CLAE continues to be a leader in what I have labeled as elegant, elevated athletic footwear. This market is consistently overlooked and unfortunately for CLAE the boutiques that should be able to enhance the profile of the company and introduce the brand to a new demographic, are also deeply embedded into hype culture, forcing the everyday consumer who wants a better shopping experience to walk into shops where Nike dominates the wall. The potential CLAE customer has to either look like a walking hype billboard, or be discounted as browsing. Check out the Autumn/Winter 2021 Collection in this video:
I love the presentation here, but where am I? CLAE is like every brand. There is the constant struggle to either “know and maintain” the fan already riding with the company, or the brand has to “train to gain”. A great brand does both, but smaller brands lack the staff and budgets to do both. I asked, “Where am I?” because as cool, clean and simple as this video is, it lacks a diverse display of cultures. Does every video from a brand require a rainbow? Yes.
BUT…
Why should CLAE spend time building diversity in the marketing materials if the primary consumer of the brand is White? I’ve admitted in multiple discussions that Nike is a birthright for the Black community. There is a loyalty to the Swoosh that counters any marketing done by another brand. A new brand can gain a moment in the sun, but the Black consumer always reverts back to Nike/Jordan Brand sneakers.
Even my office walls are covered in Jordan Brand footwear. The funny part though, I may wear Nike in my casual sneaker rotation once every thirty days. My walls, and history, are dotted with brand loyalty to Nike and adidas. There were other brands thrown in here and there, but throughout my life I was either – or. I have to assume most people are this way because those brands shaped sneaker and popular culture. They have heritage and in that legacy lies loyalty and it’s difficult to overcome. Nike doesn’t have to know and maintain, but they do. They also train and gain. Their ability to do all things allows them to retain.
So where does CLAE land? You can’t place it in FootLocker. Dropping it into a shop like KITH leaves it in a battle with hype. In the perfect world, CLAE opens an array of their own doors throughout the country in areas of cities being revitalized by efforts to inspire city living. This is not realistic, as it would require a lot of real estate deals and although the company has been around a while, hiring and delivering the culture outside of the foundation of Los Angeles is extremely difficult. How does CLAE “Train and Gain”?
Answering this question requires time and a lot of research, but I think it begins with ALL Brands attempting to capture a new demographic understanding that Now Is The Time. Nike has forced retail to shift and this has caused a contraction of sneaker retail. The loss of stores was a good thing. The redundancy of product throughout mainstream sneaker culture is insulting. There can be 5 sneaker stores in an area and every store will have a variation of the same sneakers. A company like EbLens, lost their Nike contract last year, was built around the urban consumer (aka Black and Brown folks). The company had grown used to the weekly Nike drop that bailed the retailer out of poor buying habits and the stores didn’t have to work to sell. You can remove EbLens and insert any store carrying the Swoosh. EbLens is used here because they lost Nike and they haven’t begun contracting stores, but that will be inevitable. Instead of EbLens and other stores looking at Nike’s exit as a chance to rebuild retail, they are all hoping that they can continue to operate as if Nike is on the shelves. CLAE wouldn’t sell in an EbLens as it is now, but CLAE and other brands could sell in a store built around train and gain. That’s something to really think about.