The Big Interview: Reebok

Eight months on from a self proclaimed “mega deal” with UFC, Chris Froio, vice president of Reebok Western Europe, talks to sportindustry.biz about how the partnership has progressed, and how it helped to define the brand in the fitness sector.

You signed a big partnership with UFC back in December, how has the partnership progressed, and what was it about the competition that made you want to get involved in the first place?

The UFC is an interesting one. First and foremost we recognised an emerging fitness trend in combat training. People are now using boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts as a form of fitness. So we were exploring the space and through our studies we realised there were 35 million people around the world using these activities – on top of the millions of people also participating in jujitsu and other similar disciplines – so it’s a huge market.

What we’re always on the search for is exciting, engaging fitness activities that the average consumer might not feel they are ready to do, and then we try and introduce them to that. We then needed to authenticate ourselves in that space, fortunately at the same time UFC wanted a big brand to support them. UFC fighters are some of the most fit people in the planet, and when they’re not in the octagon they’re spending weeks and weeks of their lives training to be the best they can be. So we did a mega deal. We’re now title sponsor of UFC and we outfit all 600 athletes and all of the events around the world, so it’s tremendous exposure.

It also gives us the ability to authenticate ourselves through combat training product, bringing in gym partnerships and other avenues to combine the theme together. The ultimate thing for all of our partnerships is to be a resource – not just to give you footwear and apparel – but also introduce you to these new activities. So much like the CrossFit deal, it really brings our whole brand message together. Or that’s the idea certainly!

You have previously worked on the CrossFit movement, is there a lot of crossover between your experiences there and you’re time with UFC?

Both of these brands have exploded at a similar trajectory, although with UFC obviously starting at a higher base, with 250 million people now watching pay-per-view fights. They both bring the same unique attitude towards fitness and both have the same trajectory. When we started the CrossFit journey there were 1,800 gyms around the world doing it, and most of them were in the US. Now we have the same amount in Europe alone and 12,000 around the world.

Similarly, the UFC was almost bankrupt a few years ago, now it’s worth $1.4m. Even though the scale is different, there’s certainly a lot of similarities between the two brands.

There’s been a change in direction for the brand in the last few years, moving away from more mainstream sports such as football, was that a conscious decision?

Very much so, five years ago we sat down and asked ourselves ‘what do we really want to be?’ We have become a team sports brand, which is a very expensive place to be.

We spent so much time, energy and money promoting our teams and athletes, we weren’t doing the same for our brand. Now that may work for guys like Nike, but that wasn’t the best formula for us. What we did was look at our most successful years, and what were we focusing on at that time to bring that success?

What we found was very interesting, and that was the sport of fitness. Whether it be a form of fitness through fighting or CrossFit, we want to introduce people to fitness as a unique form of sport. As people become older and more mature, a lot of people will stop taking part in team sports, you become a fan, drinking beer in the stadium. We’d rather have the person who wants to do fitness as a lifestyle activity.

The fitness space is worth €17bn around the world, that’s a huge opportunity for us to reground our business, become good at one thing, and reintroduce the brand to everyone.

Starting five years ago, I think it took us the first three years to really identify exactly what it meant from a marketing and advertising standpoint with ‘Be More Human,’ as well as a partnership standpoint, and now it’s paying off with eight consecutive quarters and two years of growth globally in a really substantial way.

No one is confused about what we are as a brand anymore. Five years ago if you asked somebody, even in my own team, one person by say it’s a basketball brand because we have Allen Iverson, or it’s a football brand because we have Emmitt Smith, or it’s a soccer brand because we’ve got all sorts of ambassadors there. There’s no confusion anymore. We’re fitness.