Considering Your 2025 Marketing Plan

If I'm leading your brand in 2025 here is the mindset and tactics I'd lean into plus some tactics I would deemphasize.

Woohoo! We hit 1,000 subscribers this past week and I’d like to send a humble thank you to everyone reading and sharing the newsletter. I started writing MoB just 90 days ago and I never expected it to grow so quickly. Thank you and cheers to the path ahead.

I took a break after TRE and spent time in Amsterdam with my family. During the trip I stopped by both Patta and Pop Trading Company. As a streetwear fan I was excited to experience the flagship shops from both of these brands. I may write more here later because I learned some things.

In Amsterdam I had the pleasure of grabbing coffee with

Andreas Tzortzis

from

Brand New Story

. We shared a conversation at the American Café, which entertainingly could be a great set for a 50s spy movie. Dre and I both bring a storyteller background to the business world - he was a NYT writer. We talked about the value a storyteller’s vision brings to brands seeking to craft a stronger narrative. He found massive success at both Red Bull and Apple before starting his own shop with Hella. Thank you Dre, cheers!

Lastly, if you need a gift idea for your team, I’d be ecstatic for you to consider gifting a subscription to a friend or colleague this season. Group subscriptions for your team of 3+ are available at a 20% discount. MoB is reader-supported and paid subscriptions help to keep it independent.

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Considering Your 2025 Marketing Plan

We are seeing 2025 budgets and marketing plans being finalized as we speak. I spent time sorting ideas I’d consider incorporating into those plans based on what I’ve heard, read and observed throughout 2024.

The Mindset

First, there are a couple of approaches or mindsets that I’d instill in my team to set us up for success at the outset.

• Be Different Not Better - If TRE taught me anything it’s that contrast wins attention and interest in your brand - a top job for a marketing group. Marginally better products garner far less of the conversation than a distinctly different brand. I’d inspire our team with the resources for a bold and creative atmosphere to invite that paradigm shifting idea . Our mindset would be to do things differently and to do things OUR way while avoiding the worn playbooks.

  • I listened to a podcast recently that came to the same conclusion.

• Get In The Game - Be out in the sport and community. Attend all the events. Visit and talk with top people in the sport. Run, pace or crew in the big race and local race. Join on the other brand’s group run. Find yourself a run crew. This isn’t the same as some official branded activation - just BE THERE. The brands I see winning are active participants in the sport. Others drift into irrelevance. Hire people that are engaged, excited, active and LEARNING. Connecting with the people, culture, language, celebrities and stories first hand helps create relevance for your brand. Always be watching, listening and seeking feedback. The enables self-awareness and authors authenticity on a level that is invaluable to success. Sitting at home or at the office is like sitting on the bench.

• DEI Consistency - Brand teams need to incorporate a consistently inclusive mindset across all activities. This must be an embedded part of company culture not a tactic like those listed below. It’s just good business. I hear of too many groups that are constantly unsure of their standing with brand partners and have difficulty planning as a result. The ambiguity and fleeting nature of brand commitments is a hindrance to their progress and reflects poorly on the brand.

Tactics I’d Consider for 2025

• Enabling Athletes as Creators - I’d hire someone to oversee content strategy and creation for my athlete team specifically. Taking inspiration from athletes like Sally McRae and Clayton Young (Sally more independently but Clayton with help from Asics). I’d have a plan to develop our athlete team as creators and elevate their personal brands throughout 2025. It would be an investment in them. This would strengthen our partnership and multiply the value it creates going forward.

• Livestream Marketing - Livestream race broadcasts are still the wild west but I think it’s here to stay. As a channel it’s young enough to be very affordable and, because nobody has done it right yet, the opportunity is out there to absolutely own it. The current situation here involves banner ads and tired product videos sprinkled amongst the obvious work to follow the race leaders. Hoka has furthered the design of studio sets but there’s still so much more that could be done in other areas. Mountain Outpost is doing a lot of great work and they are a very willing partner to innovate. I’m watching this space next year.

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  A post shared by @katherine_kart

• Unique/Owned Events - Lululemon’s FURTHER event made a splash earlier this year and we’ve seen excitement for a while now with grassroots-style events like Take The Bridge or The SpeedProject. At TRE I was excited to hear the energy around On’s SquadRace where relay teams raced 400m laps of a parking garage. On has done a lot of SquadRace events all over the world - the next one is in Japan later this week. These events don’t need to have the budget of FURTHER to generate a lot of energy while producing massive local and organic social engagement. They give people something to post about on your behalf. Local events with key community groups, run crews and retail partners can build toward the marquee main event. It’d be awesome to see On create a SquadRace Finals at the end of the year with all the global winners. These types of events are a huge opportunity to contribute positively to the sport while welcoming an audience into your world through an owned environment where you can interact, build a connection and then capture and communicate the story.

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  A post shared by @grahambaird_photo

• Lifestyle Ambassadors - Major brands often partner with cultural contributors to major success - Zendaya and On, Travis Scott and Nike, etc. etc. They are cultural characters around a sport that portray the lifestyle, values and culture that embody your brand. Celebrity marketing if you want to call it that. but mini-celebrities in this case. They create context and a cultural connection for your brand story. I would seek out Race Directors, Filmmakers, Podcasters, Writers, Musicians and generally interesting people around the sport that fit my brand story. I’d elevate their own story and lifestyle, incorporate them in campaigns, in products, and at events. It’d be a team of mini-Zendayas that personify our brand’s lens on the sport.

• Repair/Resale plus Vintage - Patagonia did repair and resale well and we’ve seen others join in but I’d take that even further to included sourced vintage goods as well. Right now brands service goods customers send to them and that’s great. But if your brand has an archive or product history then lean further into that. If you claim to have durable and long-lasting products then show us. Don’t wait for us to send products to you - go find them out in the world. Acquire them. Clean them up. Sell them back to us. They can demand a premium price like the below Arc’teryx jackets going for $3k+ on Ebay. For the brand it shows your products are durable and your design is timeless. It provides assurance when placed alongside new products. For the consumer it signals your sustainable ambitions yet shows you appreciate timeless design and quality. It is a signal of luxury. I’d argue that even the presence of vintage at a premium price on the website adds brand value regardless of how many are sold.

  

• Organic Moments - Let’s leave room for those unexpected opportunities and leverage impromptu moments that further our brand story. Bandit famously set themselves up to have a moment at the US Olympic trials with the Unsponsored Project and their black kits. When numerous Unsponsored athletes made the Olympic team the brand went viral.
  Stanley’s tumbler sales exploded when a video of its tumbler surviving a car fire with ice water intact went viral. Stanley bought the woman a new car and posted about it. The original car fire post has 84 million views and Stanley’s response has 32 million.
  Some of these moments can be planned to some extent but for many success involves remaining aware, agile and creative. See the mindsets mentioned earlier - get in the game.

Areas I Wouldn’t Over Invest

• Influencer Partnerships - Influencer marketing did not end the year on a high note and I’ve heard repeatedly how expensive it has become. The Matt Choi incident in NYC seemed to ignite an otherwise quiet voice that is exhausted by the influencer craze. Public tolerance seems to be waning. You could justify the short-term bump from an influencer campaign but I’m not sure of the long-term value it adds. I’d get ahead of this in 2025.

• Performance Marketing - This is another area with returns that continue to creep lower and costs that continue to creep up. There’s consumer fatigue happening and I’d get ahead of it by deemphasizing it in my plan vs last year. I’m not saying to cut performance nor influencers altogether but I’d work to make my strategy progressively less reliant on these tactics.

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Have a great week ✌️