Is your marketing helping, or hurting you?

A lesson in using analytics to measure the things that actually matter.

While leading Reebok's analytics team in 2015, I had an OH SHIT moment.

One of those moments where you stumble upon something that has the potential to change the trajectory of the business. And it’s usually a moment that is so clear that it makes you question how you didn’t notice it earlier.

Most of the time, you’re looking for small insights as an analyst. That, if acted upon, will realistically have a small impact. And you hope that, over time, those small impacts add up.

This wasn’t one of those insights. It was small - but the potential impact was massive. And it exposed a problem in our core marketing that was potentially hurting the business.

And I guarantee that 90% of health, wellness, and fitness companies suffer from the same problem.

So, what was Reebok's problem?

From 2012 – 2015, CrossFit grew at an unprecedented rate, adding approximately 8,500 total net locations. And the sport of fitness was synonymous with Reebok.

With a projected 13,000,000 total CrossFit participants - and a deep marketing partnership, Reebok had access to a massive audience of highly engaged & high spending consumers.

But they still couldn’t own market share of a market that they had helped create.

Based on public estimates, Reebok had owned less than 25% of the available market, with Nike owning the top spot, newcomers including NoBull starting to steal share & a large percentage of athletes not investing in CrossFit-specific footwear & choosing to lift weights in running shoes.

Reebok wasn’t getting outspent - they were telling 85% of the target market that Reebok wasn’t for them.

Specifically, Reebok had focused on the professional CrossFit athlete as their initial target market.

Their advertising reflected this, with the brand signing 85% of the top CrossFit athletes to long-term partnership deals.

And if you looked at Reebok’s marketing campaigns - it was clear. Most of their advertising featured ripped athletes with low body fat percentages, most working out in situations that weren’t realistic for the common person.

Reebok was telling the 13,000,000 CrossFit athletes that the brand was only for them if they looked like the models in their advertisements.

And subsequently, they had to “earn the right” to buy and wear Reebok’s scientifically designed products to help them in the gym.

If you walked into any CrossFit gym in 2015, you would have seen this in practice. Nearly every coach wore Reebok. The same for the fittest members of the gym.

They bought into the value prop of the brand.

They were told to think that “If I’m fit, these shoes will help me be fitter.”

The opposite was true for new & casual gym members. While the sport was easily scalable - there was a belief that you didn’t need, or deserve, the nicest shoes until you were able to “do all of the movements” and had “earned the right”.

And this is the problem that faces nearly every fitness brand today.

It’s easy to build a product for a niche athlete. Find a problem they are having & solve it. Build for them & hope that the audience of ‘niche’ grows in size.

But in reality, the more niche your audience is, the more you risk polarizing those who are not in it.

And that is what Reebok did. They convinced athletes that they had to “earn” the right to wear certain clothing & shoes.

And that was the opposite of what they wanted.

The solution was easy.

If you look at an ad from Reebok in 2023, you’ll notice a small but stark change.

While still fit & aspirational, most of their models are less intimidating.

They’re wearing more clothing.

They’re doing movements that are “less scary”

They’re telling their customers that you don’t need to “earn” their clothing, but their clothing is designed to help you on your existing journey.

They made their products more accessible - and ended up opening up a significantly larger share of market.

My tip?

Talk to your customers, prospects, AND rejectors regularly. You might be missing a small insight that, when acted upon, can lead to a massive jump in market share.

Best of luck.