Source: NOMADNESS Travel Tribe photo via the Nomadness site
In 2014 I had the pleasure of being introduced to Evita Robinson when we appeared on Paul C. Brunson’s “Mentor Monday” show on entrepreneurship. I had never heard of Evita or her concept/travel group named Nomadness. The double entendre immediately caught my attention as a reference to:
- Not being mad and angry, which is a stereotype always assigned to Black people
- Nomads, people who wander based on work, family, need or discovery
I didn’t know that there was a group of people who were meeting and visiting countries around the world. Evita began her journey in 2012:
I began my journey in the early 90s when I joined the Navy. I became an unintentional traveler. While my shipmates did “Navy” things, I did Navy things in ports as well, I also took tours in Hong Kong and in Singapore. I branched off in Perth and actually drove a girl friend’s car to visit a beach far away from the places of tourists. As life, school, and time caught up with me, I traveled less. In 2011 when I became a full time business person with a few dollars, and now with a young family, I traveled. Had I still been a single guy without the constraints of responsibility to family, I’m almost certain I would have discovered Evita Robinson and her passport popping crew of young African-Americans abroad. What I did do when I traveled/travel with my family is walk. I did that when I was in Portland for the #AAFFPDX. My feet didn’t appreciate it either (I’ve got video of my walk around Portland).
I’m intentionally introducing you to Evita and Nomadness to establish a point. I’m using the picture above to do so; outdoor wear has overlooked and dismissed Blacks as a potential growth market. Young African-Americans turn traditional athletic wear into gear for travel. They create styles and looks rooted in outdoor apparel, but that apparel also captures individual style. In the words of Will Smith, “[Black people] make this look good.”
When I was asked the question by a peer at the African-American Footwear Forum 2019, “Why is there no collective interest of Black and Brown people in outdoor apparel and footwear?” I processed the question and my first thought was Nomadness. Which led me to my initial response, “Blacks are an overlooked market not being marketed towards.” I stopped and realized I was a part of the problem. I knew Nomadness existed, but I’d never written an article on them. I have friends who are constantly posting about their travels abroad so I see the information consistently and I never tied the discussion to the footwear industry.
I have basically chalked up outdoor footwear and apparel to hypebeast collections and little White kids growing up to be old White people who hike.
If I’m aware and I don’t seek out information… wait a minute. That’s the problem. The brands have come to rely on people to discover them as opposed to creating divisions dedicated to implementing programs to capture a customer that could change the trajectory of a brand.
Education is the key to connecting with the Black consumer. When you consider there is not a monolithic “Black” consumer this education has to come in waves and at different levels. Timberland didn’t figure Black people out; they capitalized on Hip-Hop’s East Coast aesthetic. UGGs has capitalized on the Instagram trend of Black women rocking their boots. Both brands shifted from Macy’s and big box stores to Footlocker and urban accounts like City Gear. The product, performance wise, leaves something to be desired and both brands have over-saturated the accounts leading to a lot of discounts, but those two brands in my opinion have done the introduction into the Black community incorrectly. They relied too heavily on fashion which is trendy and can shift suddenly.
Black people are like Cordis Hall in his picture on the Salomon website. Black people are also kids walking to school in cold weather states like New York and Illinois. Black people are also living in the South in its oppressive, humid heat, walking trails in my hometown of Memphis at Shelby Farms. Black people are like White people and Brown people, and all people.
We all have legs and arms and need stuff to cover them when we walk and run, but when the imagery doesn’t feature us, we don’t see it as an option. When there aren’t directly aimed programs, brands miss us.
What I’m requesting is an investment into the multifaceted levels of the potential Black consumer in outdoor footwear and apparel. For this to take place Black people can’t get angry or upset when brands make mistakes. Even if a brand has Black people in the room, the brand will do things incorrectly. They will assume all Black people stay in the hood and create imagery based on cheesy rap videos. They will assume that all middle class Black families are mother and father, when the parents might be mother and mother. There will be assumptions and mistakes and Blacks can’t get angry. At the same time brands can diminish these issues by having Blacks in the room. Once the topic is brought up then we can move towards the
B.O.L.D. Initiative (work with me, I’m making this up on the fly).
Blacks & Outdoor Lifestyle Destinations (Like I said, work with me I just created that acronym, lol.)
Columbia just introduced a new shoe that almost captures what I’m saying. The problem is they launched and went immediately towards websites like Hypebeast and Complex where the information is centered around fashion. The natural response to a project like this is Columbia is biting Nike and the Huarache. Columbia is looking for the cheat code and overlooking the correct longterm strategy of education which will leverage every aspect of the reason this new model was created and who can utilize the model. In Columbia’s promo of this new model, they should have reached out to Evita and allowed her to do a more organic educational promo.
If they used the B.O.L.D. concept (yep, I’m making this a thing), they would have spent more time on producing a locally inspired educational campaign that would be a longer process, but it would allow for embedding team members into cities for urban discovery (alright, I’m still working on this, but I need to do a video because it’s in my head, I just need to give it a bit more thought).
I guess to answer another part of the question from my peer at #AAFFPDX, yes… this is a missed opportunity. It will remain a missed opportunity because outdoor brands see the Black dollar as unattainable so they don’t even try. When they do they immediately go to the young sneakerhead market with a fashion forward style and they capture images like the Columbia SH/FT. Which is the same market that looks to Nike for style and fashion. You can pay an influencer to rock the shoe, but tomorrow the same influencer will be back to wearing the Off White Kiger.
Brands have to be B.O.L.D. Tribes like Nomadness are out there waiting for you. Urban hikers walking to school everyday are out there waiting for you. In Memphis, Black families walking across the Big River Crossing are waiting for you. Actually they aren’t waiting. They don’t even know you exist because you don’t think they exist.