“Kanye West’s secret to building a footwear empire to compete with Nike”
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-kanye-west-made-yeezy-brand-a-success-2018-4
This article discusses how Kanye West’s Yeezy shoes become a trend that can compete with Nike in just a few years. How does Yeezy become so popular that everyone wants a pair even when the price is so expensive?
The success of Yeezy cannot be realized without Kanye West’s genius marketing strategy and her own celebrity effect. One strategy he used is that he always released a limited amount of Yeezys every time so this commodity becomes a scarce product. According to BusinessInsider, “these build hype and sell out quickly.” Also, Kanye is a huge social media guy. He conducted a successful marketing campaign on social media such as Instagram. He recruited a group of celebrities and influencers, including his wife Kim, to wear the new collection and post images with them wearing the new Yeezy on social media. It made Yeezy even more exposed to the public and everyone started to search for Yeezy online.
I think the process of Yeezy becoming a trend can be explained by the network effects we discussed in the class. A person is more likely to adopt a particular product if he is exposed to that product a lot or all his friends are using that. Kanye uses social media to create the sense that everyone is wearing Yeezy and everyone wants to get a pair of Yeezy. Influences and celebrities he asked to post images all have millions of followers, so it would not be surprising that a person receives multiple posts that relate to Yeezy in his feed. Being exposed to the advertisements multiple times increases the chance of adoption a lot.