Brooks Running has enlisted an experienced professional, Erik Nystedt, to distribute its products in the Nordic countries, where the brand is relatively well known already. Nystedt, who worked with Asics for many years, is forming a new company in Sweden, Brooks Scandinavia, to distribute the brand in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Nystedt worked as managing director of Asics Sverige for the past 17 years, to the end of December. For the last seven years, he also served as the Japanese brand's marketing director for performance products in the North Region, which covers Scandinavia as well as the Benelux countries. He was elected vice chairman of the Svenskt Sportforum, the Swedish association of sporting goods suppliers and retailers, for a couple of years before becoming its chairman in 2009. He still holds the title to this day.
Starting in the early ‘nineties and until about six years ago, Brooks had exclusive deals with Stadium in Sweden, Gresvig in Norway and Kesport in Finland. It then switched to a looser structure, working with local agents to broaden the distribution to other retailers. The new set-up is expected to establish the brand in a better position in the market. Brooks Scandinavia has started to recruit a team of sales reps to reach this goal.
The move is taking place just as Matt Dodge is starting a new job as Brooks' managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), based at its European office in Amsterdam. A former attorney, Dodge has been working for Brooks at its head office in Seattle since 2013 as associate general counsel and then as general counsel and vice president of global human relations.
In this position, Dodge has been instrumental in developing a selective distribution strategy for the brand on a global basis. According to the management, the strategy has been particularly effective in cleaning up the market in Europe in the last few years, while broadening the distribution beyond the specialty running retail segment and setting up new company-owned subsidiaries in Italy, Spain and France, complementing those it already had in Germany, the U.K. and the Benelux countries.
Coupled with new efforts on the product and marketing fronts, the strategy helped the company to grow last year in all the markets where it has taken over the distribution, positioning itself clearly in the performance segment of the market, with no lifestyle-oriented offers like those of its competitors. With new products in the pipeline, the growth is expected to accelerate and reach a double-digit speed this year, according to the management.
In Europe, Dodge is taking the place that was previously occupied by David Bohan, who returned to the U.S. to be with his family at the end of 2016, at the end of a three-year contract. He is now operating in a different sector. Bohan's position was occupied last year on an interim basis by Hamish Stewart, a veteran of Brooks, who is now concentrating again on his role as vice president of EMEA sales.
Brooks is making minimal use of the internet for e-commerce in Europe, where it is placing more emphasis on digital marketing under the leadership of Austin Simms, a former marketing manager of Nike and TomTom who was placed in charge of European marketing in 2016. He now reports to Melanie Allen, a former marketing manager of Starbucks who became Brook's senior vice president and chief marketing officer last September.
