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Reebok, the English heritage sportswear label that once dominated the sneaker space, is undergoing a reboot with the help of luxury streetwear conglomerate New Guards Group (NGG). The long-term partnership includes a new premium, fashion-forward line called Reebok LTD, whose first drop landed online this week. With this repositioning, can Reebok claw back some of its lost market share?
“We aim to revamp Reebok from a cultural and style perspective,” says Cristiano Fagnani, who is Reebok’s European CEO, as well as CEO of Off-White (for which NGG holds the licence) and NGG++, the faction of New Guards Group set up to incubate and develop sportswear and sneaker labels, including Reebok. (NGG owns a suite of luxury and streetwear labels including Palm Angels, Marcelo Burlon County of Milan, Heron Preston and Ambush.)
“When I started deep diving into the history of Reebok and its DNA, it’s an incredible brand. But sometimes I call it a sleeping giant,” Fagnani says. “Right now, there’s a huge discrepancy between the power of the brand and the brand awareness. There’s no reason for that to be the case and there’s a lot of potential that can be unleashed.”
Adidas bought Reebok for $3.8 billion in 2006 to help it to better compete with Nike. But Reebok struggled to regain the popularity it enjoyed at its peak in the 1980s, and, bowing to pressure from investors, Adidas sold it to US firm Authentic Brands Group (ABG) for $2.5 billion in August 2021. In 2022, ABG tapped Farfetch-owned NGG to run Reebok’s European operations, including product launches, marketing, branded retail stores, e-commerce operations and wholesale distribution.
“NGG is already on the edge that connects sport and fashion, luxury and streetwear. So we thought, why not?” says Fagnani, who joined the company as CMO in 2020 after 20 years in marketing at Nike. He was appointed CEO of Reebok and NGG++ in January this year, before taking on responsibility for Off-White in June following a shakeup that saw NGG’s former CEO Davide De Giglio and Off-White CEO Andrea Grilli exit.
The sportswear market has heated up in recent years, presenting new challenges for Reebok to win back a bigger share of spend. Its rivals are diversifying their offerings to include fashion-led lines, while luxury labels like Louis Vuitton and Gucci are leaning into sportswear or sports-inspired products.
Reebok was founded in 1958 in Bolton in the UK, and bought out by its American licensee in 1985, subsequently listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It was one of the earliest brands to develop performance shoes and sponsor professional athletes, and the first to develop athletic shoes for women.
Reebok has not reported its sales since 2020, when it turned over $1.6 billion. In 2022, ABG CEO Jamie Salter said the brand could expect global retail sales of more than $5 billion, but the company did not release financials, and declined to provide up-to-date figures for this article. By comparison, Nike’s revenues were $48.8 billion in 2022; Adidas hit $24.1 billion that same year, Puma $8.47 billion and newer player Lululemon $8 billion.
“It’s a big challenge. First of all, we look at the competition and the big players out there, especially in sport. Are we competing for the gold medals at the next Olympics? Maybe not. But we are competing out there to reclaim our place and be part of the conversation with consumers and athletes and kids around the world,” Fagnani says. “There’s a lot of competition for the highest-performing item, but it’s a very open space and a very uncharted playground when it comes to authentic, real relationships with customers.”
Repositioning with a focus on quality
Reebok LTD (which stands for Learn, Test, Design) will offer high-quality, fashion-led footwear, accessories and apparel, made in Italy. Its first product, the Club C LTD sneaker, was released on 19 September, retailing at $180 and sold exclusively on Highsnobiety, before rolling out on Farfetch. LTD is also exploring collaborations with buzzy designers to boost awareness.
Targeting the premium segment could be a smart move. The pandemic brought a significant shift in people’s priorities and lifestyles. Post-lockdown, consumers are looking for stylish garments that can be worn straight from a Pilates class to lunch or all day while working from home, says Marguerite Le Rolland, research manager at Euromonitor. Globally, sports-inspired fashion was valued at $88.5 billion in 2022 and is set to outperform performance wear (valued at $97.6 billion in 2022) by 2027. “In that context, the ‘premiumisation’ of sportswear is set to continue, with established brands like Lululemon or Sweaty Betty benefiting but also smaller labels such as Adanola or All Access,” Le Rolland says.
Adidas launched its Gen Z-focused, premium Sportswear line in February, while Nike held a fashion show-cum-dance performance during Paris Couture Week in July, to show its new vision for womenswear, including luxury collaborations and fashion pieces alongside performance wear. Fagnani believes that NGG — with its knowledge of building streetwear communities and cultural credibility — is well placed to help Reebok take advantage of the trend.
The Club C LTD is a classic sneaker, rather than a new silhouette or groundbreaking style for Reebok. The focus is on quality, says Fagnani. “We don’t want to fall into the flavour of the month exercise that can sometimes drive fashion adoption.” Instead, the instinct was to take the Reebok archive and reimagine it into future classics. “Right now the product — I strongly believe — is underplayed and undervalued,” Fagnani adds. “It isn’t necessarily in the place it should be in terms of quality, price point and consumer perception.”
With any brand repositioning, there is a risk alienating existing customers. “Of course, we don’t want to disappoint the customers that we have, which probably have found in Reebok is their comfort zone when it comes to buying the existing offering,” says Fagnani. “But we have the ambition to excite both the customers we have and reward them with a higher quality and much more premium and current product as well as attract customers that were not looking at Reebok.”
One of the key product and marketing strategies will be collaboration, he says. But rather than one-off collections, Reebok will look at longer-term partnerships, like developing a category or investing in a specific market, or design skills. This will mean tie-ins with independent brands, young designers and creatives, which he can’t yet name but insists are “unapologetic” in their practice.
It won’t be the first time Reebok has partnered with luxury designers to boost appeal. Pyer Moss designer Kerby Jean-Raymond served as the brand’s creative director from 2020-2022. (He departed shortly after ABG acquired Reebok.) More recently, the brand has collaborated with Belgian luxury label Botter on sneakers.
To make sure they steer the ship correctly, Fagnani plans to listen to consumers in local markets and absorb what’s trending culturally, to inform collab decisions. “There’s a lot of playbooks, but it comes down to opening it up to reality and absorbing what goes on out there,” he says, gesturing to the window. “I don’t have to explain to you how fast things evolve.”
Reebok LTD will leverage NGG’s relationships with higher end fashion stores, to set a “higher bar” for the line, as well as targeting sneaker boutiques and other sportswear and streetwear distribution channels. Scaling its direct-to-consumer e-commerce business is also a focus, bolstered by Farfetch’s technology.
With further launches ahead, Fagnani is confident that Reebok can once again be top of mind in the sportswear segment. “We know that the big sportswear brands are competing on the edge of culture to stay current. And the big fashion brands are buying into street and sports culture to stay current. We happen to be agile enough to live on that edge. And that’s what we want to do. Build a collective around the brand that can keep us agile; that can keep us fresh and honest.”
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