What Does Yoga Brand Lululemon Occupy The Male Market?

In March 27th, the global well-known Yoga brand Lululemon issued the 2018 annual report to February 3rd. The brand achieved $3 billion 300 million in revenue, 25% year-on-year, the annual net profit of $484 million, and the gross margin of 55.2%. In 2018, it became one of the most powerful performances in the history of the company.

Calvin MacDonald's chief executive, Lululemon, praised the excellent results. He attributed it to the improvement of the overall business strength of the brand.

The surprise is that in this annual report that investors can't help themselves, the brand performance of men's clothing opened in 2013 is remarkable, and the annual sales volume is steady, and sales account for more than 20%. For Lululemon, the main engine of driving the company's performance continues to grow.

In fact, as early as in 2017, Macdonald once declared that the development of men's clothing business has become the core work of the company. He hopes that men's sales volume will exceed 1 billion dollars in 2020, accounting for 25% of the group's total target revenue of 4 billion dollars.

Lululemon COO Stewart Hazel said in a media interview that Lululemon's male business scale can be as large as that of women.

The 21 year old Lululemon, which made a strategic decision to bet on the men's clothing market 6 years ago, is shocking. Most people, including investors and Wall Street industry analysts, are not optimistic about Lululemon's plan, which is an adventure and blindness in the field where brands are not good.

However, it has proved that the strategy of "two wings flying together" is far more secure than "putting all eggs in one basket". Moreover, when women's market is becoming saturated, there is a certain risk in developing new markets, but in the long run, it is a wise move for the future development of the company. Moreover, financial data indicate that Lululemon also has a strong pioneering ability and competitiveness in the male market.

Walking on two legs

Globally, there are two kinds of well-known companies. One is that they only make profits in one industry, such as WAL-MART and Lao mama. There are also a group of companies that pursue diversified development and earn profits in different industries, such as Japan's Mitsui chaebol. The two type companies are not good or bad, but for most companies, they still want to walk on two legs, and Lululemon is no exception.

In winning the European and American women's market, in recent years, Lululemon has been eager to develop the male market.

Lululemon, founded in 1998, just caught up with the fashionable sporty and casual dress style at that time. This style of dress that combines functional and fashionable clothing fills the market gap of the lack of popular elements in sports costumes.

Lululemon's clothing designed for women's yoga exercises is almost the same as the rise of fashion and sporty style in fashion. Thanks to the popularity of many famous American Hollywood stars, such as Megan Fox, on sports and leisure wear, Lululemon has evolved from a simple clothing brand to a fashionable and healthy pronoun and lifestyle.

Lululemon has won a handsome return with its initial "precise service for women's yoga clothing vertical market segmentation". In 2005, it won the favor of venture capital. After 2 years, it successfully listed NASDAQ and began its first round of expansion. By the end of 2008, there were 113 stores and products in North America, Australia, the United Kingdom, Hongkong and other countries and regions.

After years of intensive farming and through the sale of yoga as a way of life, Lululemon has been a great success in the female sports and leisure market and has numerous fans in the millennial generation.

However, around 2012, Lululemon, which focused on women's clothing, encountered difficulties. Some of the lower priced competitors began to rob the market. Nike, Andrea and other sports brands have launched a relatively inexpensive sports and leisure products.

Lululemon, whose product line is too single and has a high price, has encountered unprecedented market competition. In addition, restricted by the growth space of the female market, it has become an urgent problem for Lululemon to open up new businesses and find new ways to increase profits.

In order to deal with the war without smoke, after careful consideration, Lululemon decided to cultivate the men's wear market, hoping to walk away on two legs to get rid of the dependence and bondage on the female market and become stronger.

In 2013, Lululemon decided to enter the men's market and increase the proportion of male consumers from 20% to 40%. The strategic adjustment soon worked. Lululemon2014's financial report shows that the new business development is very effective. In the brand's annual turnover of 2 billion 50 million US dollars, 1 billion 720 million dollars come from women's clothing, 330 million from men's clothing, men's clothing accounts for 16.1%. In 2015, Lululemon's revenue grew by 10%, and net income exceeded $2 billion, of which a large proportion came from the male market.

The company's latest earnings report shows that in the past dozen quarters, men's business has increased by an average of 20% per quarter. How does Lululemon, a female consumer account for up to 80%, achieve 12 consecutive increases in men's clothing business? It has become a topic of interest to many people.

Reconstruction

In the past 20 years, the label of women has become the brand image of Lululemon and is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. This unique brand impression also allows men to "stay away from home". But it also means that the male market is the blank of Lululemon. So at that time, when Nike, Andrea and other major sportswear brands were marching into the female market in a big way, Lululemon did the opposite and opened up the male market.

In 2013, Wilson, the founder of the brand, made a bold decision. The company decided to try its brand rebuilding while it did not affect women's consistent interest in Lululemon. He hopes to explore potential male markets through "going to women, softening and emphasizing strength".

After weighing the pros and cons, Lululemon invested the target group in a youthful young man between 25-34 years old.

In November 2014, Lululemon opened its first men's wear store in Manhattan, New York. 1600 square feet of shops, apart from selling men's wear, also provide simple customization services.

Subsequently, second men's flagship stores in the Losangeles tin Tian shopping centre, Lululemon, met with consumers. The decoration inside the shop was simple and simple, with strong male flavor. In order to show the determination to develop male business, while adding men's stores, Lululemon closed some Ivivva stores for teenagers.

In order to persuade male consumers to give up Nike and Andrea's brand of "male gene" brand, Lululemon decided to increase research and development, combined with advanced technology such as mechanics, neurology and behavioral psychology, and launched high-tech products to attract male consumers. In early 2015, it launched a sports pants called Anti-ball crushing for men.

At that time, on the official website of Lululemon, a bold and bold slogan "to breathe for you and your testis space" successfully captured the hearts of men and allowed them to put on Lululemon sports clothes willingly.

According to public information, the price of 128 yuan pants using Lululemon patent fabric Warpstreme corduroy, strong elasticity, specifically to solve the problem of too tight men's crotch is embarrassing, with the official Lululemon saying that it is comfortable and tangible, comfortable than the formal pants, but not as baggy as sports pants, you can wear it sports, you can wear it to work, dating.

In March 2015, Laurent Portdavid, former chief executive of Lululemon, announced at a conference call that the "protective egg" sports pants made the company's male clothing sales in the same quarter increase by 16%.

In the reconstruction of the brand, Lululemon's original female loyal fans have made a lot of efforts. Many men who first knew the brand came from their girlfriends or wives. Therefore, in the overall men's Clothing promotion strategy, although Lululemon opened several men's clothing stores, but in general still through the existing storefront sales men's clothing. The purpose of this is, on the one hand, the Lululemon has a large flow of stores, and when the women are still the main shoppers, the "protective egg" sports pants are placed next to the women's jogging bra. When women are shopping for themselves, they usually buy a pair of men's trousers.

To rebuild, in recent years, Lululemon has sped up the rule of "experiential marketing" and rarely advertised in the past. In September 2017, the first male advertisement was launched.

At that time, Lululemon found 5 unusual male figures, including 30 year old osteopathic doctor Greene, cook Jeff Mahin, Puerto Rican boxing Orlando Cruz, rap singer Zebra Katz and musician John Joseph, and launched 5 advertisements with the theme of "Strength 2 Joseph". Through their respective stories, they demonstrated 5 men's inner strength and self-consciousness respectively, so as to realize the "de feminization" of the brand.

The spokesperson strategy brings obvious spanformation ability to Lululemon. Greene has said that in just a few months, he has successfully spanformed 15 male friends, colleagues and family members into Lululemon consumers.

Tasted the sweetness of Lululemon to strike while the iron was hot, and further upgraded the endorsement business. In early March 2019, Lululemon announced the signing of the fifty-second Super Bowl MVP winner, Nick Foles, which became the first male spokesperson of the brand.

In order to improve the male market share, Lululemon has made corresponding improvements to the stores. On the one hand, it has expanded the scale of at least 50% of the existing stores and placed men's clothing in the most prominent position. The 50% expansion of stores is directly related to the increase in sales of Lululemon to 50%.

Lululemon, chief financial officer of StuartHaselden, said that in Canada, by expanding some stores, men's clothing sales increased by 90% in 6 months.

On the other hand, Lululemon is equipped with tailors in the store to help customers modify their clothes on the spot.

In addition, Lululemon also collaborated with data Intelligent Company AligOne to reach more male consumers with big data and analyze their preferences through a series of data online and offline to provide personalized services for male consumers. Author: Jin Ligang