🍀 Nike Who??

Picture this, it’s 2010, you walk into your gym, you’re dressed, you’re ready. All the gear. 

The girl to your left on the treadmill is wearing Nike shoes, the guy to your right is wearing Nike’s, your boyfriend is wearing Nike’s (not my boyfriend – I was a late bloomer), and you’re wearing (I bet you couldn’t guess which brand)… NIKE.

If you were an athlete, had any sense of style, and were cool, you were wearing Nike.

Now flash forward to 2024, you’re headed to tennis and the lady to your left isn’t wearing Nike shoes. 

So what brand are you wearing??

Millionaire, today’s brand of focus has had a meteoric rise over the last decade (doing $2.2B in sales last year), is being worn by everyone from my dad to the MOST CHIC celebs, and is a classic example of how to EVOLVE your GTM strategy as a brand while scaling. 

Founded back in 2010 by former Ironman champion Olivier Bernhard, alongside David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti, On Cloud Running was hyper-focused on building a name for themselves in the athletic footwear industry.

Behemoths like Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour (whose marketing budgets were 1,000x that of On Cloud Running), dominated the industry in the U.S.

Sooo On Cloud didn’t bother to tap into the US market yet, instead they went incredibly niche. Hyper focused on establishing their footing (pun intended LOL), On Cloud positioned themselves as an innovative footwear tech brand for long-distance runners.

This was their in. Signing Swiss professional triathlete, Nicola Spirig, On Cloud quickly became known as the it-brand for the best long-distance running shoes in Europe.

It was On Cloud and HOKA making their mark in the long-distance running communities while Nike and Adidas focused elsewhere.

But to take the next step and compete with the Nike’s of the world, On Cloud knew they’d have to shed the long-distance running identity and branch into a new market, SPORTS.

Then, in 2019, Roger Federer came along. In exchange for 3% of the company, Federer inked a long term partnership to promote the brand. It was a perfect fit: at the time, a large majority of On Cloud’s customers were based in Switzerland, long-distance runners focused on the tech of the shoe, and Roger Federer symbolized a shift for the brand, WHILE ALSO maintaining the existing brand identity (Federer is FROM SWITZERLAND and On Cloud was VERY proud of their Swiss heritage).

Being that he was one of the biggest faces of tennis, this drew a lot of new eyes to On Cloud. Their first foray into sports, Federer began wearing On Cloud shoes in every tournament and introducing the brand to up and coming tennis stars like Ben Shelton (my husband’s favorite tennis player) and Iga Swiatek.

Falling right in line with the tennis core trend of fashion that merges athleisure with preppy sport style (cue the Lululemon and Alo’s of the world), it was all a perfect storm for On Cloud.

One of the greatest athletes of all time was putting their product to the test in front of millions LIVE, the best young tennis stars were also donning their shoes while winning tournaments, and fashion trends just so happened to be aligned with it all.

Successfully shedding the long-distance running brand identity and stepping into a more niche sports brand identity, if On Cloud wanted to really take on Nike and Adidas, they’d have to make another leap.

So they shed the “Cloud Running” from their brand name which paid homage to their origin of innovation in running and went all in with the brand name “On” to hint towards a more widely catered athletic brand. I can only imagine what this domain cost – on.com – , but that’s a story for another day. 

In lockstep with the rebrand they also signed a multi-year deal with 1 of the most notable cultural figures in the world…ZENDAYA!!! Now before you question why an athletic brand like On would partner with an actress, you’d think it would be the equivalent of Nike coming out with a Bradley Cooper shoe (it just doesn’t make sense), this collab crushed it.

For two reasons. One, Nike and Adidas already have a lock on the grit & grind aura of the athleticwear industry.

If On were to follow in their footsteps, the chances that they can steal market share there are slim. So they had to take a unique approach. They make their shoes for athletes, they sponsor athletes. They invest tons of money in research to make the best athleticwear. But they’re focused on something greater than just finishing first in athletics.

They’re focused on movement. Every touchpoint the brand has now in 2024 with consumers, is focused on this picture of movement. It’s all encompassing, it’s bigger than sports, allowing the brand to transcend their humble beginnings.

But just to show you how laser focused the marketing department is over at On, this partnership with Zendaya was announced right around the time that she was starring in a new film called Challengers where she plays an injured tennis star turned coach.

So it wasn’t just a randomly thrown together celebrity partnership where the celebrity gets a boatload of cash to promo a product they don’t believe in. Zendaya had ties to the tennis community, while also representing the new demo On is looking to target, people just looking to MOVE.

Zendaya isn’t trying to win the US Open, she’s not training for the Olympics, but she’s moving and shaking and beloved and perfect for On. I love Zendaya, if you can’t tell. (I saw Challengers twice in theaters LOL and follow Law Roach as if my life depends on it). 

And for your next influencer or celebrity partnership, you BETTER NOT be throwing cash at a big name just because. Find someone who actually ALIGNS with your brand, find your Zendaya.