Reebok's new DMX running shoes will hit shelves on
April 1, and "the early buzz from the sneaker intelligentsia
is positively glowing," according to Jeff Manning of the
Portland OREGONIAN. Runner's World magazine Senior Editor
Bob Wischnia: "Our wear-testing has just been over the top.
One of our testers said it was the best running shoe he's
ever worn." Manning noted Nike has "ridden the elegantly
simple air-sole to unprecedented growth and the pinnacle of
the industry," but if DMX is all that Reebok claims, "and
some Wall Street players are convinced it is, the company
could once again become a formidable competitor." Reebok
plans to debut a DMX training shoe next summer and a
basketball shoe next fall (Portland OREGONIAN, 3/12).
STIRRING THE MASSES: St. Louis-based Contemporary
Marketing, a division of Contemporary Int'l Productions, has
been hired to start a grass-roots marketing campaign for the
DMX Series 2000 running shoe. Reebok is using "less
traditional marketing techniques" for the shoe, "even
eschewing a celebrity endorser." Contemporary was hired to
"orchestrate" a national tour, where over the next 27 weeks,
six vans will go around the country and try to "educate
consumers and get them to try on models of the Series 2000"
(Fred Faust, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 3/13).
