PA-based Airwalk "is at a financial and marketing
crossroads: how to energize growth and how to finance it,"
according to USA TODAY's Gary Strauss, who profiles the
company in a Business Cover Story. In its efforts to become
a billion dollar "megabrand," Airwalk has "had to overhaul a
management team and workforce flailing from booming growth,"
and in the process, the company "risks alienating teens
who've popularized the brand and are vital to its growth."
Although Airwalk is now the industry's seventh-largest
footwear manufacturer, last year's sales of $204M were "far
from" the $350M the company had forecast, and it "concedes
it has been unprofitable two straight years." Airwalk is
now in the midst of a brand extension effort which will
attempt to reach beyond 12-to-18-year-olds, the demo that
"drove Airwalk's early growth." But Drew Townes of World
Sports and Marketing said that the company "may already have
squandered much of its anti-sneaker, slacker/surfer extreme
sport appeal." In its "evolution" to the mainstream,
Airwalk now has 305 shoe styles, and has "branched far
beyond its specialty shop base to mass merchants" like Foot
Locker and Nordstrom. Strauss notes that Teen Research
Unlimited, which polls kids on brand preferences, rated
Airwalk the 12th "coolest brand" last fall, but by April "it
had slipped to 24th" (Gary Strauss, USA TODAY, 7/31).
HELLO, HARRY: Just For Feet (JFF) CEO Harry Ruttenberg
"has gotten his hands slapped by consumer watchdogs" in NYC
for "running unlicensed going-out-of-business sales" at
three Sneaker Stadium stores. Ruttenberg, whose company
recently bought the 39-unit Sneaker Stadium chain to gain
entry into the NYC market, has "backed off" the sales, and
said he plans to close the Sneaker Stadium outlets after the
"crucial back-to-school season." The stores will be
remodeled, then reopened as JFFs (N.Y. POST, 7/31).
