Number of the Day
Slack’s Bizarre Foray Into Sneakers, by the Numbers
Everyone is dunking on the crossover product — but maybe that’s the point?
$120: That’s the price of the newly released Cole Haan X Slack limited edition sneakers, per Cole Haan. As we’ve noted previously, Zoom has left Slack in the dust when it comes to being the work-from-home enterprise hotshot. Perhaps to steal back some of the spotlight, Slack has stepped up with a… sneaker collaboration? That’s right,Slack and Cole Haan have teamed up to offer a $120 pair of limited edition kicks in four colorways that borrow from Slack’s logo. According to Cole Haan, they were designed “with the Slack crew, over Slack.”
The move is such a head-scratcher that it naturally got an avalanche of mostly skeptical attention. (“Bizarre,” said GQ.) According to AdWeek, the experiment fits into Cole Haan’s goal of targeting younger creative customers, though it’s not clear that actual young people will want to wear SaaS merch. Meanwhile, “the Slack crew” has simultaneously announced forthcoming new features for its actual product, most notably a tool for sending video messages within the platform — “very much like Instagram stories, or Snapchat stories,” the company’s CEO told The Verge.
