A pastel blue upper, a saturated orange midsole, and a flash of pink branding. One of Skechers’ most eye-catching running sneakers right now does not replicate the technical aspects of Hoka’s hot-selling Clifton sneaker, but it unmistakably evokes it through the choice of colors. The resemblance is not accidental: Skechers – a brand with a long history of offering lower-cost takes on popular footwear styles – appears to have drawn inspiration from a colorway that many consumers may already associate with Hoka.
The intriguing question here is not whether one sneaker was inspired by another (that seems obvious), but what is required for that strategy to work. For the Skechers sneaker to benefit from its resemblance to Hoka’s Clifton, consumers must already associate that particular color combination with Hoka. Put another way, the strategy depends on consumers seeing the colorway and thinking of Hoka.
Recognizing the Reference
The possibility that consumers would connect the blue-and-orange colorway with Hoka – and Skechers appears to be betting that they will – says something important about consumer behavior. Consumers are not merely noticing design details; they are making associations between those details and particular brands. One way those associations are formed is through color. A particular color or combination of colors can call a brand to mind even without logos or style names.
The Skechers sneaker is a useful example of how color can function as a branding cue. Much of the value of dupes (in the sneaker context or beyond) depends on consumers recognizing aspects of a familiar product in an alternative offering and finding that resemblance appealing. Here, that means at least some consumers see the color combination of Skechers’ Max Cushioning Endeavour Canova sneaker, think of Hoka, and view the Skechers shoe as an appealing alternative (and buy it).
In other words, the Skechers sneaker appears to reflect a simple reality: colorways can carry source-identifying significance in the minds of consumers. If they could not, there would be little reason to evoke them in the first place.
Color Marks and Colorways
That observation is meaningful because, under U.S. law, color can serve as a trademark when consumers use it as an indicator of source. The Supreme Court made that clear in Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., holding that a color can be protectable if it identifies and distinguishes a product’s source.
At the same time, the Supreme Court recognized the risks that come with granting exclusive rights in color, including the competitive necessity of color and the danger of allowing companies to monopolize elements of a finite design palette. Those concerns have helped shape a cautious approach to color marks, particularly in industries like apparel and footwear, where color serves an aesthetic function far more often than a source-identifying one.
Sneakers – and their fast-moving, seasonal colorways – put those concerns into sharp focus. While trademark law permits protection for colors that have acquired secondary meaning, many sneaker colorways are inherently difficult to protect and enforce. Granting exclusive rights in short-lived color combinations risks restricting competition in a market where color is often a critical creative element.
The distinction between consumer recognition and trademark rights is particularly important in the context of colorways. A colorway may quickly become associated with a particular brand, especially in an era of social media, influencer marketing, and rapid trend cycles. But just because consumers may associate a popular colorway with a particular brand does not necessarily mean that it has acquired the distinctiveness necessary to warrant trademark protection.
THE BOTTOM LINE: The significance of the Skechers sneaker lies not in the resemblance itself, but in what that resemblance reveals about consumers. The shoe suggests that consumers are capable of associating a particular colorway with a particular brand, and that competitors recognize the value of those associations. At the same time, it highlights an important distinction between consumer recognition and trademark protection. Consumers may quickly associate a design cue with a particular source without necessarily believing that the cue should belong exclusively to that source.
Consumers may be doing the cognitive work trademark law cares about – recognizing source-signaling cues – without demanding the exclusivity trademark law is designed to provide. That helps explain both the appeal of dupes and trademark law’s continued caution around granting broad rights in trend-driven aesthetic features.
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