Controversy at Lulu and Escalations in Running Fashion
Athlete sponsorships are getting spicy and both Brooks and tassels have now entered the fashion chat.
First a couple “show notes” as they are called.
I refreshed the logo! It’s not a rebrand because I didn’t change anything else, but I feel this logo better captures the newsletter as it has grown over the past 4 months. Hopefully I did better than Jaguar.
We have a few sponsor conversations coming together but I want your input to incorporate them more creatively and authentically. What do you want to see from MoB this year? Interviews? In-person events? Brainstorms? Giveaways? Let me know.
Lululemon and Fickle Business Goals
Sentiment turned on Lululemon this past week when it broke that they dropped the legend Devon Yanko from their athlete roster. Devon revealed she had just climbed out of “a hell hole of health” resulting from the FURTHER project because she believed so whole heartedly in and had given so much to its goals.
“I sacrificed my own running, racing and peace for the project. And it cost me my health and well being. It felt worth it at the time because what started as a brand project turned into family for all of us. But we are all family right up until the moment they tell you “it’s not personal, it is just business”.
While not directed at Lulu specifically, Kelly Newlon then called out brands that recklessly leap into spaces with shallow intentions before leaving destruction in their wake. Lulu definitely leapt hard into running with big dollars around the FURTHER event and it seems as though they will now pull back just as quickly. In a tight culture that values authenticity you can’t win with one big splash - you need to play the long game and show you’re in it with us.
The way Lulu managed this (and they’re not the only ones) is not right and should absolutely be handled better - no doubt about it. But I really hope to see more athletes diversifying themselves for both protection and to simply take advantage of all the new opportunities that exist for them. Kelly and I jointly held a seminar for the PTRA last week (Professional Trail Runners Association) where we discussed courting sponsors, expectations, ask sheets, etc. I made this point in that seminar (Thank you for having me!!). If I’m an athlete I’m looking hard at ways to diversity my brand, identity and finances. Whether that means becoming a creator on YouTube, Substack, etc. or starting a business as a coach, race director or making widgets. Whatever it is. Don’t put yourself in a situation to be so dependent on a brand knowing full well that it goes sour quickly even for those with legendary experience like Devon. Having other diversified outlets makes your own brand more valuable to a sponsor and also protects you from getting burned when said sponsor suddenly faces budget cuts.
The “fam” term also really gets to me. Runners and especially us ultra runners are deep and heartfelt AF and we will literally give our everything for you - like family. As much as anyone, I have high hopes for brands to go deep with storytelling, feelings and emotions because it makes business sense and it’s more interesting, but we know from experience that they are businesses and often publicly traded corporations. Treating others with respect is good business practice but I hope we please stop throwing the word “fam” around so loosely. When push comes to shove the bottom line wins and that is not how families operate.
Speaking of the bottom line, here is what I think is happening here.
I want you all to follow this newsletter by Derrick Dlouhy. He works in finance in the running industry and writes about the running industry from the numbers side. I talk a lot of about branding and that is a big part of the equation but the other big part of any business is the numbers. Financial reports can tell us how things went looking backwards and help us speculate as to the reaction going forward. If you can balance your understanding of marketing and finance you’re really cookin’.
Derricks article from last week dove into Lululemon’s latest earnings report. While they celebrated growth largely driven by the international business and new stores, he summarized that North America still makes up 75% of their revenue and very little of that is wholesale. So the majority of their overall business comes directly from ecomm or Lulu stores in NA. He points out that their same store sales in North America were down 2% year over year. That core is not healthy.
Then Derrick touched on running specifically.
And the main reason we're here....there has been no comment I can find anywhere on their progress in running. After what seemed to be a largely successful "FURTHER" event in March of 2024, there hasn't even been crickets from them on the running front.
Further (pun intended), Lulu also launched a "We Made Too Much" section on their website with tons of product heavily discounted. One item included is their Blissfeel 2 running shoe. And while yes, discounting is a natural part of franchise management and product lifecycles, I can't imagine they were manufacturing large units of their running styles during more of a "seed" phase, so seeing these discounted regularly could be another indicator of a dropped baton.
So when I take Derrick’s breakdown together with Devon’s situation I can see that their running experiment failed (albeit on a fickle timeline) and their leaders see rocky waters ahead because the core of their business isn’t doing great. So Lulu cut bait on this running push to shore up its foundation and the bottom line won.
Making Sense of Running Fashion
The Business of Fashion dropped an article on Running’s Big Fashion Opportunity with a subheading that nailed it.
The explosive growth of running has created a competitive space where new and old running brands must figure out distinct ways to reach consumers who see running as a lifestyle rather than just sport.
And that’s just it. The theme here is this idea of running as a lifestyle and not only a sport. It’s a non-traditional move (by running standards) to wear running products in non-running situations. And I know there’s a contingent in running, maybe reading this article, that feel similar to some in the BoF comments section that address the fashion industry with lines like “leave runners alone”, but like it or not running IS a lifestyle and it always has been. One doesn’t dedicate an entire summer or entire year to the goal of running a marathon (let alone an ultramarathon) because of some shoe, pack or shirt. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle that allow us to accomplish these big goals and we see all the positive spillover it has in other areas of our lives so we want to wear our running in those areas too.
In the BoF article the Bandit and Satisfy callouts were pretty expected but the heavy praise given to Saucony was unexpected for me. Is there a brand NOT making a fashion play in 2025? I just saw numbers that Saucony posted 60% YOY retail growth in China. Other fashion forward running brands (Salomon) have also done really well there lately. Makes me wonder to what extent the fashion play is driving that area of growth.
Even Brooks has now joined the lifestyle party. They’re about as slow moving as they come and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Brooks doesn’t jump on trends. They sit back and wait, research, and plan moves in areas that are here to stay.
Then, in what might be seen as a major escalation in this fashion arms race, we now have tassels. Yes tassels!
If you all haven’t seen it let me introduce you to the Hoka Speed Loafer.
Silly as you may think it is, I have fashion influencers in my feed dropping Speed Loafer pics with captions like “What I wore in Paris this week and some of my favorite pieces from showrooms. Some heaters coming up this fall and winter for sure”.
“Iconic tooling from the Speedgoat 5 nods to our trail chops while a custom speed tassel and an opulent leather and suede upper add premium materializations for an upleveled look.” - Hoka
We’re leveling up folks! How does Karl Meltzer feel about this one?
I think this is fun. Let’s go!
Looking at Paris overall, the best (only?) breakdown of the running related activities in Paris this week was from Christian Weigand at Runners Highest (give him a subscribe!). If you come across any other write-ups please send them my way, I couldn’t find ANYTHING else. I need to get to Paris next year to observe and make sense of all this. I’ll put that into the universe and let it do its thing.
Speaking of newsletters, I think they are a big thing we will be writing about in December 2025 as we recap this year. With Meta and X both going full wild west coupled with rising CPM rates I see our eyeballs starting to looking elsewhere and advertising will follow. I am not on TikTok but it was unsettling watching years of work to build audiences vanish overnight during the “ban” that wasn't. That seems to be a strong warning to own your audience.
The Wall Street Journal dropped an article this week on how advertising is working its way into newsletters here on Substack specifically. I was taking notes. Newsletters FTW in 2025.
An interview with the former TNF CMO
Back to the fashion convo, it’s interesting to see how running brands balance speaking to the running consumer and the fashion consumer. Here is an interesting interview with some insight into how Sophie looked to balance speaking to both high performance and high fashion while at TNF.
If you enjoyed this please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I put hours into each article between 4-6 times per month. That equates to maybe 15 hours/month? At a subscription price of just $8/month that means I’m making very poor business choices! Your subscription would be massively appreciated 🤗.
We’re publishing our Paris roundup tomorrow! Some really cool stuff from our guy Alfredo who was on the ground, so check it out. Also published a Q&A with Jeff Staple on the site today, pretty wild he basically called and begged Brooks to pull the GTS 4 from the archive so he could do a rerelease with them. Also the speed loafer rules! But missed a chance to call it the Speed Goafer 🤷♂️
It is hard to watch brands spurn their athletes. They are like family. Yes, there are times it has to come down to dollars and cents but never as aggressively as brands make it happen.
I loved working with athletes and ambassadors. It was a relief from the grind of other marketing efforts. It was a chance to align with them, learn and tell their stories, and let them brag about a brand that they love. Then, when they get left in the wake of our poor budgeting or bad corporate oversight it hurts them and those of us that have an affinity for them as a member of the brand family.
Not sure if brands truly care beyond the bottom line. They use and abuse athletes, employees, creators, and anyone else for their gain until it’s no longer giving them their desired gains. A trend that needs to stop for sure.
Also, no thanks on the tassled running shoes. Haha