In the 1930s, Kinney's was one of the first shoe companies to use sports figures to sponsor footwear. C.O. Anderson had played professional basketball after he graduated with an engineering degree in the early 1920s with the New York Knights. He had played against the New York Celtics and his competition's center was Joe Lapchick.
Anderson had asked Lapchick to devise a list for specifications for basketball sneakers and to endorse the finished product. The result was a phenomenal increase in sales. Several hundred thousand "Joes" sneakers were sold each year in Kinney Shoes stores as late as 1965.
Kinney Shoes Stores handed out basketball rules in the late 1940s to customers. A step ahead of the competition, the company captitalized on the sports figure sponsorship.
Source: Retail Revolutionary Kinney Shoe Corporation's First Century in Footwear
Kathleen McDermott
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