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VIDEO CASE 18–1 AIRWALK, INC.

“To effectively communicate with the youth audience,” observes Sharon Lee, “it is important to earn their respect by knowing what they think and how they think. You must stay one step ahead of them by constantly studying what they are reading, doing, listening to, playing, and watching.”

Sharon Lee speaks from experience. She is an account director at Lambesis, the advertising agency whose integrated marketing communications (IMC) program launched Airwalk shoes into the stratosphere. Lee’s job is to be the key link between Airwalk and Lambesis. Her special insights into the youth market have helped make Airwalk’s recent success possible. But it wasn’t always so easy.

Early Days: The Struggle

George Yohn founded the company in 1986—searching for a piece of the fast-growing athletic shoe craze headed by Nike and Reebok. His first efforts marketing an aerobic shoe hit the wall, so he had to find a new product and marketing strategy. Then one of his designers found a sport that other sneaker manufacturers hadn’t yet discovered: skateboarding. Yohn watched skateboarders drag their feet to turn and brake, so he developed a special athletic shoe that had extra layers of leather, more rubber in the sole, and double stitching to add longer life. Watching skateboarders do a popular trick of popping the board into the air, he named his new company “Airwalk.”

The colourful skateboard shoes almost jumped off the surf and skate shops stocking them, so Airwalk moved into other freestyle segments like snowboarding and BMX and mountain bike riding. Airwalk sales hit $20 million in 1990, but an anti-snowboarding movement soon closed many slopes to snowboarders and sales fell $8 million in 1992.

Repositioning Airwalk: Targeting Mainstream Youth

At this point Yohn got his great insight: if basketball shoes aren’t worn just by basketball players, why should skateboarding shoes be worn just by skateboarders? This gave Yohn his new challenge in 1992: reposition Airwalk to bring its hotdogger image to mainstream youth who were looking for stylish shoes but weren’t into skateboarding.

While this repositioning looked great on paper, making it actually happen was a big, big order! Although Airwalk was well known among action-sport enthusiasts, the brand name was almost unknown among mainstream youth. It was at this point that Airwalk introduced its active/casual line of sneakers targeted at these youth, mainly teens.

Research: Finding What’s Cool!

Looking back on the early 1990s, it’s now possible to find some key elements that have led to Airwalk’s success today. One example is the huge effort it puts into “trend spotting” research, discussed earlier in Chapter 8. Dee Gordon, a nationally known expert in trend spotting, is on the staff of Lambesis. She authors the L Report, published quarterly by Lambesis, which surveys 18 000 trendsetter and mainstream respondents from ages 14 to 30 and touches on every aspect of their lives. Gordon’s research gives other Lambesis employees like Sharon Lee and its clients in-depth insights into what the trendsetters and cool kids are thinking, doing, and buying. Dee Gordon also studies trends around the world as a foundation for global marketing strategies developed by Lambesis clients.

Making It Happen: The IMC Strategy

Airwalk and Lambesis recognized that much of Nike’s and Reebok’s success is that they recognize their business is no longer simply about selling shoes—it’s about creating a cool image for their shoes. Mastering the marketing of the hard-to-define concept known as “cool” was the task that Airwalk dropped in the lap of Lambesis when Airwalk launched its first active/casual footwear line, targeted at the youth market.

The special challenge for Lambesis was to expand the market for Airwalk shoes by reaching the new, broader cool segments for its shoes without diluting their image among the existing core segments. Chad Farmer, the creative director at Lambesis who is charged with coming up with ideas for Airwalk ads, saw an opportunity to position Airwalk to the youth market as the harbinger of style in casual footwear. At the same time, Airwalk’s integrated marketing communications program must retain its shoes’ reputation for quality and durability while featuring their original designs and colours.

Chad Farmer’s IMC program illustrates the diversity of media and strategies available to creative agencies and clients trying to break through the media clutter. This clutter is reflected in today’s youth often seeing about 3000 advertising messages in a typical day. Airwalk’s TV commercials and print ads are alive with humour, irreverence, and unrestrained attitude. In many of the 14 countries where Airwalks are sold, youth steal its outdoor posters to hang in their rooms. Airwalk’s Website (http://www.airwalk.com/) not only displays its latest line of shoes, but also provides graphics, animation, and recent TV commercials that can be downloaded.

Airwalk’s IMC strategy doesn’t stop with conventional media. Airwalk team “riders” include the best competitive skateboarders, snowboarders, mountain bike riders, and surfers who represent the company in major competitions globally. Bands and musicians such as the Beastie Boys, Green Day, Pearl Jam, and R.E.M. wear Airwalks—gaining great visibility for the brand. Lambesis gets product placement everywhere from movies and music videos to skateboard/BMX camps and fashion magazine photos.

What has resulted from all of this? In the mid-1990s, sales increased 400 percent in a single year. Today’s sales are more than $300 million. And Teen Research Unlimited, a marketing research group, reports that Airwalk is among the top 20 percent of “coolest” brands and still climbing.

1		What were Airwalk’s promotional objectives when it decided to target mainstream youth with its line of shoes in its IMC program?
2		Airwalk has developed what it calls a “tripod” strategy to stress three simple one-word concepts to communicate to the youth it targets and to stress in its IMC program. From reading the case and from what you know about the youth market, what might these be?
3		Describe how Airwalk and Lambesis might use the following media or promotional elements in their IMC strategy to target the notoriously difficult-to-reach target market of youth: (a) TV, (b) billboards, (c) product placements in movies, (d) special events, and (e) Website. Explain your answers.
4		As Airwalk sells its shoes around the world, it has chosen to use a global marketing strategy, as defined in Chapter 7. What are the advantages and disadvantages for Airwalk of this strategy? For example, how might Airwalk take advantage of this strategy in print ads?