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00:00Ben, I do want to start with you. The big event in Times Square. And more importantly, what exactly are you showing off? What am I going to be able to do in the future that I can't do today? Yeah. Thank you for having us. So in Times Square now, we've created a first of its kind experience. You are now able to walk onto a machine and scan your feet. Makes a 3D model of your feet. We're able to get information more than what we could do with our online scanning system. Like the way your toes are shaped, the way your heels designed. Pretty much the same information you would take into account when making custom orthotics. And now we can give you a fully custom made 3D print shoe with this information. 4 to 6 weeks later in the heart of New York City, in a spot where so many amazing tourists are coming through and a store called Tomorrow that just opened up in the Candler Building. It's a game changer for footwear sizing. There are so many people that are struggling to get proper fitted shoes and now we have a solution for that. And it's a solution in an area where a lot of people can get access to it. Joe, give me a sense here, though, of the balance between people sort of making a decision about buying a pair of shoes based on, know, comfort and sizing versus, you know, styling and maybe some of the, you know, for lack of a better phrase, some of the more superficial things that let's just face it, a lot of us tend to focus on. Well, we're now seeing a change. We are now seeing this disruption. And, you know, we have politics which is coming in this and saying, you know, tariffs and so is wonderful to be able to do something which is going to disrupt that. And, you know, with 3D printing, you can actually make this product anywhere in the world, which means that you can do it in America. So, you know, this is something that is changing the way that people look at product. And, you know, sneakers have really influenced the street for 50 years and it's moving on. They move into our slides and clogs and this is where 3D printing is coming in and making a difference. Well, Joe makes an interesting point here, Ben, that when it comes to 3D printing, you can make shoes anywhere and you can specifically make them in America. When it comes to situating this in the context of tariffs and the geopolitical landscape, I have to imagine that maybe it isn't something that you had in mind when you set out to 3D print sneakers, but has to be a huge benefit. Yeah, it's something we're actively thinking about and we are putting a plan in place to try to make this happen. We believe that 3D printed approach for footwear is a whole different way to make it entirely 100% American made footwear product. And you know, you don't have the same type of labor requirements for 3D printing. It's just a much easier process. So, you know, we're looking at a lot of companies now and they're trying to figure out their production and you just a shift over that typical production from China or these other places to the U.S. is quite an effort and you have to find labor force. We get rid of one of the biggest aspects of this, which is the labor force. I mean, this is automation. You're able to just print out a shoe without anybody really involved in that and just need to have the proper processes in place. So this production method can really be a game changer in that. And we're actively looking into how to produce in America. And so talk to us, though, about the integrity of the shoes. Ramin got into a little bit of this when it comes to people buy shoes for style, they buy shoes for comfort. There's people who, of course, buy shoes for performance. So when it comes to 3D printed shoes, are you able to get the elements that you need to have these shoes actually be able to withstand some of the athletic demands that you might put on them? Well, we're not really looking at that side of performance. What we're looking at is how would you change the methods that are used now? Traditional methods. You never move out of Asia because of the volumes you require. So that's difficult, you know, And let's go back to rebar. Rebar when we were starting and we move forward, we look for white space and why spaces was is it we can go now and try and make a difference? Well, you know, 3D printing, a designing and scanning, these are three different areas that we could work on. We got to develop these. Okay, 3D printing is not particularly fast at this moment and the big companies can't really look at it because they need more volume than we do it essentially, but know we can get the volume we need to make that difference. And in doing so, we're also looking to 3D printers. Come on, guys. Let's look at developing 3D printing. Let's let's make the time to print out a shoe, which is probably almost 12 hours to print my own shoe. Let's get it down to one hour. Yeah, this is developing different methods. It's not all moves as we see performance today, but, you know, as we move in this area, we're going to look at all the different areas where we can become performance as against just changing the landscape of shoes that people wear. When it comes to athletic shoes, though, Joe, I am curious as to what people want right now. Companies like Nike had sort of been at a bit of a crisis as of late. The idea of do you go after the folks who just want it for fashion or do you sort of double down on the athletes, the idea of people who want those athletic shoes for actual athletic purposes? I don't think we can change that landscape at the moment. I think athletic shoes will still come from traditional manufacturing or you've got different materials where you experiment with different rubbers and you know you want performance and Reebok want performers, and it is one performance in 91 performance. What we would like to see was essentially is because the landscape is changing now from sneakers, which are street, we're now looking at closed, we're looking at sliders. So people are looking for footwear, which is comfortable and easy to wear. And what we have where we're offering something which is a personalized measurements. Yeah, these shoes are custom made for you. So it's looking at different areas that we can change the way we see street shoes and what people want. And as we move into this, we can challenge people with 3D printed regions. We don't we want we want to have a few variations. Do we want to look at performance? We want to look at comfort. And so it's just a process. But meanwhile with centrally it is putting out to the people something. This is different. Come with us and take the journey. Well then let's talk about price points here. When it comes to, you know, these custom 3D printed shoes, what is the price differential versus custom shoes that were maybe made the old fashioned way? It's a great question. So we worked really hard from our first version of our Explorer slide we launched earlier in the year. That was the first eye designed slide in the world. We worked to get that price down to produce a lot, so we're now actually able to offer for our sneaker here the Luminaires, the most air generated physical product of any category, a price point of $189 for a fully custom made shoe one of one. So it's pretty competitive to what you would pay for a traditional sneaker, and the experience is really unparalleled. I went through the process many times. I've got my feet scanned in person. In her spot in Times Square and the experience of getting it with this heart, getting it done with this high quality scanner, it's really incredible. You feel like the shoe is made for you. Precisely. It feels like it's like a glove, like experience with footwear and you don't want to try anything else after that. And so we think that now making this accessible, having an accessible price point, our slides, $119, the version one of it was $50 is going to be a game changer.

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Seeing A 'Disruption' in Footwear: Reebok Co-Founder

Joe Foster, Reebok Co-Founder, says footwear is being disrupted by 3D printing, which could allow production in the U.S. He tells Romaine Bostick and Katie Greifeld on “The Close” that while traditional shoe manufacturing is hard to move out of Asia, 3D printing opens new possibilities for production methods. (Source: Bloomberg)

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