Check out the video of Vibram USA CEO Tony Post on FOX Business last Friday. If you wear VFF’s on a fairly regular basis, you’ll no doubt be asked what the benefit of them is. Tony provides some great technical answers for this if you feel like really dropping some knowledge on your inquirer. I’ve messily highlighted some of the more interesting points from the clip below the video.
- Post: Vibram is expected to sell 400% more Five Fingers than they did last year
- Why call them ‘Five Fingers’ and not ‘Five Toes’? Post: The product was created in Italy, where the word for toes and fingers is one in the same. The owner started referring to them as ‘the shoes with the fingers’ and that name just stuck.
- They now have over 700 distributors. This year alone Vibram went from one factory to five.
- How do you avoid becoming Palm (meaning first to market with a product, but crushed by bigger and better companies)? Post: Plenty of worldwide patents, staying connected to fans/customers , “We have 100,000 fans on our FaceBook page”.
- There are 200 fake Vibram sites. What the heck are you doing about that? Post: Less concerned with a missed sale than with someone buying a counterfeit and having a bad impression of Vibram products. Also “Lobbying to strengthen laws against counterfeiting.”
- I haven’t pinned down which VFF’s he’s wearing, but they are pretty cool. Check the screen grab below.
The Fivefingers he’s wearing in that pic are the new Kimodos that are coming out in the spring. Sort of like a Bikila with more rugged lugging on the outsole and an added velcro strap for the heel (which makes it sound like a Treksport, but there’s less midsole cushion in the Kimodo and they’re more segmented and flexible).
Leave it to the gear head who’s already seen the 2011 catalog…
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