Crocs Wants You to Forget About Its Clogs

Search online for “hate crocs” and you’ll quickly see why Crocs is eager to downplay the clunky clogs it unleashed on an unsuspecting world 11 years ago. Bloggers have denounced the rubbery footwear as ugly and an escalator tripping hazard. On YouTube, a woman cuts a yellow pair into pieces and then feeds them to a blender.

The clogs still generate 47 percent of the company’s sales; lots of people like them, especially medical professionals and kids. Yet to hit Chief Executive Officer John McCarvel’s target of doubling sales in five years, the company has to woo consumers with its other footwear. That’s why Crocs-the-company is telling the world all about its foam-bottomed wedges, sneakers, and leopard-print ballet flats—and putting Crocs-the-clogs in the back of stores the way grocers do with milk. “If someone wants them,” McCarvel says, “make them walk through all the new stuff first.”