New Balance Became Cool. Now What?

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0:31When we started this series, the question was simple. How did New Balance become cool? Now, that isn't the question anymore. New Balance has the athletes, the collaborations, the cultural relevancy, the global audience. So the more difficult question is, how do you stay authentic after you've become successful? Because the strategy that works when you're a challenger brand can look very different when you're one of the biggest players in the game. I look towards the future with Complex Associate Editor Matt Welty, Clutch Athletics CEO and founder Rich Paul, New Balance CMO and brand president Chris Davis, five-time Olympic medalist Gabby Thomas, and Kith Founder, CEO and creative director Ronnie Feig.

1:18I'm Linda Boff, and you're listening to A Different Take.

1:32Where do you think things are going to go, call it in the next few years? Maybe not even the next few years, but maybe in like the more current time where it's like, hey, where New Balance was able to make adjustments. Everyone knows them as like the gray suede shoes, the whole like mesh running shoe, early 2000s trend came in and New Balance had a whole catalog of that. But I think that they were like the first brand or one of the first brands to be like we need to start doing these shoes again. And they were able to tap into it very quickly. With shoes like the 2002R, 1906, 860 V2. And they were able to get those shoes to market very fast.

2:11You see brands like Salomon, On, obviously New Balance, Asics, etc. Definitely all kind of sharing the piece of the pie at this point. So I think that from their early boom in the late 2010s to early 2000s, they were kind of like the only horse running the race to some extent, maybe ASICs a little bit. But I think all these other brands have hopped in, so it's a little more competitive.

2:41The market New Balance entered has changed. The competitors have changed. And sneaker culture itself has changed. The brand that once had to fight to get noticed now has to fight a very different battle. How do you keep people interested without simply giving them more of the same? How important is that athlete association? I think it's like somewhat important, but I think we've like almost kind of moved past that. New Balance does have some athletes, I think, who do move the needle. Shohei Otani, I think, is one of them. but they also haven't like made a ton of product for him. He's not just an endorser, they've done some product, but there's not like a whole line of like Shohei Otani sneakers that you can go and buy at the store.

3:30They interviewed Bukayo Saka and he was playing in the World Cup and I was like, do you have your own, you know, special limited edition cleats that they made for you for the World Cup? And he's like, no, I'm wearing this collaboration we did with Stone Island in the World Cup. So they're selling the athlete, but they're also like selling the lifestyle through the athlete. Today, I don't think athletes should focus in a very linear signature space because basketball or football or baseball or global football is not everything today. I think it's important for an athlete to be across the ecosystem of the brand.

4:10and I want to be in lifestyle. I want to be in running. I want to be in training as well as my respective sport. Now that could be the bulk of it. That could be 70 % of it, but that other 30%, I want to break up across the brand. And so I try to push that for my guys. And that's just me understanding how brands work. I would guess that the fact that New Balance has obviously big footprint very big footprint in sports but the lifestyle and fashion components all of that works together does oh yeah and look I think from a lifestyle component they have endless series endless series because growing up for me people gotta understand the growing up the hot shoe was actually a basketball shoe so what we thought was lifestyle or what we said was lifestyle was actually in the bucket of a basketball shoe which is why brands leaned in so heavy on signature from a basketball or football perspective because that became the lifestyle shoe but that shoe was bulky it was heavy you know a lot of it was based on a price point and back then price point mattered because price because that was really act that was actual luxury you know the fact that I had on a shoe that cost$160, and I didn't have to say much else.

5:38Today, you look for the opposite. Even the youth looks for comfort. They want luxury comfort, and that isn't coming from a store that's on Rodeo Drive. That's coming directly from New Balance. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now?

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7:00The interesting thing about New Balance's story is that none of the risks are really behind them. Trends change, athletes get injured, consumers move on. A new brand can become the thing everyone suddenly wants. And perhaps the biggest risk of all is the simplest. Success can make a company forget what made it successful in the first place. Chris, you're rapidly approaching the$10 billion mark, which is pretty incredible. I hope you feel it's incredible. Yeah, I honestly can't believe it's. It's pretty phenomenal. But listening to you, you're all about what's next. Where's growth coming from in the future?

7:41Where's the next$5 billion coming from, so to speak? So that's a great question. And I will answer it in typical private company fashion. I think it's absolutely critical as we continue to grow, we don't lose sight of what enabled us to get here. Boutique, premium, craft, excellent consumer experience. Now, typically speaking, those values directly correlate to a small company. I don't think boutique means small. I think boutique is how a consumer interprets your brand, how you make them feel, how they feel when they walk in your store, how they feel when they put on your products. It's going to sound weird, but as we get bigger, we have to continue to think smaller.

8:29And I don't think it's in terms of ambition, but I think it's in terms of entrepreneurism. I think it's in terms of being handmade, being careful by every individual having a role in our growth. So the larger we get, the smaller we have to think. Again, not an ambition, but by practicing that boutique premium mindset. Now, from a business standpoint, I believe that we're untapped in all markets and all categories. In the U.S., we're consistently number two or number three in terms of footwear sales. About 65 to 70 % of our business is outside of the United States, depending on FX rates, currencies, individual market growth.

9:20I think that our growth opportunities are untapped. The critical thing that we have to do is not lose that fiercely independent mindset and abandon what got us here. We don't have the marketplace pressures from a public standpoint. and having that partnership mentality, that trust within ourselves and with individuals we work with and being there for each other and our partners are going to continue to enable us to grow at unprecedented levels. That idea may be the thread running through this entire story.

10:00Think smaller. Choose fewer, deeper relationships. Protect the product. Give people a reason to really care. And don't confuse growth with having to become something you're not. But there's still one question left. Can all of that survive another decade of growth? How could we enter a very competitive sports marketing landscape with very strong industry incumbents that have been doing this for decades? We started with the idea that we're not going to sponsor anybody. It's only partnerships. So we like to say we have zero sponsorships, only partnerships. And the idea of that is when you join New Balance, you're joining a family.

10:48We're a very boutique sports marketing firm. and it's about being one of few versus one of many. A few things make a partnership with a company like New Balance stand out. And I would say first and foremost, it's about consistently being there. Whether I have an injured year or I have a gold medal year, New Balance is always there with me. And that's part of the beauty of the relationship and the partnership that we do have. I think another really important piece is the authenticity of it. It has to be an organic partnership. It has to be one that when the world sees it, they know that it's real.

11:24New Balance was an obvious choice for me back in 2018. It is the footwear that I chose to wear electively. It's the footwear that I competed in personally, and I have never worn anything else. And since 2018, I truly have never worn anything else on my feet except for New Balance, and that's real. Especially in this day and age where you see so many advertisements everywhere and social media, so many platforms, people can sniff that out, that authenticity. So that is really important to me when looking at partnerships. Is this something that is real to my life? Does this represent my lifestyle?

12:00And then finally, I would say it's the values that the company and the brand instills. It's what they're putting out there. And with New Balance, it's aligned. New Balance sees us athletes as more than just athletes. We are people, we are human. New Balance allows me to express my voice. They love when I use my platform to speak about things that I care about, social issues, being a role model for young women, and showing that you can be multifaceted and do everything that you want to do. In fact, I remember that is the first thing New Balance and I did together. We inked the deal, and then at the end of the year, I went to an appearance with them, and I got to speak about everything that I cared about, everything that I was passionate about, school, science, healthcare, and track and field.

12:45So it's just this true partnership where they care about the athlete as a whole and not just as an athlete on the track. As time has passed and I've gotten a little older and my taste has been refined a bit and has become more sophisticated, for me to be well-traveled, for me to be inspired by certain things or certain design elements that I haven't explored yet. And that becomes difficult, by the way, in year 16, as we're designing into next year right now, right? Because you're setting the bar every year and you're trying to continuously evolve that and one-up yourself. Surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you and surrounding yourself also with energy that can influence you positively and with people that understand the brand is not as well as I do just because I've been there the longest but with people that have a different point of view a fresh take you know and allowing the young and the youth basically to have a voice in the room letting the letting the best idea always win and making sure that you're bringing influence in from all angles and not just you know carrying yourself you know solely on your own thinking that you could do it all by yourself it takes a village for sure and I have an incredible team and that has become probably the most important part of our growth and I know for New Balance it has as well.

14:16Life's too short to do business with people that you don't like, love or trust. You have to be able to trust and enjoy the process. It's a partnership, it's not a transaction and in a world where transactions are fleeting and and there's a race to create as many transactions as possible. I firmly believe, and we firmly believe, that a select few partners that are rooted in trust and values, there's no limit on the amount of transactions that can occur from there. Because they're actually not a transaction. It's building. There's a difference between building something and transacting. And I don't think a bunch of transactions amount to building.

15:07Building is built through trust and the best indication of future behavior being past behavior. When we started this series, we asked how New Balance became cool. After talking to the people who helped build that story, from the athletes to the collaborators to the people who watched sneaker culture change from the outside, The answer isn't one campaign, it isn't one athlete, and it isn't one sneaker. It's a series of disciplined choices. A brand confident enough to know what it is. Partnerships built on trust. Patience instead of shortcuts. And the products with enough meaning that people want to tell their own stories about them.

15:52Maybe that's the real New Balance playbook. Don't chase relevance. Build something worth being relevant for. And then, when the world catches up, don't become something else. Stay New Balance. I'm Linda Boff, and you're listening to A Different Take.

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