for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.
It’s not exactly Biggie-Tupac, but the Kanye-Zappos feud is picking up steam.
Kanye West, fresh from his celestial motorcycle ride in the sky with his betrothed, isn’t done making social media waves this week. In a recent podcast interview with fellow trash-talker Bret Easton Ellis, the rapper had some not-so-collegiate things to say about Tony Hsieh, CEO of the online shoe and apparel retailer Zappos.
“I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he’s trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this shit product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling shit product,” Yeezus told the podcasting author.
Digiday reached out to Hsieh to see if he could provide some context for this out-of-the-blue beef. In response, Hsieh forwarded along the internal email he’d shared with his staff, which instructs anyone asked about the Kanye issue, to share his official statement, which is:
“Yes, it’s true that we sell sh-t product. Check out this link: http://www.zappos.com/product/8327195.”
The link direct people to the Zappos “sh-t product” page:
The product information section reads: “Interested in buying sh-t product? You’ve come to the right place! Here at Zappos.com, we happily sell sh-t products to everybody! This is the throne, everyone has been watching. [sic] Whether you’re #1 or #2, your clique will show no mercy, even in Paris.”
The response, which is sure to infuriate the thin-skinned West, is keeping in perfect tune with the oddball culture Hsieh has cultivated at Zappos, where employees regularly blow kazoos to greet visitors, dress in costumes and decorate their workspaces like it’s Mardi Gras. Well-played, Zappos
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