The North Face (TNF) is preparing to more intensely target female consumers in Europe next year, after the integration of the former Lucy brand into the outdoor company's range. Women's products currently make up about 30 percent of TNF's sales in the region across all product categories.
VF Corporation, the owner of TNF, decided earlier this year to wind down Lucy and integrate its ranges into TNF's former Mountain Athletics category, which has been renamed Run and Train. The Lucy brand, which has been focusing on women's training, will disappear from the market.
Anyhow, consumer awareness of the brand was relatively weak and restricted to North America, and its performance had been uneven over the years. VF figured out that it could leverage the TNF's brand appeal and distribution to cover the same category more efficiently.
The Run and Train category makes up about 7 percent of TNF's global sales and 3 percent of its turnover in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This compares with 58 percent of European sales for the Mountain Sports category, 30 percent for Mountain Lifestyle and 9 percent for Urban Exploration.
The integration of Lucy's product range into TNF should be all the more effective in Europe and other international markets, since Lucy products were not distributed in these countries. The interest of female consumers in TNF is confirmed by the performance of the brand's own stores, where sales of women's products are higher than average.
Lucy's input should become clear in an aspirational campaign being prepared for spring 2018. An array of new TNF-branded products designed for women will be launched across all product groups for the season.
The stronger emphasis on women's products in Europe is one of the initiatives driven by Kath Smith, TNF's vice president and general manager for EMEA since March. She joined TNF in October 2015 as vice president in charge of sales in the same region, after assignments with international consumer goods companies such as Mars, Diageo and the Adidas Group.
Smith wants to take advantage of TNF's wingspan by pursuing a segmentation strategy started in Europe last year – along the same lines as the tactics adopted several years ago by leading sports brands such as Nike and Adidas. It contributed to a double-digit sales rise for TNF last year in EMEA and probably encouraged VF to appoint Smith's predecessor, Arne Arens, as global brand president for TNF in May.
For this purpose, TNF has recruited several European managers from leading sports and outdoor companies. They include Carola Arnold, who became sales director for the German-speaking countries in February. She previously spent several years at Nike, ending up as category sales director in Western Europe. Another newcomer is Darren Shooter, who became design director for TNF in June. He is a design consultant who has worked for a number of sports brands and previously created the Black Mountain Clothing Company.
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