đThe Latest in Fitness Trends (Long Innovation)đ
There are a lot of venture investors operating under the hypothesis that audio is the next frontier in wearables and that the Apple AirPods were just the opening salvo. Amazon Inc. ($AMZN) is apparently working on pods that double-up as fitness trackers. This is a space worth watching.
Elsewhere in fitness, weâre writing this particular section midweek and yet we literally just walked by someone rocking his NYC Marathon medal. Seems a bit aggressive to still be wearing that thing 72 hours post-race but, whatevs. To each his own.
Hereâs a piece from Reess Kennedy about fitness and marketing, discussing the rise of the Nike Vaporfly 4%, a running shoe that Nike Inc. ($NKE) alleges will enhance performance byâŚwait for itâŚ4%. Regarding the NYC marathon, he writes, âIâd safely wager that 70% of the men and women running under 3:10 were wearing it.â He adds:
ââŚSunday all I was thinking was, âWhy and how did Nike win so hard here?! Theyâve gobbled up significant market share and achieved one of the most successful product adoption feats in the history of footwearâpossibly in the history of product adoption!âand, at $250, theyâve also set a new off-the-chart, âluxuryâ price point for racing shoes in the process!ââ
He concludes that much of the adoption is attributable to FOMO: if your competitors are juicing with the Vaporfly, you should be juicing too. He writes:
âI think the far more powerful demand ignitor was actually the brazen insertion of a precise performance gain right into the name of the actual product: The Vaporfly 4%.â
âFor the first time in history, a shoe company is making a clear ROI claim to buyers. This is the real reason theyâve sold so many.â
âMany runners really struggle over many marathon attempts to break three hoursâoften, tragically, missing it by only a few minutes on each attempt. A 4% improvement for these folks hovering around three hours would mean about a seven-minute gain! If youâre on the edge of a lifetime goal is it worth it to pay $250 to achieve it? Yeah, probably. â
This begs the obvious question: how long until the release of the âBrooks Boss 6%,â the âAdidas A$$-kicker 7%â or the âSaucony Supersonic 9%â? Will we start seeing distressed players engage in marketing schemes like this to drive traffic? Should we?*
Why arenât restructuring firms using this tactic?
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