Shoesday Tuesdays: Award-Wining Vibram FiveFingers Microsite Bares All to Promote Minimalist Running

Shoesday Tuesdays: Award-Wining Vibram FiveFingers Microsite Bares All to Promote Minimalist Running <script src

Footwear Webdesk
March 22, 2011

What’s the best way to promote running sans thick, cushy-soled shoes? For Vibram FiveFingers, it meant launching a microsite, www.youarethetechnology.com, featuring hard-bodied models sans clothes—with the brand’s message tattooed all over.

Already named a winner by the well-regarded Favorite Website Awards, the immersive site allows users to click on the models’ tattoos—painted on some pretty provocative spots—to learn more about the benefits of FiveFingers. “Our goal for the site was to educate, inspire, and—pardon the pun—expose consumers to our concept and the benefits of natural running,” says Vibram FiveFingers CEO and President Tony Post. “Because the site is provocative, it becomes a metaphor for how different Vibram FiveFingers really are, and how much they work as an extension of the body moving naturally.”

Intended to promote the brand’s first running model, the Bikila, the site proved so popular Vibram created a behind-the-scenes video to explain its creation, from how the models were tattooed (hand-painted by an artist) to how the interactive technology was captured (using motion-control cameras). “The idea behind the microsite really came out of the core belief behind barefoot running, which is you are all you really need to run,” says Brian Gross, one of the creative minds behind the microsite. “If the thought is you are the technology, we thought, ‘Well, what about if you are the website?'” —Audrey Goodson