNI)
Crocs isn’t the only brand teaming up with others in the clogs space.
This week, Dr. Scholls partnered with Danish fashion brand Ganni to drop a new take on the wooden sandal.
The shoe style dates to the 1960s. That’s when Dr. Scholl’s Original Exercise Sandal first appeared. It went on to reach cult status over the next two decades. Ganni calls back to this heritage with a retro color palette, while adding its own signature smiles and hearts.
It’s often said that opposites attract, and that applies to brand collaborations, too. This brings together the practical and the fashionable; the understated and the colorful.
It also shows how fashion is moving toward sustainability. The sandal’s fabric is made of 100% certified organic cotton, its lining consists of 51% recycled polyester and the sole is made of manmade rubber and Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. Dr. Scholl’s is also applying traceability technology developed by Provenance to disclose info about its supply chain and materials.
With a fresh look thanks to a partner and an updated approach to production, it shows how items with a long history can continuously get updated for a new generation.
The retailer's marketplace is expanding quickly.
When it comes to ecommerce growth, was the pandemic a blip or a new trendsetter?
As we move further from the height of COVID-related closures, it’s a question that will start to be answered through the lens of history.
So far, the narrative of ecommerce growth in the U.S. from 2019-2022 has gone like this: Ecommerce’s share of overall retail saw a huge spike at the height of the pandemic in 2020-21, when goods in general were in demand and online shopping was necessary to preserve health and safety. Experts looked out and saw a permanent exponential change in the penetration of ecommerce as a share of retail that would last beyond the pandemic. Then, in 2022, everyone went back to stores and the trendline came back to 2019 levels. Growth was no longer exponential. There was still growth, but it was not happening as fast as during the pandemic period.
With this in mind, it’s worth pointing out that 2023 is the first year that there likely won’t be a pandemic-influenced swing to influence ecommerce growth. It is also a year where demand has suffered challenges amid inflation and interest rate hikes.
So as we seek to determine the importance of ecommerce to overall retail, it’s worth it to continue taking a close look at what growth trends retailers are seeing now, whether ecommerce is remaining resilient amid consumer pullback and how retailers are preparing for the future.
The latest example arrived this week from Macy’s. It’s a fitting one for the times. Overall, Macy’s is seeing a slowdown as consumers pull back on discretionary purchases, with sales declining 7% in the first quarter versus the same quarter of 2022. Digital sales were down 8%.
Macy’s is particularly susceptible to the macroeconomic headwinds that many brands and retailers are facing, as spending among the middle-income consumers it counts as a primary customer base is particularly softening, said GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders.
But while ecommerce is slowing overall, the importance it gained to Macy’s business during the pandemic is remaining in place.
In 2019, ecommerce made up 25% of Macy’s revenue, CEO Jeff Gennette told analysts on the company’s earnings call. That jumped to a high of 44% in 2020. By 2022, digital reached 33% of sales after the pandemic boom. In the first quarter of 2023, it remained at 33%. So, while the trend line dipped after shoppers returned to stores, ecommerce share still settled in at a higher post-lockdown point than it was before the pandemic.
This came in a quarter in which traffic was “relatively good” across both online and in-store, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said. It was “flattish” online, and slightly up in stores.
“We do expect that this is the reset year with the penetration between them,” Gennette said. “But we do expect more aggressive growth in digital in the future versus stores as we think about '24 and beyond. And that's going to be foisted by a lot of ideas and strategies.
Over the last year, the retailer has made investments in boosting ecommerce, even as shoppers returned to stores. In a bid to boost the assortment of goods available online, Macy’s launched a marketplace in September 2022 that welcomes goods from third-party sellers.
The marketplace had an “outstanding” first quarter, said Macy’s President Tony Spring, who is poised to succeed Gennette as CEO next year. Gross merchandise value increased over 50% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, while the average order value and units per order for marketplace customers was 50% above those not shopping at the marketplace.
Macy’s is continuing to build the marketplace even as it racks up sales. The retailer added 450 brands, ending the quarter with 950 brands.
This is helping to draw in new customers, as well as younger existing customers who are buying more items, resulting in increased basket size.
“We're very excited as to how marketplace is really attracting the Gen Z customer, particularly in categories where it was not economically feasible for us to carry in the past,” Gennette said.
In the end, Gennette said a strong digital and social presence is key to attracting younger consumers. That's a different type of shopper than other age groups.
“We know the younger customer starts first online,” Gennette said. That behavior will still be in place as the generation gets older, and gains more buying power in the process.
Going forward, Macy’s is seeking to expand the model to other retail banners in its portfolio. Bloomingdale’s will open a marketplace in the early fall.
The Macy’s ecommerce trajectory isn’t that different from the wider U.S. ecommerce narrative detailed above. With one quarter of 2023 data, there is evidence that ecommerce share settled out at a higher point after the pandemic than where it started before COVID arrived. There is flattening now, but the retailer is taking it not as a sign of a slowdown, or a signal to change course. Rather, it sees changing consumer behavior as a reason to build for the future.