Archaeopteryx, the favorite of the middle class, cannot harvest fans of HOKA and Angpao

Wen| On the outside, He Jinyi and Yang Xiaoqing

“Archaeopteryx, the darling of the middle class, encountered two ambitious challengers.

From CBD white-collar workers and high-end gym members to rich and idle anglers and retired aunts, more and more people wearing HOKA and On running shoes are visible to the naked eye. After the three-piece set, the middle class has fallen in love with the new Three Treasures.

In 2024, Archaeopteryx’s income will increase by 266% year-on-year, but in the face of HOKA and Angpao, the growth rate is still inferior, and the gap has more than doubled.

Moreover, the offensive of the new favorites of the middle class is getting worse, especially in China. This year, it has announced plans to further expand offline stores. HOKA will join forces with domestic factories and sports retailers, and Onpao has also launched new products with local design.

In a time when the middle class was no longer enough, this was obviously not good news for Archaeopteryx.

In order to strengthen its top-class status, Archaeopteryx has recently been very motivated. Not only has the high-level reshuffle, but also has stepped on the accelerator for the density of new products and the width of its product line, as if it wants to crush its peers.

However, Archaeopteryx may not be able to harvest fans of HOKA and Onpao. Although they all made their fortune overseas and domestically, and they all targeted the middle-class group, the product ideas, operation paths and core cultures of the three brands are completely different.

1. The fashionable spirit who pursues the wind meets the science and engineering man who is immersed in technology”

Sports fans who have been shopping recently have probably noticed the ongoing window revolution: the shoes placed in the C position of the HOKA store display area have gradually been replaced by clothing; the high-running has changed even more. In the latest store display, clothes and shoes each occupy a wall.

Looking closely at the popular products, the style cannot be said to be exactly the same as Archaeopteryx, but at least 70% similar, and the price is getting more and more expensive. I can’t hide my desire to go up.

On the other hand, although Archaeopteryx realized its dream of making shoes independently last year and entered the hinterland of high-speed runners, it has only launched three self-developed shoes, covering multiple scenarios such as racing, hiking, and marathon, and even refining. There is still a certain gap among the upstarts who have different functional shoe styles such as cushioning and pace.

This is also reflected in the number of products. Taking the e-commerce flagship store as an example, the Archaeopteryx SKU is only 294, which is about 20% lower than Angpao.

There are signs that the new favorites of the middle class are following the path of Archaeopteryx and forcing it into danger. However, if you lengthen the timeline and compare it from the perspective of product iteration, you will find that the ideas of the two camps are actually quite different.

Archaeopteryx star product ALPHA SV hard-shell coat has undergone many iterations in the 27 years since its birth and has repeatedly refreshed industry performance standards. However, except for the color changing from deep to light, there has been almost no significant change in appearance.

HOKA’s classic models are iterated once a year on average, and new tricks are designed every time; not to mention the high-speed running, they are updated closely with the trend.

If HOKA and Aung Pao are fashion masters who keenly catch the trend of the market, then Archaeopteryx is like a man of science and technology immersed in technology.

This difference did not exist in the early days of the brand’s birth, and even the three companies ‘origins were the same: they all originated from niche sports, and they all stood out from traditional outdoor brands with their superior performance.

The founder of HOKA is a cross-country running champion. After noticing that the popular thin-soled shoes could cause damage to his feet, he developed lightweight thick-soled technology to enhance cushioning to protect athletes; high-speed running, which is closely related to triathlon sports, has also created a unique CloudTec technology to greatly improve the cushioning performance of shoes.

However, cross-country running and triathlon are both too niche. Even if HOKA and high running are recognized by most athletes in the circle, the audience is still very limited. For example, in 2012, HOKA’s sales were only one-tenth of Nike’s.

This forced the brand to break the circle into popular sports such as running. At that time, in order to break the ceiling, HOKA did not hesitate to sell itself to the shoe and apparel company Deckers in exchange for resource support when the number of stores doubled in three years and the popularity was booming.

Archaeopteryx, born from extreme rock climbing, also has the intention of expanding its boundaries, but it is not as convenient as HOKA and high running to reduce the intensity of cross-country running. It is popular running. Triathlon includes running, and technology can be directly reused.

Moreover, Archaeopteryx’s persistence in top-notch craftsmanship and technology also limited production capacity. In the case of the hard shell ALPHA SV, details such as zippers and drawstrings are all made by hand. It takes more than 4 hours to make one piece, and the annual output is only 110,000 pieces.

In addition, Archaeopteryx itself does not want to blur the mind of hard-core sports equipment due to expansion, so it has always been leisurely, especially avoiding the word fashion. Even when it was worn by LV executives to walk the runway, it quickly issued a statement to clear the relationship.

HOKA and Ang Run are not so heavy as to have a heavy image burden. The latter are even firm believers in fashion sports. In the wave of sports fashion such as Dad Shoes, they seize the opportunity to constantly change models and sign names to cater to the public’s aesthetics and enter the fashion circle.

Over the years of development, HOKA, Angpao and Archaeopteryx have embarked on two distinct paths.

HOKAs have a wide variety of products, and their brands are becoming more and more popular. They have encountered Nike in the narrow road: in Dick’s, an American sports goods retailer, the product shares of Nike and HOKAs are declining.

However, Archaeopteryx still maintains the tone of professional sports and avoids positive competition from the mass sports circle: taking women who love beauty as an example, the proportion of women among HOKA users is close to 50%, and the proportion of women among HOKA users is as high as 65%, while Archaeopteryx is less than 40%.

Of course, in addition to the differentiation of product ideas, brand operations are also exerting influence.

2. One is an elite camp, and the other is a technology-controlled concentration camp”

At the Archaeopteryx Museum located on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai, almost every day, birdmen from all over the country come to make pilgrimage to the original ecological simulation scenes such as mountain cliffs, wind, snow and polar regions in the store, wearing jackets and exhausting Pose clicks to take photos.

At the same time, the shots captured and shared by HOKA and Nangran people were either a group photo of the vast expanse of the sky, or a group running picture of sweating like rain and going hand in hand.

The diametrically opposed painting styles are due to the difference in the operational focus of the two, Archaeopteryx focuses on visual symbols, while HOKA emphasizes community operations.

This is not difficult to understand. After all, in the eyes of middle-aged men who use Archaeopteryx inlaid with gold, the visual impact of the store’s height is more in line with identity than group building community activities. For HOKA and Onrun users who are attracted by products and technologies, participating in club activities is the best way to experience it.

Brands that understand this naturally strive to be worms in the stomach of their own God.

It can be seen that under the guidance of high standards, all operational indicators of Archaeopteryx are in an elite manner. For example, the person in charge of its China region mentioned when talking about social marketing: Mountain classroom activities are designed to serve core users, not the mass market. rdquo;

The activities it calls are basically mountaineering, rock climbing, skiing and other sports led by big shots, as well as luxurious accommodation and accommodation. The registration conditions are extremely strict: only tens of thousands of credit cards can you qualify for registration during the year, and more than 10,000 points will be consumed at a time; The limit for a single event is 50 people, and it may not be possible to qualify for one year after application.

In this way, only the group of people standing at the top of the membership system can enter community activities. To a certain extent, this makes the community another identity symbol.

And the brand image display is even more aligned with luxury goods.

For example, to cater to the preference of high-end consumers to reject large logos and be ostentatious, the products do not have a unified and unique shape, the logos are not conspicuous, and even the high-end commercial bird series do not have logos.

But he made a big fuss in the store. As shown below, not only the Archaeopteryx Museum, but almost every Archaeopteryx flagship store is decorated like an art exhibition integrating natural scenes.

In order to create a weak commercial and strong artistic atmosphere, shopping at this time has become a cultural interaction between bird people, and the sense of psychological enrichment is full.

This pulse is multiplied by its popular overseas experience marketing. As shown in the figure below, Angran holds activities such as 5k run crewSquad Races and Run Your Local Mountain every year in Europe, inviting runners to experience new products and continuing to attract thousands of product and technology enthusiasts.

With such a positive outcome, it is natural to introduce it to the China market. City Run activities are everywhere, and HOKA stores are even equipped with treadmills and foot measuring machines, allowing users to run at any time.

Not only that, the SquadRace event hosted by Angran evaluates the best results of the team, and HOKA’s regular running volume is the annual relay race, focusing on team spirit.“”“”

This is exactly the heart of the current main runner young people. Some young people who participate in running groups have told themselves: When they are in their twenties, it is really difficult to make friends. Joining a sports club can balance sports and social interaction. rdquo;

Running along their respective directions, both got what they wanted: every time Archaeopteryx produced a new product with a new price, the die-hard bird people lined up in long queues;HOKA and Aung Run soared into the sky in the running circle, and were praised by runners as a knowledgeable runner’s choice.& rdquo;

As a result, it naturally means that the user groups of the two companies are getting smaller and smaller. However, the different cultures of brands also determine that they will eventually lead to a fork in the road.

3. Birds advocate power, while HOKA and Angrun fans pay for their interests

Opening the social media platform, the current style of middle-class shoes and clothing is gradually dividing.

The eldest brothers gathered in matching or even contrasting Archaeopteryx jackets, lamenting the chicken feathers of middle-aged life while discussing how to make money; while HOKA and Aung Pao, handsome and beautiful women full of slack stepped on them, performing healthy and fashionable life.

Obviously, when HOKA and Aung Pao became performance props for urban dwellers, Archaeopteryx had jumped out of the middle-class narrative and unlocked the wealth code beyond refined consumption.

In the promotional videos of Archaeopteryx, bird people often find themselves in desperate situations to survive. Just like a climber climbing a 5500-meter-high upright cliff with only a corner of land under his feet, the altitude reaction is accompanied by severe weather, so he can only walk upward without looking back.

This kind of pursuit of physical and mental limits can attract most people who admire strength.

For example, if the big leaders in the system wear business birds, bird costumes will appear one after another in the office. Everyone has even evolved the wisdom of wearing blue at the department level, gray at the department level, and black at the department level, and a trend of chasing birds has been blown from top to bottom.

When clothes became a symbol of power, the first thing they knew was the middle-aged bosses and corporate executives who often interacted with people in the system. They wore small, state-owned collars and solid and low-key jackets, creating a feeling that I could play with you. I felt like I could play together, and I started to eat this style of office.

Archaeopteryx is very familiar with this, just as Xu Yang, CEO of its brand, said: Consumers buy a story, a spiritual sustenance, not an actual product. rdquo;

In other words, the parting ways between Archaeopteryx and HOKA and Angpao have long been written in the genes of the brand culture. After all, Angpao preached interests.

Their deep-rooted running tracks seem to have low thresholds, but there are only a handful of people who have persisted in it for a long time. After all, the running movements are repetitive and simple, which is very boring. Running on hard urban roads such as roads and treadmills can easily tire your muscles.

The founder of Angran, who has liked cross-country running since childhood, has experienced various ground feedback and enough rebound. He is determined to let urban people have the same feeling of feet as stepping on the cloud, so as to increase their enthusiasm for running. Just like Leica, Zeiss and other professional lenses were installed on mobile phones, people found that photography can also shoot large films, and their interest in taking pictures has been greatly improved.

On the basis of making tool shoes well, HOKA has further turned its attention to many ordinary people with poor exercise ability. Its brand ambassadors are not fair-skinned stars or Grand Slam winners, but overweight chefs, elderly triathletes, etc.

Those overweight people have never been so valued by brands that they must grit their teeth and persist in wearing HOKA for running; older people and sports injuries can also use corrective shoes certified by the American Society of Podiatric Sports Medicine to meet their sports needs.

Over time, HOKA naturally became their favorite. Data shows that its brand’s users over the age of 35 account for 58.3%, which is 12.1% higher than Archaeopteryx, which cannot escape in middle age.

Angran has also labeled the brand with a healthy lifestyle brand by co-branding with a luxury lifestyle brand, thus capturing elite middle class and girls. Many girls who walk on Angran and HOKA to the cafe often wear Lululemon’s little black pants.

Obviously, through the export of different cultural values, Archaeopteryx and HOKAs have built their own brand beliefs, each occupying a piece of land in the middle class.

summary

In the book “Making Consumers”, an interesting short story is mentioned: Lingshi and Dove once fought a marketing battle. The former flaunted masculinity and even objectified women to highlight the temptation of men; the latter is extremely Feminist and claims to respect all beauty.

However, behind these two seemingly tit-for-tat brands is the same beneficiary, Unilever.—— What it does is to distinguish brands and then use consumers ‘materialistic desires to obtain the greatest benefits.“”

After reviewing the development history of Archaeopteryx, HOKA, and Onpao, a fact has also surfaced: although these brands do not belong to the same company as Lingshi and Dove, they tacitly interpret similar stories.