Case Study: FURTHER — Lululemon’s Brand Grand Slam
From the desk of Running the Show
Background
International Women’s Day was hallmarked by FURTHER, Lululemon’s six-day feat of endurance focused on supporting women to chase ambitious goals with ambitious support. In their words, the event was “a celebration of human possibility,” but there’s much more to unpack.
FURTHER was a self-produced event showcasing 10 athletes to run their furthest distance or time over the course of 6 days on a closed certified loop course around Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, California. The goal was to simultaneously push athletes to beyond their personal limits, but to also to make strides in testing new product solutions and building a greater library of research specifically on female athletes.
Athletes
Stefanie Flippin (Age: 34): 112.19 miles
Mirna Valerio (Age: 48): 142.63 miles
Vriko Kwok (Age: 32): 188.47 miles
Kayla Jeter (Age: 34): 234.32 miles
Xiaomeng Jia (Age: 38): 300.54 miles
Yoon Young Kang (Age: 44): 313.27 miles
Devon Yanko (Age: 41): 313.27 miles
Montana Farrah-Seaton (Age: 27): 315.82 miles
Leah Yingling (Age: 32): 400 miles
Camille Herron (Age: 42): 560.33 miles
The sheer magnitude of miles logged by all participants, but Camille Herron’s performance was record-breaking…multiple times over. She broke the following records: 300 Mile WR, 400 Mile WR, 500 Mile WR, 500K WR, 600K WR, 700K WR, 800K WR, 900K WR, 3-Day WR, 4-Day WR, 5-Day WR, 6-Day WR.
Product
To support the 10 athletes in their journey, Lululemon developed and refined several products including their beyondfeel shoe, Support Code Bra, Runsie, and cooling systems. According to Chief Brand Officer, Nikki Neuburger, “The 36 new innovations consider situational and always-on functions needed for a multi-day race, all shaped by athlete insights and backed by research.”
Research
In order to support the 36 product innovations, the team at Lululemon conducted research in conjunction with their 10 athletes to improve performance and extend running duration. Specifically through this effort, Lululemon reported that these studies, aimed at optimizing women’s performance helps address a massive disparity in sports research: An audit of select sport science and sports medicine journals found 4%-13% of published studies were female-only.
Philantropy
In addition to the massive endeavor of the FURTHER event, Lululemon pledged to donate $1.5 million to Girls Opportunity Alliance, which seeks to empower adolescent girls around the world through education, allowing them to achieve their full potential.
Making a Brand Statement
Lululemon created one of the most comprehensive events of this kind that we’ve seen. It truly connected product, athlete, and brand all within a completely fabricated environment and served to its audience.
Outdo-ing HOKA and Saucony at their own game.
In recent memory, some events that come to mind that attempt to do this include HOKA’s Carbon X and Carbon X 2 launch and Saucony’s Fast Future 10k to launch the Endorphin Pro Plus. These self-produced events allow brands to build an immersive environment for success with THEIR athletes, THEIR product, THEIR brand message, and package it beautifully to THEIR audience. While an expensive endeavor, have deep pockets does not ensure success. Lululemon poured months upon months of effort to create the environment for success with strategic athletes and ambassadors and a comprehensive plan for social media assets, communications plan, and earned media. AND THIS DOES NOT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE THE EFFORT NEEDED TO DEVELOP SEVERAL PRODUCTS TO TEST THOROUGHLY BEFORE RACE DAY AND ON RACE DAY ITSELF.
“We own women’s running now”
With this massive production, Lululemon sent a warning shot across the bow of Nike, HOKA, and Oiselle in saying “we own women’s running.”
Sure, Nike had the Dreamweavers program that focused on product innovation through a slew of women testing product and receiving support from Nike in a journey towards the Olympic Marathon Trials. However, the secrecy around the program, lack of publishing results, and lack of individual personalities in the program feels lackluster in comparison to FURTHER.
Sure, HOKA is gobbling up market share in the running market and has pushed their footwear development into a new echelon, while still remaining an accessible brand for all. However, they seem to lack specificity as it relates to how they support women and FURTHER dominates.
Sure, Oiselle is a women’s brand with strong brand language about supporting women while maintaining strong partnerships like &Mother. However, Lululemon just brought a marketing and product innovation budget to the playing field that incinerates any campaign Oiselle could produce.
Looking Beyond FURTHER
While an event and spectacle of this magnitude is unlikely to spur a cascade of meticulous brand events like FURTHER from its competitors (or even Lululemon at a later date), we hope to see more momentum in the direction FURTHER blazed. Lululemon championed women’s running by investing time, effort, and resources into product solutions and the production of a spectacle. With a bit of a blueprint provided by Lululemon here, it seems like the gold standard is not only for product solutions to be made with women in mind, but to be researched with academic rigor to support findings and for that research to be publishable to help drive future innovation as well. As for Lululemon, it’s understandable that they would not be able to cast a net wide enough to encompass all ranges, and paces, and abilities, and body types within this timeline or within the scope of this event, but perhaps this is a start. Time will tell of their commitment if they continue to not only research product development on more body types and movements, but also publish that research going forward.