• Reuters, Monday, October 25, 2010 10:44 AM

Maybe you've seen someone wearing the Vibram Five Fingers (www.vibramfivefingers.com) running shoe that sports five toes and looks like something a pollywog playing dress-up might wear around the lake house. If you have, says Vibram USA CEO and president Tony Post, you've probably been tempted to ask him or her about it. And that's been the success of the product.

"It's all been social media, grassroots marketing, a lot of one-on-one conversations, frankly, is what it's been that's built this business," he tells Natalie Armstrong. And when bigger companies copy his product, he's counting on those relationships to keep it going. "People will always find a way, even if it's not an exact copy to design around something, so at the end of the day it's really about your relationship with the consumer," Post says.

There now are more than 700 distributors for the shoe, which forces runners to land on their forefoot instead of their heels, in North America. Post says the company has "never run a single ad" for the product, which targets young, active people interested in anything from fitness training, running and outdoor activities to yoga.

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