The most interesting takeaway here is their clever use of a meme to engage in SEO for runningshoes.com.
However the discussion itself (and not the technique used to start it) probably doesn't add much to HN so I'd consider this spam.
I see what you did there.
Running shoes.
Really clever, especially when you consider this isn't at all connected to their main business (except for a little link to running shoes). I wonder if this was someone's 20% time...