New Balance is forsaking its heritage of communicating with its consumers with low-key, credible honesty, and embracing instead a flashy ad campaign.
Called "Love/Hate," the spots feature the typical lifestyle nonsense that we've come to expect from athletic shoe brands like Nike and Adidas: little vignettes that purport to capture the essence of the experiences and relationships people have with their running shoes. The company is doubling its marketing budget to make sure as many folks as possible experience this all-important communication.
The branding comes courtesy of Robert DeMartini, a new CEO with experience working on consumer products brands like Gillette razor blades and Pringle's potato chips. In other words, he has deep expertise in an avocation that could less-then-charitably be called "making something out of nothing."
But New Balance has something, or at least it did, before the glossy makeover. This is the company that:
- Sizes shoes for narrow and wide feet
- Eschews paid celebrity endorsements
- Makes about 25% of its products in the U.S.
- Fulfills retailer orders almost in real-time, so they can cater to consumer demand
How the new CEO got from this heritage to a bland lifestyle feel-good ad campaign is hard to imagine, unless you factor in his promise to triple company revenue by 2012. Such bold, Big Picture vision usually requires businesses to forsake the proven reasons for success so far, and embrace lots of management strategy and branding blather to support its wild hopes and dreams.
Am I a dim bulb for missing something here?
New Balance has built its brand on real, meaningful differentiators, as recapped above. You could easily imagine marketing that promoted any one (or all) of them, and then extended the reach and relevance to new consumers:
- Target infrequent or new runners, especially those like me over 40, who have (or fear) foot pain problems. The sizing variability could translate into more comfort and better results. Think introductory programs, a trade-in campaign, or even new products developed for such a specific segment (or segments)
- Go to town with the authenticity theme...I bet there are celebs who use New Balance and would never talk about it publicly. The company should find them and create campaigns based on that fact: "So-and-so uses New Balance, and doesn't get paid for it. Just like you." Or whatever. How about featuring real people as endorsers?
- Get real with online interaction. Its lame foray into work-out tracking gives little reason to participate, and requires registration to view anything more than a static example page
- The "made in the USA" theme could be motivational to many consumer groups, especially if they linked the shoe manufacturing to all of the supporting vendors and others involved in the process. This would only work in America, of course, but we're talking a large market. Imagine social media tools built around each shoe production "ecology."
- Promoting the retailer support angle could get translated into consumers expecting to find (or quickly get) their ideal shoe when they go shopping. This speaks to credibility and authenticity (i.e. you want it, you get it)
There's ample fodder within the business -- again, looking at presenting reality, not trying to recast it as some creative invention -- to dream up ads, pr, social media, viral whatever, and any other tools to communicate with consumers. I just don't understand how the company could chose to ignore all of these wonderful brand attributes, and choose to recast the company through some esoteric ad campaign about love and hate.
The new branding tells consumers absolutely nothing about New Balance, though is says a lot about the new CEO and his branding gurus.
By 2012, they'll all have moved on to wreak their branding brilliance at other businesses.
i was being rhetorical! lol. thanks for your comment, tho, and I appreciate your perspective. my point isn't that NB shouldn't go after a new or larger demographic; rather, that its 'appealing ads' could be commercials for a sports drink, razor blades, clothing, or any number of other products. this brand of lifestyle branding is just too generic and too vague to attract anybody to check out much of anything, in my opinion. but you're right...perhaps I am indeed dim on this one...
Posted by: Jonathan | April 14, 2008 at 03:00 PM
"Am I a dim bulb for missing something here?"
Yes.
Your ideas about how marketing works are quaint. New Balance makes a great shoe and people like you who already know that will continue to purchase them. People who don't know will want to learn more when they see what I consider to be very appealing ads both visually and thematically. And despite NB's hopes to attract sales from 18-29 year olds, what about this ad
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bdeEPhdpay0
makes you feel alienated? The protagonist is easily 40.
LB
Posted by: LB | April 14, 2008 at 02:37 PM
Tima, I think we agree more than disagree. Obviously, NB needed to do things to grown & strengthen its business. My point was that there were ample qualities in the businesses practices that got them to where they are...the reality of its value to its customers...and that these attributes could have been developed, focused, grown, and otherwise used in new, creative ways to move into the future.
Instead, the company hired a new CEO with an expertise in hiring hoity-toity advertising gurus who proceeded to give NB a branding campaign that looks, sounds, and says the same things that its competitors say.
We can dissect and rationalize it all day, but the reality is that discarding all of the realities that make NB different, and choosing a bunch of disposable themes and imagery instead, just isn't smart branding or marketing.
NB is proving that it's just as dumb as other big corporations that spend oodles of money trying to present something that they're not to the public, instead of figuring out how to grow what they do possess. Running shoe companies don't get paid for being 'inspiring' or anything else. Getting and keeping customers is how they make a profit, and my prediction is that this latest campaign won't impact those numbers one bit.
Posted by: Jonathan | April 02, 2008 at 09:57 PM
While I appreciate the candor of your comments, I respectfully disagree with the concept there's "ample fodder" within New Balance's business for it to NOT need to more aggressively market it brand and products. New Balance has been promoting the very virtues you note for years, and has successfully become an uninspiring brand - an uninspiring brand in a marketplace that exalts grandeur.
Among all of the discussion about the new brand campaign, have we all overlooked the reason why the investment is needed now? Sure, the company aspires to have aggressive growth in the coming years (according to the new CEO). But, that's forward looking. Why is there a NEW CEO? Looking backwards, recent financial reports indicate the company's sales have been flat for the past four years.
Clearly, something needed to be done. I give the company credit for trying something aggressive ... something seemingly UN-New Balance.
Posted by: Tima | April 02, 2008 at 08:58 PM
Very valid point re the shoe.
I chose it to illustrate what I see as a shift from 'doing' meaningful things with the business -- all of the legitimate reasons you and others cite as why people like and shop NB -- to 'describing' the brand as an abstraction.
My point is that there's so much substance in the reality of its business that it didn't have to reach so far afield and waste lots of money on trying to communicate 'love' or 'hate' or anything like that.
Sure, we can attach the concept to NB for a moment, but the creative approach doesn't emerge 'from' NB, per se. It's the stuff of smart, creative people at their agency.
So there could very well be the same business dedication to making real, and really good, shoes, but the company has chosen to skip all that, and make some invented nonsense the public 'face' of the company. That makes me worry that maybe the company isn't so dedicated to making quality shoes anymore...as much as perhaps dividing its time between putting money against shoes, and now, wasting lots of money on glossy advertising.
Dont' get me wrong: I like the ads, as ads go. I also like almost everything Nike creates. But none of it makes me want to buy the shoes, any more than it does you, right?
My pick on the shoe image in the post was meant to illustrate this disconnect. But you're absolutely right; I picked a really silly looking one.
Posted by: Jonathan | March 28, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Not sure if I entirely agree. When I read the press release about this ad campaign (granted, it's a press release), I read multiple times about the innovation and history of New Balance. I don't ever read that it is being forsaken nor do I feel that shoes are being peddled at the expense of the lineage of the company. Additionally, after watching some of the ads on the site and the ones that started last night on TV, it's not just a flashy mantra driven Nike or Adidas ad. Sure, there's a mantra, but there's more substance and more tie back to the actual notion of finding balance between why you love to run and why you hate it at the same time. To me, it speaks very clearly to new balance. Yes, it's probably something that Nike could say as well, but it's very appropriate for New Balance. Maybe not everyone likes it, but I'm personally excited to finally see a New Balance ad.
As far as the shoe that you have in this blog, it's a very different shoe than what you would use for running. Sneakers are more a part of today's fashion culture than ever before. I for one have never bought a New Balance shoe, but have heard amazing things about them. It's not because I don't like the shoe... it's because I don't like running! If that's an indictment, so be it. New Balance has a reputation of creating amazing shoes... even among 'Sneakerheads' who love the shoes for how they look, not just how they feel when they run. However, the shoe above in your picture, and the newly launched LOVE/hate campaign are unrelated.
Posted by: jordan | March 28, 2008 at 09:36 AM
Okay, so I'm an old fogey, but NB has been the ONLY shoe that I can comfortably wear, and it is one of the few that comes in a size 2E. I sure hope this new CEO doesn't leave me out in the cold, shoeless!!!
Posted by: Dori | March 27, 2008 at 10:01 AM
Wow! Really great insights.
I sense we all feel disappointment on this subject; unlike its competitors, New Balance possesses real differentiators that it could use to make its business more competitive, as Scott points out. Mattias' idea re ambassadors is spot on, I think, and dovetails into the behavioral approach that I believe drives a lot of David's thinking.
Unfortunately, the company is now undergoing the modern-day equivalent of treatment with leeches and bleeding (the brand drs/gurus are going to see if they can kill the patient in the service of some very dangerous, or just dangerously bad, ideas).
Thanks for the comments!
Posted by: Jonathan | March 25, 2008 at 09:03 AM
Jonathan, the only thing missing from your story of New Balance's imminent fall from runners' grace is a reflection on Starbuck's trials and tribulations that it encountered once it left the safe haven of authenticity to grow the company bigger and more efficient. Howard Shultz is now back at work as CEO, trying to undo the damage done to the brand by the MBA mentalities that hijacked the company. I agree -- New Balance now appears to be traveling down the same path.
Posted by: David Wolfe | March 25, 2008 at 08:05 AM
I actually met with New Balance a few years ago. The entire lot was CLUELESS. At that time they were a mom and pop run company.
Here's the deal. Unlike a lot of companies New Balance does infact have a solid brand identity. They are the shoes for runners. Period.
Competing with Reebok and Nike will only get them to one place:
LA Gear land!
They need to develop brand strategies that capture runners and sell to that group. Once again another company trying to be everything to everyone will only lead to its demise (look at Starbucks now).
Posted by: BIG Kahuna | March 25, 2008 at 07:32 AM