Kaohsiung-based I-Pass Corp’s yesterday launch of a smartcard shaped to look like a green and white flip-flop caused some to question if the firm was trying to cash in on the Democratic Progressive Party’s landslide win in Saturday last week’s elections.
The company had previously issued I-Pass cards designed to look like blue and white or red and white flip-flops, both of which were popular with the public.
That the color of the cards coincides with the pan-green camp’s victory was pure chance, the company said.
Photo courtesy of iPASS Corporation
It chose the new design long before the date of the elections and had always planned to launch the product some time before the Lunar New Year holiday, the firm said.
Interest in its I-Pass cards increased dramatically after the Taipei EasyCard Corp launched a set of EasyCards featuring Japanese adult video star Yui Hatano, with media outlets comparing the relative merits of the two systems, the company said.
At the time the company had just introduced its two versions of its I-Pass cards designed to look like common Taiwanese flip-flops, the company said.
Photo courtesy of I-Pass Corp
The creative designs — which differentiate them from Taipei EasyCards — motivated many people to purchase I-Pass cards, the company said, adding that it sold 1,400 cards within half an hour — a record. In total, the company sold 11,000 I-Pass flip-flop designs in each of the two color choices last year.
The company said it has made 20,000 green and white cards available for sale — 10,000 left-footed flip-flops and 10,000 for the right.
The nation’s iconic blue and white flip-flops are reported to have been conceived and mass-produced in the 1950s by the Ministry of National Defense’s Combined Logistics Command to provide the public with affordable rubber footwear. The blue and white color was chosen to represent the national flag of the Republic of China (ROC).
The comfortable, durable and inexpensive flip-flops were later produced by many private companies and became popular as a utilitarian choice of footwear for middle-aged people with no particular interest in modern trends. They have become an icon of grassroots culture in recent years.
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