Toms, the once-high-flying shoe brand, is itching for a comeback, Bloomberg News reported. It starts with expanding beyond the millennials who swooned for its slip-ons and how it donated a pair of shoes to a needy kid for each one sold. To connect with today’s teens and early 20-somethings — a group dubbed Generation Z — the brand has ended the footwear donations that keyed its breakthrough a decade ago and is now giving a third of profit to causes it says this younger cohort cares about, such as gun violence. Marketing has been revamped to focus on teens. It’s also pushing further into sneakers. This is all part of the brand’s bid to rebound from a remarkable fall that saw it sink from being touted in Vogue and worn by celebs such as Snoop Dogg and Anne Hathaway to being mismanaged by private equity into near-collapse — creditors took control of the debt-laden company in December 2019. Magnus Wedhammar, a former Nike and Converse executive, arrived shortly thereafter as CEO to clean up the mess.
