Consumer Connections

Brands, like shoes, are not a one-size-fits-all business. Brands are the ultimate tool for our company to emotionally connect to our customers, driving engagement, enticement and loyalty. To build great brands that excite our customers, we must start with a deep understanding of both them and the marketplace. As a team, Collective Brands leverages consumer insights to create customer segments based on their unique needs, wants and desires. We then develop brands that are specifically tailored to each segment, ensuring the brand success and relevance in the global marketplace. Additionally, through our research, we have discovered four key themes that reflect what our brands collectively stand for:

Style

Style means different things to different people. At its roots, style is a form of expression that is personal and defining. Whether your sense of style takes you to the designer collections from the New York runways or to the Keds Studio to create your own masterpiece of self expression, we build brands by listening to our customers and reflecting their various desires for style.

Passion

From the teams that create our products to the customers that purchase them, there is a common thread: Passion. Whether your unbridled enthusiasm is for snowboarding, skateboarding, running, fashion, life in, on and around the sea, or making sure your children have the best shoes for their growing feet, we share your passion. And we have authentic products that are steeped in trusted brand heritage and tradition to help you live your passion — with products that exceed their promise.

Innovation

Many of our brands were established by true pioneers in the footwear industry. Sperry created the first boat shoe and continues to innovate with new product lines like the ASV. Keds invented the world’s first sneaker. More than 50 years ago, two cousins had a revolutionary idea to sell shoes in a self-select format, and today Payless continues to delight customers through an outstanding store experience that inspires fun fashion possibilities for the family. Whether through technology or groundbreaking new ideas, we will continue to use innovative thinking as a driving force to not only meet, but exceed our customer’s expectations.

Performance

When we think about performance, we start by asking how we can build a product that gets the job done better, faster, with greater comfort and that looks great, too. Our performance brands focus on pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation to create products that function at best-in-class levels. Saucony has become a top global running specialty brand, with products that continually win awards for technical performance and advancement. Sperry and Stride Rite continually look at the attributes that are needed for their consumers. Collectively, our teams are always on the lookout for new ways to enhance the performance attributes of our products to remain at the top of our game.