Is the Value of Work Enough to Differentiate Red Wing Shoes?

For a company that has been around for 100+ years, The Red Wing Shoe Company has built a pretty good reputation of producing quality work boots. Maybe you’ve even had a pair (or two).

In addition to work boots, they also have sister brands focused on hunting, hiking, and just about anything outdoors.

As of the year 2000, the company’s mission was to:

“Be the world’s most respected brands of performance footwear for work and outdoor.”

But as of 2013, there is no reference to this (or any other) mission statement on their website, LinkedIn profile, or online job postings. There is also no reference to any specific core values.

At the Red Wing Shoe Company, Red Wing is their premium brand, while Irish Setter is their value brand, and WORX is their industrial brand. Their traditional Red Wing boots and shoes are made at their U.S. plants, but their other brands are made mostly in China.

For their premium Red Wing Shoes, the brand statement is: “Work is our work.”

From their LinkedIn profile, they claim the company was “built on America’s great promise: If one worked hard enough, one could achieve anything.”

Well… this all sounds like work to me.

The Value of WORK.

As a differentiating value, Work means exerting mental or physical effort for a purpose; or having an effect or outcome.

But what exactly is work? How does a company live up to the value of work?

Lots of organizations highlight the value of hard work (interestingly, more often schools and non-profits than for-profit companies). It sounds hard. And it feels like work.

So what exactly does “hard work” mean?

• Is it the ability to stay in business after 100 years?
• Is it the ability to show up the next day after completing a painful day today?
• Is it the ability to do something that’s difficult to do or no one else can (or will) do?
• Is it the ability to stick with a task you don’t really like?

It’s all of this – and more.

There is nothing fun about hard work. Yet, it’s fascinating how hard work is promoted with vigor when it’s someone else who has to do it.

“It may be hard work Joe, but you’ll be happy when it’s done.”

But when it comes to us… well, the story changes.

While most of us claim to believe in the value of hard work, the phrase that is commonly promoted is:

“Work smarter, not harder.”

Why is that?

It’s the shift in focus from physical to mental. More brain than brawn. It’s about building solutions that are better, faster, cheaper, or easier, simpler, or just different.

This is why we celebrate successful geeks who found creative ways to solve problems using technology. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Jack Dorsey, and of course Mark Zuckerberg, to name a few.

So what does this mean for the Red Wing brand?

Focusing on Work

Watching a few of their videos, and one can tell The Red Wing Shoe Company clearly has a history of tradition, pride, teamwork, and achievement.

But over the past 20-30 years, the company has tried to diversify:

• In the mid-80’s they introduced new products and changed their motto from “work shoes” to “shoes for work” in an effort to capture growing markets. They produced footwear for such professions as computer operators, food service technicians, health care workers, and security personnel.
• Also in the mid-80’s they introduced Lady Red Wings, adapting their expertise in safety shoes for women who wanted something lighter and more comfortable.
• In 1986 they bought S.B. Foot Tanning, a prime supplier of leather for their work boots that also supplies leather to the U.S. Military. This strategy was likely implemented to protect a critical supply channel, and a move towards creating a vertically integrated business.
• In the late-80’s they developed an outdoor footwear division (Vasque) that provided aesthetically appealing hiking and walking shoes, as well as hiking footwear for kids.
• In 1999 they opened a flagship retail store in Mall of America, separate from its distribution channel of 6,000 stores. Their intent was to test a model of educating and ultimately converting consumers to its premium shoe and boot brands.

Have these efforts helped clarify their brand proposition around the value of work?

It’s hard to tell.

Who exactly is their customer today?

• Those who do a lot of physical work (e.g. workers on the factory floor)?
• Those who are on their feet all day (e.g. health care workers)?
• Those who do a lot of physical and mental work (e.g. engineers, surveyors)?
• Those who are the brainy geeks of today (e.g. programmers, designers)?

It should be those who embrace the value of work, as they define work.

Connecting with Work

If someone spends the whole day running around, showing how busy they can be, but at the end of the day there is no tangible outcome, progress made, or advancement in a cause, then was it really work they did? Not to someone who understands the value of work.

Bottom line: the value of work is designed to produce an outcome.

The brand of Red Wing Shoes appears to have a solid foundation. But to strengthen the brand with the value of work it needs to connect with those that understand the purpose of work.

So…. Imagine a pair of work boots or work shoes made specifically for those that get work done. Now that would be a differentiated brand.

 

If you could make one recommendation to executives at The Red Wing Shoe Company, what would it be?

 

Today’s value was selected from the “Effectiveness-Influence” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Values.