If there’s one lesson aspiring brands can take from Lululemon’s recent overwhelming success, it’s that if you can’t find something cool to sell, find something relatively obscure and make it cool.
The Vancouver-based yoga wear manufacturer saw its profits more than double in the past year amidst market turmoil.
But the company’s success comes from more than just selling pants that shape, sculpt and otherwise enhance the wearer’s rump. Lululemon has managed to take a niche activity and build an entire lifestyle around it.
Instead of appealing only to people who practice yoga, Lululemon has created a brand image and philosophy that makes yoga a central part of a serene, healthy, eco-friendly life. Rather than sell an activity, Lululemon is selling a lifestyle – and an attractive one at that. Especially in today’s ever busy world.
Lululemon’s advertising strongly pushes that lifestyle. Outside the store, posters of young, attractive people performing yoga in beautiful nature scenes entice passersby.
And let’s not forget the stores’ free, reusable red bags jumbled with sayings like, “Friends are more important than money” and “Dance, sing, floss and travel.”
This vision is perfect for today’s coffee house professionals, those health-obsessed corporate toilers eager to lose the pantsuit and throw on a tank top and pair of Lycra pants, if only for an hour.
The lifestyle image has helped the company break into the mainstream and has made Lululemon even hipper than yoga itself. If there’s one thing consumers love, it’s buying into something hip.
To be fair, Lululemon works hard to maintain its image.
Even the Rideau Centre location, which employees claim is more fashion-oriented, sells yoga mats and fitness balls. The store also has a directory of Ottawa yoga studios, and all employees get free yoga classes.
The story of Lululemon’s success isn’t anything new. Nike Inc. became famous in the late 1980s by selling the image of being an athlete to the masses through shoes, clothes and the now famous “Just Do It” slogan.
The business of “cool” is at the core of the skateboarding market. Brands such as DC Shoes and Volcom were previously only available at independent skate shops.
But because of the sport’s rise in popularity, any mallrat can purchase a Volcom shirt at more mainstream-friendly retailers like Boathouse.
Skateboarding and yoga aren’t the same thing, but they fall on similar ground. They’re both selling a desirable image to people eager to look cool.
The trouble is, at some point what’s cool now won’t be cool anymore.
This has hardly been an issue for Nike. By the time the “Just Do It” craze ran its course Nike was already well established in sports stores everywhere. The company expanded into a variety of markets, including golf equipment, skateboarding shoes and hockey equipment, thanks to its corporate takeover of Bauer.
But Lululemon is different. Because the brand currently only sells in its own stores, the only way it has been able to expand is by opening more stores.
Looking like a healthy yoga guru may be popular now, but the image can lose momentum. When this happens, Lululemon will have to establish itself as something more than just the hip brand of today, be it by expanding into other markets or focusing more on mainstream apparel.
Otherwise, it won’t just have to cut back clothing production, it will have to close stores and lay off employees.
Perhaps the initial lesson should be amended. Find or make something cool and sell it, but be ready when something cooler comes.