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Clarks
Few brands have the name recognition of Clarks, linked forever to the British high street and school days with comfortable shoes... But the brand has moved on since the 80s, forging a hard-earned reputation as both a place to go for fashionable women's shoes as well as comfortable, hard-wearing shoes.
The company now plans to transplant that reputation into the outdoor industry, initially selling outdoor lines through their own stores but eventually branching out into specialist outdoor shops, as Neil Beeson explained to SGB...
SGB: It takes time to bring together a line of footwear - how long have you been working on these?
Neil Beeson: We started looking at it from a strategic point of view more than 20 months ago, and this is the introduction of the first collection. It took a while to get the whole piece together and get the product engine up and running and the development in place.
In our AW09 collection, the outdoor pieces will come in store probably in August, while some of the more lifestyle stuff comes in a bit earlier, end of June or beginning of July.
SGB: What are the cornerstones of the range?
NB: The collection has been segmented into core areas. Sport Life is a collection that is fit for purpose. It has been built for everyday wear, but with a sporting capability if our consumer base wishes to use it for that. Then we have the Sport Style segment, which is sport-inspired products for everyday wear, not intended for any performance use. It is about the inspiration of the look. Beyond that, we have three categories: Open Air, which represents the outdoor segment; Studio Zone, which is basically fitness in and around the studio; and then Freestyle, which is that sports-inspired collection. That is how it is fundamentally segmented.
SGB: Why choose to enter this [outdoor and sports] sector?
NB: We are really trying to roll the brand out with an international perspective, and recognise that sport is a part of every person's life today, in terms of their footwear, the way they use the footwear. You look at markets like the UK, where 52 percent of all men's footwear sales now are in sport, whether that is performance or inspiration. It's a pretty big marketplace to ignore as a specialist in the footwear industry. There's that, and there's a recognition that we have our core beliefs, which are about comfort, fit, quality, craftsmanship, we have something to take back to the sports industry.
SGB: Even with your trusted brand name, how are you going to do this? How will you get in to the relevant outlets?
NB: We are going to build from the centre out, from our own retail portfolio.
One thing the sports industry has been good at doing is making themselves relevant for everyday wear. One thing the shoe industry has not been good at is making themselves relevant for everyday sports shoe wear. It's about using our skillsets. And we have connection with, for example, the walking generation. Our consumer base is pretty much the walking generation. Then there are assets like, we provide a comfortable shopping environment for women, which the sports industry typically doesn't do. It is more often a youthful or a masculine place. There are a couple of core assets that we can use to get into this marketplace as well. Long-term, we recognise that the further we want to penetrate this business, the more we are going to need to position ourselves in the specialists as well.
SGB: What's the price point of the top boot?
NB: Top of the range is the £99.99 boot. It's not cheap. For autumn winter 09 we have invested in our own soles and our own rubber compounds. We have been working with one of the suppliers. We weren't able to brand the introduction of that new rubber compound in time for the moulds [that SGB saw], but it is called Rock Grade Rubber, and it is to all intents and purposes you should expect in the outdoor in terms of durability, abrasion resistance, braking control...it is just a really sticky rubber that has the durable aspects that you'd find in a recognised Vibram.
SGB: What are the plans for your launch?
NB: We really want to build from the core of the Clarks brand out, from where we sit in the industry, where we sit in the high street. We are not going all guns blazing into this - 'this is the best thing on the marketplace, nobody can match us, this is what you have got to go with'. It is about the culture of the brand. We are going to build from the core out, to learn as we go, and we are going to extend beyond the comfort zone of what we know at the moment, as we get the success which we believe is out there.
The key investments we are doing for the season is PR and in-store. We don't have a huge communication programme lined up, we are going to use our retail footprint to make a statement. It's a powerful tool in its own right - the shop windows, for example. PR is the other investment we are making in terms of starting to get the word of mouth out there. We are going to start to get some product placement, some testing and start to build the reputation from the ground up, some grassroots wear trials. We have got to put our product on the line.
The other aspect of that retail investment side is that it is obviously not just the shop window and the in-store communication, it is also the staff in-store as well. That is going to be one of the key areas that where we try to work on - building their knowledge level up, so that the consumer gets a level of confidence once they start asking questions, that the staff have a level of knowledge about what they are taking about. That is going to be one of the key things. We feel that in the current economic environment that service is becoming such an important factor, because it is difficult to separate a lot of brands at the moment. Where people are buying value, they want value on many level and service is very much one of those values that they want to be buying in to.
If you split the outdoor market into the altitude grades in terms of the product we supply, we recognise that we are not up there, with backpacking, mountaineering. We are not in that zone at the moment. We basically see ourselves in the hiking, trekking and urban trail market.
