I'm getting really tired of cross branding in the footwear industry. If you are a shoe company, you are a shoe company. If you are a tractor company, you are a tractor company. Red Wing won't ever make tractors, so why would John Deere make boots. Here's the short list of NON-footwear, footwear brands I've found (send me more if you can!):
- Carhart, clothing (Red Wing)
- John Deere, tractors (Dan Post)
- Cat, heavy equipment (Wolverine)
- Browning, firearms (H.H. Brown)
- Marzocchi, bike shocks (Five Ten)
- Milwaukee, power tools (unknown)
- Makita, power tools (unknown)
- DeWalt, power tools (unknown)...seeing a trend here
- Dockers, clothing (Nine West)
- Michelin, tires (Rocky Brands)
- Dickies, clothing (Rocky Brands)
- Jack Daniel's, duh (Sedona West)...my personal favorite!
- PATAGONIA, clothing (Wolverine as well...interesting)
- Harley-Davidson, motorcycles (Wolverine)
- Stanley, hardware (you guessed it...Wolverine)
Obviously you can't blame the clothing guys for getting into footwear but some of the others just get under my skin. Are we such whores to branding or do we simply like the familiar? With few exceptions these lines are mostly lower end. Why would you want to water down your brand by associating with cheap shoes?