Why Can 52 Year Old Vans Still Maintain The Youthful Tone Of Cool Culture?

Why did Vans keep its growth for 52 years and never signed a spokesperson? When the sports brand started to play a "young card", what exactly did Vans rely on to represent the trend culture of young people?

Every product and brand has a life cycle. Only by constantly rejuvenating itself can we keep brand new and not be abandoned by young people.

However, the brand seems to be some young people who can not guess the "flower heart". When the millennial generation has become the main buyer of consumer goods, embracing young people's culture has also become the focus of many brands' efforts in marketing.

Sports industry is no exception.

On the other hand, the top sports events such as the Olympic Games are facing the crisis of aging. On the other hand, the brand of sportswear, which has been established for decades, is actively adapting to the trend and signing meat endorsements, trying to win more attention of the millennial generation in the campaign of youth.

Among them,

It's like an alien, though 52 years old, bankrupt, reinvigorate and experience vicissitudes, it still maintains the youthful tone of cool culture.

In 2004, Vans was sold to Vf Corporation for $396 million, and began to try its brand trend.

In recent years, Vans has become the "engine" of the growth of Wei Fu Group, and has maintained two digit sales growth every year.

What is the way of Vans's fame? What are the relations between Vans and skateboard culture? How does Vans break through the skateboard circle and become the tide of love for young people without spokesmen? The growth path of the 52 year old brand is worth learning from Chinese sports brand.

The Van Doren rubber factory opened in Anaheim, California, in 1966.

At the beginning of its establishment, it was a family owned self marketing shoe manufacturing company.

Its founder, Paul Van Doren (Paul - Wan Duolun), was unwilling to profit from retailers selling their products, so they joined hands with three friends to start their own business.

On the first day of business, 16 consumers came to customize their shoes in the early morning and got fresh Vans shoes in the afternoon.

So the story of Vans begins.

In the 10 years since its birth, skateboarding has been popular in southern California. The Vans home made waffle sole is based on strong rubber material and is loved by skateboard enthusiasts.

Later, Vans provided the famous skateboard player Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta.

And sponsoring talented skateboarding teenagers, Vans's brand has been well disseminated as players travel around the world.

When it comes to skateboarding culture, we have to say that Tony Alva is the originator of skateboard circles.

Off The Wall is a skateboard movement (sliding away from the pool and balancing landing). Tony Alva is the first person to do this action, with personal style and dare to challenge. This is also the spirit quality that Vans has been advocating for extreme sports.

Thereafter,

Off The Wall is printed as the brand logo after heel.

For more than 50 years, Off The Wall has become the pronoun of "rebellious and creative expression" spirit, and also the expression of the Vans brand young people showing their individuality.

More than that, Vans has more practical actions to support the development of skateboarding.

Sponsors skateboarding teams, skateboarding athletes, park terrain skateboarding competitions, and even helped shoot skateboarding documentaries to promote skateboarding culture.

Minority culture is also faced with a narrow audience, unable to cover the entire audience as the pain point of many brands.

At that time, Vans began to try brand diversification.

Nike, Adidas, Skech, Puma, Reebok...

Almost your name brand has signed famous traffic as its spokesperson.

However, Vans never endorse spokesmen.

The path of mass movement is not to put down the role of flattering young people, nor to abandon skateboards and turn to other fields.

Instead, it is aimed at all young people, who are allowed to wander in music, art, extreme sports and street culture through "pattern joint name" and "offline creative interaction" to become one of the popular youth cultural brands all over the world.

The joint name of "fancy fancy" is also a way for Vans to expand its business scope and brand influence later.

Almost every year, Vans will be associated with "explosions" in different fields. Disney, Nintendo, man Wei, Van Gogh, SpongeBob SquarePants, WTAPS, Superme, NASA...

Circle brother can not count.

Only you can't imagine that there is no brand that Vans can't get.

These joint funds have taken full account of the design, creativity and brand tonality, and also captured the individuality of young people who love to show themselves.

The prize of the tide maker.

Although Vans has no spokesperson, it relies on designers, artists' creation and cooperation between different tonal brands to maintain communication with young people.

The activity under Vans is a stage for young people to express themselves and express themselves.

Since the 90s of last century, Vans has continued to grow in the skateboard world. At the same time, it started to expand to the music festival, sponsoring the extreme music festival Warped Tour. In 2001, Vans fully controlled Warped Tour, and made it into Vans brand style Vans Warped Tour (Vans extreme sports festival), which is known as the activity of musicians who can discover their feet and become an important place for the marketing of brand names.

In addition to music, Vans Triple Crown of Surfing (Vans surfing three crown competition), Vans U.S.Open of Surfing (Vans American surf open), and the promotion of the extreme sports in professional competitions such as the "Pro Park skating" competition.

Vans, based on House of Vans, continues to support extreme lifestyle and the dissemination of young culture.

In a sense, all creative and independent customers are potential customers of Vans brand.

Vans breaks through the skateboard, tells the brand story from the perspective of Pan culture, and then maintains brand sensitivity and flexibility.

In 2008, Vans brought the youth trend culture to China.

Entering China for 10 years, promoting the trend culture of Chinese market

With the growing internationalization of Chinese youth and the pursuit of the trend culture, China has become one of the new markets that many brands are scrambling for.

After ten years of development in China, China has become the second largest Vans market in the world.

Vans is a brand rooted in skateboards. In 2016, it launched the first professional park skateboarding competition.

In addition to the first held in Sweden, the 2017 and 2018 consecutive two sessions chose to hold the Vans professional park skateboarding finals in China.

Cao Wei, general manager of Vans China, told the ecosphere reporter: "the finals in Shanghai last year were exposed to 100 million people in China, and 1 million 400 thousand people watched the games online. The Vans professional park skateboard competition stimulated the Chinese consumers' enthusiasm and attention to skateboards, and further promoted the Chinese skateboard culture into a new mileage."

During the interview with reporters in the ecosphere, Cao Wei also mentioned Vans China's efforts to promote the development of China's extreme sports and trend culture and provide consumers with more opportunities to express themselves.

In 2012, Vans China saw the change of consumers' social behavior, and marketing strategy began to pform from traditional publicity to digital marketing.

Sina micro-blog has become the platform for Vans brand to pmit information, WeChat focuses on consumer interaction, enters Tmall, starts e-commerce retail, and launches digital media cooperation with Tencent sports.

Cao Wei told the ecosphere reporter: "young people are now expressing their ideas on the Internet, and these digital giants are not only partners of Vans, but also face to face dialogue and interaction with consumers directly."

Compared with the development of Nike, Adidas, CONVERSE and other brands in China, the younger Vans has more room for growth.

The trend culture of China also needs to be cultivated. In the face of the Chinese consumers who continue to absorb nutrients, Vans can explore more markets and space in China by virtue of the advantages of the tide culture.

Some people say, "the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, followed by the present". While the major brands have planted the fashion tree, Vans has been planting seeds of the trend culture from an early age. The open platform provides habitat for the young people, and has grown up with the whole ball youth over time, and has also harvested today's towering trees.

With the continuing culture of fashion, Vans has been in pole position in the competition of young people.

Looking at the way of cultural growth of international brands, it is a general strategy to get young people's attention by culture.

In the early days, China's sports brand still had the advantage of being cheap and Shanzhai. Later, it was eager to sign the trend idols to boost sales growth. At the same time of burning money, the fast changing idol market was not enough to support the long-term development of domestic brands.

To create a unique culture and become a representative of a certain field may be a way to break through the domestic brand.