Put Your Best Foot Forward

This is a topic that is near and dear to Mr. Zome's heart. After working the athletic footwear business for six years, I love to see when a sneaker company delivers a new ad campaign. In the running footwear world New Balance has been the brand that America loves and knows. However over the last few years the company had fallen on hard times with sales and failure to capture the running world audience with the NB Zip shoe.

With the dominance of Asics as the premier running shoe company, New Balance needed a zip in there step to be back as a the top company in the running shoe company. The company recently hired Hilary Keates from P&G to spear head a new ad campaign and re-brand the company. In a recent interview with adage.com (link for full interview http://adage.com/article/news/q-a-balance-global-marketing-brand-exec-hilary-keates/149137) she stated that her goals when arriving with the company over a year ago was to help the brand expand and re-introduce the company to the American audience.

I recently saw the commercial for which Hilary Keates started her new campaign entitled "Let's Make Excellent Happen" and was pleasantly surprised at how refreshing the commercial was to red-introduce the brand to American audience. This is a smart, strategic move on their behalf with this launch as we near the beginnning of marathon season and retail stores are stocking up on running footwear. With this new launch the company is also introducing their latest shoe "The NB 890" (comparable to the Nike Free).  There is hope with this launch to capture the brand back.



Here is the commercial that captures the spirit of the running community through excellence: