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Field to Podium
Launching a new brand is never easy, no matter what industry it is in. But launching a brand which operates across all sports, and which has a healthy message and brilliant POS and advertising material... Well, it certainly has a fighting chance.
Customers like a story. They like to know where their gear comes from, where it's going, why it's sexy and suits them. In this industry, selling sports gear is selling a lifestyle as much as it is selling an individual product. Field To Podium's story is one that the shopping public will respond to, as profits are not disappearing down the maw of a faceless multinational conglomerate, some of them are going to the kid in the next street that's always in the pool, the girl in the next village who's never off her bike. In short, it's going to the next generation of Olympians, and the one after that, and so on. Read on to find out more.
SGB: For Field to Podium, the brand credo is important - arguably as important as the product. What is that credo?
Ffion Appleton: I think every brand needs a story; ours is that we help athletes when they need the money, as opposed to most other sports brands who give money to athletes who are already financially well off and successful. It's about to giving money back to sports and the athletes that need it at a young age.
SGB: How do you do that?
FA: We give 10 per cent from wholesale to SportsAid, a government-run charity that's been going for 33 years. They distribute funding to young athletes.
Alan Patching: They're typically giving money to athletes between 12 and 16 years of age. They're just outside of lottery funding, which kicks in at 16 years and above. So they get this when they really need the money, when they're finding their feet and realising they're maybe pretty good at certain sports, that's when SportsAid steps in. SportsAid is often the first recognition from outside that they're pretty good at what they're doing, and it usually comes in the shape of a cheque for £250 or £500, which will usually go toward the cost of travel or accommodation, or of course equipment.
SGB: With the 10 per cent coming from wholesale, is there any effect on the price to the retailer as a result?
AP: No. One of the key reasons we can do this is because we produce the yarn within the group. That puts us in a unique position, and means the retailer can still earn very good margins while allowing us to still grow and improve.
SGB: Why bother?
AP: Because we can, and because we care. We're in a unique position. Genex Brands, who actually own Field to Podium, are part of the Sabanci Group, a very large group that owns a division which is for textile and yarn manufacture. Under the name Advansa, they manufacture CoolMax and ThermaLite intelligent fibres which we've been supplying to the trade for years. They're used by major global sportswear brands in performance garments. We've decided to use our infrastructure and our yarn to create a line of performance sportswear.
FA: We're also all very passionate about sports, we all have a background in it whether it's simply as participants or on a deeper level. My profession means I've always been in the sports industry; but there's no across-the-board British sports brand now, all the major sports brands are actually foreign.
Working for major sports brands meant I had to live abroad; before Nike I was with adidas, before that it was Puma... So the opportunity to come back to the UK and start a new brand was a major factor in my joining.
AP: My sporting background is as an athletics coach, but I don't get the time to do that any more. My oldest son is 14 and he's good at most sports, but at the age of 11 decided to choose and gave up football, rugby, athletics in favour of swimming. He's moved home to Plymouth to be a performance swimmer, because we couldn't get pool time where the family lives.
That made me aware of the costs involved and how hard it is to succeed when you're a young, aspiring athlete. So much is stacked against you in this country, including finance, and that's what drove me to develop the brand.
The missing link when we decided to do that as a group, was that we didn't have a design director. The easiest thing for us would have been to simply make a donation to the charity, but we wanted to build a brand that has longevity, a brand that can stand on its own feet and be a brand in its own right. So we enticed Ffion to join us from Nike, because she believed in the ethos of the brand and what we're trying to do.
SGB: Will that not annoy those brands, your customers, that you're now competing with them?
AP: No. We're still supplying yarn, so they're still free to buy that as a totally separate brand. They've already got established brands and we're just starting at the beginning.
SGB: How long have you both been with the company?
FA: About a year.
AP: Myself, since its inception, about two years ago. The key point at that time was to make sure that the money we raised, in whatever we did, found its way to the people that needed it when they needed it most. That led us to SportsAid, and we formed a partnership with them to make that long-term commitment to give them 10 per cent of everything we sell at wholesale under the Field to Podium banner.
SGB: What POS materials or retail merchandise are you producing to support the independent retailer?
FA: We've used our SportsAid athletes to help us there. We've photographed them in their own environment, and interviewed them and we use that to help make promotional materials like POS in stores. Whichever area the retailer is in, we also photograph a local athlete benefitting from SportsAid.
AP: The local community has the opportunity then to support an athlete within their area, which we think is very important, not to mention relevant. These are sporting talents that are already in the top three of their age group in their particular sport in Britain; they're talented individuals who have already out the hours in to their sport.
FA: The brand needs to have a British look, too. It needs a point of difference from other brands that can spend thousands of millions on advertising. We won't do that, because we want to give the money back to the right people. Advertising we've done has a raw edge to it [see pictures], a realism that will make it stand out against the glossier campaigns of the competition.
It has a sense of humour, the brand, a very British one.
AP: We can provide all the POS, stands etc. The key difference is that we can regionalise the branding for that store, as Ffion explained. So within each Intersport store, for example if there's a store in Devon, within a ten-mile radius - bear in mind SportsAid sponsors on average 1500 athletes a year, ongoing - there's probably three or four young athletes doing various things in sport, and we can identify them and use it in the POS if the store wants it.
We can also ring-fence figures, so we can produce materials saying that, for example, this store has raised £X for the future of British sport through SportsAid. We can also ring-fence money moving forward in terms of specific sports; so a swimmer, if he sees something that will help British swimming, might buy into a garment which he knows will support British swimming, so they'll buy into a garment that will help sport overall, but also their own specific sport.
There's a lot we can do to help the retailer get the message across.
SGB: Are there any athletes you're sponsoring outside of SportsAid?
AP: We've done a deal with Tongan rugby, who did exceptionally well in the last World Cup. We're sponsoring their rugby kit for the next four years, which also includes producing replica kit for sale, and again benefits SportsAid.
FA: They're the first team we're supplying, but we're looking at others.
SGB: Do you have any message for the independent retailers out there?
AP: We're giving 10 per cent from wholesale value to fund British sporting talent; all we need from retailer to make this work is shelf space. We're not looking for any contribution from them, we'll do that, but in order to achieve our goals and make it work, we need the retailer to take it on board and distribute product.
For a look at their products, visit www.fieldtopodium.com; if you're interested in stocking this fresh, forward-looking brand, contact the company at alan.patching@fieldtopodium.com on 020 7487 7035 or ffion.appleton@fieldtopodium.com on 020 7487 705.
