It’s a very interesting phenomena how a marketing gimmick, product or service takes shape and redefines the world as we know it. Think of how Facebook took shape in the mid 2000’s, to its possible role in the 2016 United States elections. Or how Nike and Coca Cola have evolved their brands sponsoring different sporting stars and events. Or just how Jay-Z and Rihanna have grown their combined net worth’s to over one and a half million dollars.
When your marketing manager tells you pop stars are making songs about your products, at no added cost, you have to appreciate that something has gone right and your bottom line is sure to increase.
There is a little bit of irony to a particular market segment of the Clarks’s desert boot and the origins of it. In the mid-1900s, Nathan Clark had a  genius idea of designing a shoe centered on British soldiers’ safari boots worn in Pakistani and Egyptian deserts during World War 2 and the Afrikaner ‘veldskoen’ (aka vellie), translated to ‘field shoe’, worn in Southern Africa from the 1700s to date.
The marketing strategies have obviously evolved over the years but it is interesting to note that the shoe design grossly based for people who uphold the law and those that sweat in farm lands, is the preferred choice for gun slinging, badass, ‘rude boys’ from Kingston Jamaica.
Nathan Clark, the great grandson of company founder James Clark, was met with criticism as the design did not initially do well in the UK. The durable desert boot was not the cool thing for the English bloke but it found its way to Chicago and eventually Jamaican gangsters, and the rest you can hear in dancehall tracks streaming all over the world. For example in ‘Clarks’ a hit song by Vybz Kartel, released in 2009 featuring Popcaan and Vanessa Bling, he goes in depth talking up the ‘coolness’ of owning a pair.
Pre-Hook: Popcaan
“A where you get that new Clarks there Addi?
A which colour that?
Bad enuh pawdie
A you alone have that style there daddy
The queen fi England haffi love off yardieâ€
Verse 1: Vybz Kartel
“Me no love crepe you know
Clarks me prefer
Clarks for the leather (yea)
The Clarks for the fur
Clarks for the summer
Clarks for the winter
Clarks for the sun
Clarks for the waterâ€
See what I mean? You’ve gotta love the subtle irony, or is it? Agent Sasko aka Assasin has also dropped bars about the classic desert boot.
Check out Jahvillani’s new jam ‘Clarks Pon Foot’ where he gives his take on the elegant desert boot/vellie. The opening act in the visuals has a kid keeping his Clark shoes in the deep freeze, probably cause their “mad hot!†Classic marketing material. Whoever the current Chief Marketing Officer of Clarks is, must realize that these guys deserve something. Surely?
