When customers want to stand out, small brands can cash in.
11-30-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- Benji Wagner knows a dirty little secret about the outdoor apparel industry: Big brands like Patagonia and The North Face may advertise their gear being put to the test in the highest mountains and at the ends of the Earth, but 83 percent of all camping trips in the United States actually take place within a few feet of a car or a house. So Wagner is going straight at those consumers -- people who want to feel comfortable inside a tent perhaps just a few feet above sea level.
“The outdoor industry was founded on mountaineering, but most people are wearing their jacket to go grocery shopping,” says Wagner, cofounder and creative director of Poler Outdoor Stuff, which, since its 2011 launch, now sees double-digit growth every year. “The industry went down the rabbit hole in terms of creating more and more technical products for a consumer that’s essentially a weekend warrior. Poler makes a great jacket, but we’re not going to pretend you’re gonna climb Mount Everest in it.”
It may have once seemed impossible to go up against giant, established brands, but that increasingly just isn’t the case. Poler, and the apparel industry at large, tells an important story that’s true across all types of businesses: Broad but overlooked segments of consumers are being forgotten by big brands’ mass appeal, and even the smallest of players can use the internet to build strong personal connections with those left behind. The key is to tell seductive, inspiring (yet realistic!) stories that resonate and to give customers what the biggest companies can’t: a sense that Yeah, we get you.
“What many brands have nowadays is the ability to communicate who and what they are,” says Marshal Cohen, a retail analyst with The NPD Group. “Customers today are not looking to be one of a million people -- they’re looking to be one in a million. They want to stand out.”
Communicating that doesn’t require big-budget money. Tracksmith, an upscale running apparel brand from Wellesley, Mass., doubled its social media reach in the past 10 months with less than $5,000 in ad spending, and has netted a $4.1 million investment from Pentland Group, which owns a stake in Speedo and licenses for Lacoste footwear and Ted Baker. Here’s how: It saw that household names like Nike, Adidas and Puma have conflated running with health and wellness in an effort to win the attention of gym rats -- so Tracksmith, which launched in 2011, celebrated the tradition of running as a stand-alone sport. It chased the habitual runner, creating a visceral brand story with photography that portrays everyday runners training, sweating and looking exhausted rather than triumphant.
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