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  • Shoe Fashion Newsletter | The Sneakerina Has Landed—Louis Vuitton’s Boldest Move Yet

Shoe Fashion Newsletter | The Sneakerina Has Landed—Louis Vuitton’s Boldest Move Yet

Plus: Fospha reveals how top footwear brands structure Google ad budgets for real performance lift.

Author

Sophie Bruxner-Randall
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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Shoe Fashion is the essential newsletter for eCommerce footwear professionals.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Sector Spotlight 🎥

BRAND COLLABORATION TRENDS

Six notable running collaborations—including The North Face x UNDERCOVER, Salomon x MM6 Maison Margiela, and SAYSKY x PUMA—highlight a surge in performance-meets-style collections tailored for today’s running culture. Marketers should note the experiential branding, cross-industry partnerships, and visual storytelling driving consumer engagement and product differentiation.

SNEAKER COLLABORATION

Fragment and Union LA’s collaboration on the Air Jordan 1 High OG merges legacy sneaker design with modern streetwear cues, featuring signature branding and detailed craftsmanship. Launching Spring 2026 at $200, this release presents concrete co-branding tactics professionals can study for product differentiation in fashion and retail marketing.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Adidas has signed NFL star Micah Parsons to a multiyear partnership, aligning their brand with his rapid ascent and influential presence in sports culture. Parsons will wear Adidas apparel and footwear on-field and participate in marketing campaigns, enhancing the brand’s credibility among football fans and aspiring athletes.

CELEBRITY STYLE MARKETING

Blake Lively’s appearance at the 2025 Time100 Gala in a vivid Zuhair Murad gown and rare Christian Louboutin Crystal Queen sandals showcases the ongoing synergy between high fashion and celebrity-driven brand storytelling. For marketers, this event underscores how influential brand placements at premium events drive aspirational consumer engagement and shape luxury trends.

PRODUCT INNOVATION

Louis Vuitton’s Sneakerina merges sneaker comfort with ballet flat aesthetics, targeting demand for versatile, luxury footwear that bridges formal and casual settings. Its launch supports the brand’s move to attract both loyalists and younger consumers as market preferences shift. Marketers should note the multifaceted influencer-led campaign driving this trend.

SUSTAINABLE LUXURY MATERIALS

Lab-grown leather reshapes the men’s luxury shoe market in 2028 by meeting affluent consumers’ demands for sustainability, aesthetic customization, and high performance. Marketers should note that transparency in production and educational in-store experiences drive trust and purchase decisions, while collaborations with biotech firms improve material quality and market appeal.

Influencer Corner 📣

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

Rumour has it that OpenAI might be quietly working on a native Shopify checkout inside ChatGPT.

Apparently ‘leaked’ code shows:

👉 'shopify_checkout_url'
👉 'buy_now'
👉 'product_offer_ratings'

No redirects. No search. Just chat, compare, and buy in one flow. Unconfirmed, but catching attention.

If this happens?

Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change.

📲 Like what you’re seeing?

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Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

ClickZ is a Contentive publication in the DTC eCommerce division