Reebok Gets Attention Again With Crossfit

At the end of the annual CrossFit tournament, athletes on the field were caught and killed. The audience at the stadium was not idle. There were Reebok stores on the side of the competition. The audience watched the game excitedly, and could also go to the sports shops and buy some products that they liked.

Wang Tianhua, who has just returned from the CrossFit championship, told reporters that "these people are really buying! The spectators, the ordinary people, are really buying them!" every piece of CrossFit. T-shirt 35 dollars, many discounts. product Many people are willing to spend money to buy. reebok Special products launched for CrossFit.

Such consumers are mad at Reebok products, presumably Reebok has not experienced it for many years.

Reebok, the sports brand that was born for 121 years, started from fitness brand and developed Freestyle fitness shoes specially for women in 1970s. At that time, women in the North American continent were led by the Hollywood actress Jane Fonda to do aerobics, while Reebok's Freestyle just filled the huge market vacancy. The company's annual sales revenue rose from $4 million to $1 billion 400 million in the short five years of the end of 80s, and the company also successfully went public in second years.

Subsequently, Reebok launched a number of leading technologies and products, including Pump series package sports shoes, side mounted air cushions, etc., which became the best selling brand of sports shoes in the US market for three years in a row. However, Reebok has not grasped the next step of the shoe market, and gradually lost to the new force Nike company in the competition of sports shoes.

Adidas bought Reebok in 2006.

In 2006, Reebok, which failed to recover, was bought by Adidas for $3 billion 800 million. At that time, Adidas was looking for a better weapon to fight against Nike in the US market. Reebok is obviously one of ADI's strong bargaining chip.

However, from 2007 to 2009, Adidas experienced a 14% decline in sales, while Reebok did not achieve its goal under the door of ADI.

Reebok will have to adjust its strategy to get back to fitness brand.

Reebok's president, Matt O 'Toole, looks like Reebok is a company that started to design shoes for fitness people, but lost itself in the competition for shoes, and is now returning to its original place. "So many fitness instructions are still in, fitness studios are still there, fitness people are still there, only Reebok is gone." O Toole said in an interview, "we have to start saying," well, we may not be the most suitable supplier of NFL matches. We probably shouldn't play soccer shoes and equipment for the European football team. "

The first step in the reform took place in 2010. Reebok signed a sponsorship cooperation contract with CrossFit, which was not very well known at that time, for 10 years. CrossFit is a fitness system established by American fitness coach Greg Glassman in 2000. It focuses on the comprehensive and basic ability training of human body. Since its establishment, more than 13000 clubs have been established in the world, and Forbes valued it at $4 billion in 2015.

Matt O 'Toole recalled her original decision, saying that the decision was not easy. At that time, Reebok was the official supplier of NFL, the largest professional sports league in the United States. Abandoning the mature NFL market and spending a lot of time and energy on a bunch of green fitness enthusiasts. These people, in a training hall called "box", do exercises of iron lifting or rope skipping day after day. It looks neither attractive nor hopeful.

However, the bow did not return. Reebok, who has gone to fitness brand again, has started making customized products for CrossFit. According to reports, the Reebok Co collected 300 Crossfit athletes' body data and made the 3D full scan results by consulting and data company Alvanon to determine the size of the product.

At that time, this practice was quite new. "At that time, there wasn't much physical data about CrossFit athletes," Michael Morganti, Reebok's fashion director, told Business Insider. At that time, many CrossFit athletes were wearing unfit clothes for training and competitions.

Facts have proved that Reebok's chips are in the right place. In recent years, the development of CrossFit has been developing rapidly. Not only in North America and Europe has formed two strong strongholds, but also contributed more than 10000 to join the gymnasium, which has expanded rapidly in the Asia Pacific region, and has become a phenomenal fitness trend in Australia and South Korea. By investing in a fast-growing subdivision of fitness brands, Reebok has successfully differentiated itself from mass sports products.

Reebok also named CrossFit world championships every year, not only through the naming event to achieve brand promotion effect, but also through athletes, event itself radiation effect, attracting a large number of consumers into Reebok stores, buy their hearts CrossFit heroes wearing clothing shoes and hats.

　 With the help of CrossFit, Reebok has regained the favor of some fitness people.

Reebok's transformation has not stopped at CrossFit. In 2013, Reebok started cooperation with the brand name Spartan warrior competition and the New Zealand fitness workshop Lai Mei. In these cooperation, Reebok provided funds, shoes and clothing support in exchange for naming rights for these events and venues.

In December 2014, CrossFit and the world's first comprehensive fighting UFC signed a 6 year, exclusive sponsorship fee of $70 million exclusive cooperation. Since July 2015, all UFC players and their entourage must participate in the UFC competition and attend the UFC related activities. They must wear Reebok products, and there can be no other sponsors' trademarks. As compensation, Reebok will provide each athlete with a range of sponsorship fees.

Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm, once said: "we are witnessing a change in the fitness field. People are no longer obsessed with heavy equipment such as treadmills and stair machines. Instead, they are turning to more socialized and League oriented fitness methods, such as Zun Ba, Pilates, yoga and CrossFit.

Reebok positioning its consumer "fit-gen": 22-30 year old young people, willing to use their participation in sports to express their individuality. "The lifestyle they insist on is not only reflected in the CrossFit gym," O Toole said. "They go to Starbucks for coffee and go shopping on weekends. They will show their character and will always wear this type of clothing."

Reebok not only creates products that fit their fitness events and events, but Reebok also highlights the fitness brand. Reebok's headquarters has a luxurious CrossFit gym, and Reebok's staff are encouraged to go there for an hour every day. In early 2016, Reebok announced a new policy at its US headquarters: no soda, sugar drinks, sweets, fried foods, white bread and pasta at headquarters.

When Reebok and Spartan warrior founder Joe De Sena began to talk about sponsorship cooperation, De Sena was actually not optimistic about Reebok: "I am very skeptical, because I remember what Reebok looked like in 80s." Yan Martin, Reebok's global brand marketing director, has nothing to say, so that De Sena can go to Reebok's headquarters with him. De Sena was impressed by Reebok's enthusiasm for fitness from within.

"The people inside infected me." De Sena said, "when we were negotiating with Reebok's competitive brand, I didn't feel that they would integrate sports fitness into brand culture, at least not as well as Reebok."

Like tailored tailor-made products for CrossFit athletes, Reebok is also offering personalized clothing and sports shoes for other sponsorship events. CrossFit Nano is Reebok's special shoes for training for Crossfit athletes; Reebok has provided perforation for the sole of the Terrain series provided by Spartan participants. For better drainage, there is traction at the toes, so that the players can better surmount the wall obstacles; the Reebok's indoor aerobic sports shoes designed by Reebok have the pivot points in the metatarsal position of the feet to facilitate the protection of women's feet in indoor sports.

Reebok, who returned to fitness, has achieved remarkable results.

Besides designing more carefully, the price of Reebok products is also picking up. For example, the price of shorts designed for CrossFit has reached US $135, and the price of swimsuit clothing that aims to compete with the emerging brand Lululemon has reached US $65. The promotion of prices reflects Reebok's input in product technology and quality.

In terms of product gap fit, Reebok began to adopt heat sealing technology instead of standard stitching technology. Compared with traditional nylon materials, Reebok has adopted a more expensive and stretch nylon fiber when making products. All this is to rebuild Reebok's high quality and be more competitive in all kinds of sports equipment.

Reebok's efforts seem to be effective. In the first quarter of 2016, Reebok's sales revenue increased by 6%, which is the twelfth consecutive quarter of Reebok's sales growth.

The transformation of Reebok is not only reflected in the new orientation, but also in the past. In recent years, Reebok has concluded the clothing cooperation agreement of NFL, NBA and NHL in three major professional sports leagues in North America, and reduced the energy invested in attracting sports stars.

But, after all, it is not a long way to follow the niche sports route. If you want to become a big brand alongside Nike and UA, Reebok will eventually return to the public products. From the small crowd to the public and from the low end to the high end, Reebok needs to convince consumers that CrossFit, UFC and Sparta are not the same kind of sports.

In 2015, Reebok launched a new advertising film, describing its new slogan "more humane". In the advertising film, athletes are pushing hard to train tires, bending their bodies to do yoga, and running on the hillsides in the rain. The narrator said, "are we weird? Do we become obsessed, too fanatical or extreme? Of course, it is possible. But we don't push tires to do this all our lives. We do these things just to make ourselves better.

Behind the movement of minority people is the general value and pursuit of the masses. Reebok also hopes to fit in with the consumers in this way of thinking so as to extend the development to the larger running and walking footwear market. "We will focus on CrossFit and UFC," said Mark King, President of Adidas Group North America, Reebok. O Toole is confident that if consumers like Reebok's special sports shoes for Reebok, they will surely like Reebok's running shoes for them.

O Toole once compared Reebok to a duck in a pool, watching it moving slowly, but the fins were swimming hard underwater. "The transformation under the water is actually very fast," he said. "Even if the water surface looks calm." Reebok's twelve consecutive quarters of business growth seems to indicate that this change has begun to stir up the calm waters.