Sometimes a brand blazes a trail, only to find itself outrun by the competition. 

Back in 2006, entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie, who made his name and a small fortune as a contestant on reality TV show, The Amazing Race, came up with a unique proposition for a new brand, TOMS Shoes. The business model: TOMS would donate a pair of shoes to a child who lived in poverty for every pair of shoes sold. The philanthropic concept quickly became a sensation that catapulted the company's brand awareness to superstar status.

Not surprisingly, other companies started to knock off the idea. The most egregious copycat has been a line of shoes called "BOBS" that Skechers introduced in 2010. BOBS not only look exactly like TOMS signature shoe, right down to the logo stitched on a visible exterior label, but Skechers also shamelessly followed TOMS' "one-for-one" model of giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold.Continue reading...

Skechers recently got itself into hot water when it had to shell out $40 million to settle a suit brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission to settle false advertising charges that its “toning sneakers” could make consumers look and actually be healthier without having them change their behavior in any other way.

Now the shoe brand is looking to build back some of the good feeling it torpedoed with that incident.

The company just announced that it has “donated its first million pair of kids’ shoes through its BOBS from SKECHERS program, which gives a new pair to a child in need for every BOBS footwear purchase.” Those shoes will be finding the feet of kids in the U.S., Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The BOBS sub-brand, which already mimics philanthropic brand TOMS in name, logo and shoe design, is clearly taking a cue from TOMS' "One For One" mission, which donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased.

That clearly doesn't bother celebrity ambassador Brooke Burke-Charvet, the co-host of Dancing With the Stars, who trades her Skecher Shape-ups "toning shoes" for BOBS for the photo opp.Continue reading...