Remembering who you really are...
months
12
+28%
growth
FALLING OFF THE CLIFF
Extremely well-made. Rugged. Durable. Comfortable. From the Grand Tetons to the Himalayas, Vasque has enjoyed a longtime reputation for being essential footwear among outdoor lovers and adventurers. But sales have begun to slide - a function of a marketplace that has exploded with consumer demand, new competitors, and a variety of knock-off SKUs.
There is a deeper problem, too. Recently, even Vasque’s most loyal and vocal fans - outdoor adventurers - have been defecting from the brand.
I am asked to be the marketing team's eyes and ears, to discover and fix what has gone wrong.
PROBLEM #1: PROSPERITY = CATEGORY FRACTURE
At one time, Vasque is considered professional grade - one of the top mountain footwear brands in the world. In fact, Vasque's high price often serves as the principal barrier between off-the-street posers and those high-country adventurers.
Rapid growth in consumer wealth changes all that.
Soon, "professional grade" becomes a popular fashion niche for people who rarely set foot in a local city park, much less spend time hiking a tectonic fault line or climbing in the dead zone of a stratospheric mountain. To be fair, the brand doesn't actively pursue these casual consumers. But Vasque doesn't reject them either (Hey...sales are sales, right?). As a result, the brand's mystique and mountain-cred erodes quickly when Vasque boots start showing up on the feet of suburban housewives, teenagers, fashionistas, rappers, and urban lumberjack wannabes.
PROBLEM #2: SACRIFICING VOLUME FOR POPULARITY
How many rugged boots do you go through in a year?
If you are an adventurer, climbing professional, or an aggressive outdoor hobbyist, you go through about two or three pairs in a year. On the other hand, at best, fashionistas and urban hipsters purchase boots about once every three-to-four years. By inadvertently becoming a fashion brand, with fewer repeat purchases, Vasque is placing itself into a low-frequency category. We're talking a nearly -43% drop in per-capita repeat purchases.
Recapturing the imagination - and loyalty - of our hardcore adventurers isn't just a matter of brand preference or positioning...it's a matter of economic survival!
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In the end, Vasque needs to get back to its core! To embrace the roots of the brand. Maybe even go overboard, placing these boots back where they belong. If suburban housewives buy the brand…so what? Our focus, our communication, and our brand experience must always be in the hearts, the lungs, the spine - and the soul - of our adventurer...
...Up where the air is thin, the load is heavy, and the risk is great!
"IT'S IN YOUR HEARTS...IN YOUR LUNGS...IN YOUR SOUL."
The creative challenge: The outdoor gear category is littered with sameness, with virtually every brand - from footwear to jackets, from ear muffs to navigation devices - featuring the images you see on this page (climbers backdropped by amazing landscapes). This creates "brand blindness" among a large segment of our audience. We need to differentiate, distinguish, and disrupt.
So, over the next year, we completely depart from cliché outdoor images.
Instead, the lungs, heart and spine permeate most of all of our brand messaging.
Credibility in this category requires the brand to "Be where the consumer really lives...and almost dies." We also convince Vasque to renew its commitment to outdoor sponsorships and partnerships, as well as its strong presence at professional-grade adventure events.
Mountain-cred returns and soon Vasque is once again climbing.
PERFORMANCE
Garnering huge attention, advertising recall and brand recall experiences high double-digit growth, accompanied by a significant rebound in positive brand perception among our most vital audiences.
By year's end, we convert Vasque's slump into +28% growth.
