Bags / Shoes & Accessories

What kind of shoes do people in the Silicon Valley technology circle like to wear?

One of the answers is that it is the "grandma's shoes" brand, Allbirds, which is ugly and even complained about.

"Comfort" is the most distinctive label of the Allbirds brand, and its material is Merino wool from New Zealand. The American "Time" magazine once called Allbirds "the most comfortable pair of shoes in the world."

In 2016, a retired football player from New Zealand and Tim Brown engineer and renewable energy expert Joey Zwillinger co-founded an environmentally friendly casual footwear company in San Francisco. It didn't take long for it to be on the shelves, and it quickly reaped the Silicon Valley circle that was extremely picky about products.

At the end of September 2020, Allbirds completed a financing of 100 million US dollars. It took just four years to break out of the Red Sea market where the world’s top brands such as Nike, Adidas, Zara, Gucci, LV, etc. are lined up, earning US$1.7 billion. Valuation.

In 2019, Allbirds entered the Chinese market and became familiar to more Chinese consumers.

From the west coast of the United States to China on the other side of the ocean, how does this legendary DTC brand Allbirds capture loyal audiences with its unique brand concept and successfully enter the overseas market? Morketing Global will be explored in this article.

Don’t change your original intention, stick to the innovation of sustainable fabrics

In recent years, as the public's awareness of environmental protection has strengthened, consumers around the world have increasingly embraced the concept of sustainable development. Environmental protection and sustainable development issues that have been ignored by many companies have received more attention, and consumers are willing to contribute to them.

On the one hand, although fast fashion brands such as Zara meet the needs of consumers to catch up with the trend, the pollution and unsustainability problems caused by them in the production and consumption links have criticized environmental organizations and consumers.

On the other hand, Montreal handbag brands Matt and Nat that use recycled cardboard and plastic as raw materials, Nike's Space Hippie series of running shoes made of scraps, and IKEA's environmentally friendly cabinet Kungsbacka have all gained a lot of fans because of the concept of green development.

When Allbirds was founded, it had a clear vision-"To make better things in a better way". Specifically, it is to use original materials to make comfortable products in a sustainable way.

Allbirds advocates "simple but not simple"-behind the simple design is the exquisite materials.

"Nature is our muse," Allbirds' official website in China wrote. Merino wool from New Zealand, eucalyptus from South Africa, and sugarcane from Brazil are all raw materials for Allbirds products. With the blessing of natural material technology, it not only guarantees the ultimate comfort of the body, but does not violate the low-carbon and sustainability goals.

Allbirds is not limited to being a shoe company. In addition to continuing to work hard on the innovation of sole materials and the production of socks, it officially launched its apparel collection last year. At the same time, Allbirds never stops at the initial victory, and is always pursuing revolutionary material innovation.

After the wool series products were recognized by the market, the founder launched a second shoe material-eucalyptus. After experimentation, they successfully extracted fiber from eucalyptus and made the Allbirds eucalyptus series product release.

One of the raw materials of the TrinoXO series of T-shirts, newly released in October 2020, comes from the second most abundant biopolymer on the planet, and is taken from snow crabs in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Chitosan in discarded crab shells can make clothes more antibacterial and durable, without relying on metal extraction elements such as zinc or silver. Compared with ordinary clothes, less cleaning needs can save water resources.

DTC model: get information from consumers

Allbirds has practiced the DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) marketing model since its establishment. The DTC model is the core secret for Allbirds to truly go to the market. The company has dedicated user analysis models all over the world, with the intention of establishing direct contact with users and understanding user needs in more detail.

According to reports, between 2016 and 2019, Allbirds made more than 35 changes to its original wool tops, which were almost entirely based on customer concerns and experience.

Past studies have found that in addition to the sustainability, product innovation and uniqueness mentioned above, brand price-performance, website attractiveness and social media participation will all affect consumers' attitudes towards DTC brands.

From a marketing perspective, the DTC model focuses on the social platform as a channel, maintains popularity with consumer reputation, and forms an interactive field between users and brands, and between users and potential users. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are all important channels for Allbirds to obtain user feedback. The brand team can engage in high-frequency interactions with users in comments to solve after-sales problems in a timely manner.

In addition, some people think that the price of Allbirds for a pair of 95 US dollars is prohibitive. In fact, the sustainability of its materials and links requires cost support, and high prices do not equate to low cost performance. The DTC brand has a direct sales model that directly reaches users. There is no cost and complicated consumption threshold and routines that are superimposed by dealers and retailers. There are only official websites and offline direct stores, that is, "no middlemen make the difference." The goods can be bought back with the highest cost-effectiveness.

"Do as the locals do" and expand the path of globalization

Many overseas brands have long coveted this big cake in the Chinese market and are eager to try to get a share of the pie. In 2019, Allbirds entered the Chinese market.

Most DTC brands start with online retail and then deploy offline stores. This is the case for Allbirds in the US domestic market.

However, after Allbirds entered China, it signed a contract with the Swire Group of Hong Kong, China, and planned to settle in Swire properties in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. At the same time, it settled in Tmall, JD.com and WeChat mini programs, covering omni-channel retail.

In terms of channel strategy, Allbirds chose online and offline parallelism. Joey, one of the founders, believes that the product concept or product quality that the Allbirds brand wants to convey is difficult to achieve solely through online content.

In the early stage, the brand organized a local team survey of more than 20 people and found that Chinese consumers have great demand for luxury goods and overseas products, but the market values, priorities and e-commerce distribution channels are completely different from those in the United States.

In China, there is very little traffic to directly access brand websites, and the DTC model is not very popular. Large e-commerce platforms are almost a must for all consumer goods channels.

Therefore, Allbirds chose to cooperate with different domestic platforms. Global business president Erick said that all of its stores on third-party platforms, from store design, product service, customer service, and logistics, are directly operated by Allbirds' own team. They communicate directly with consumers and listen to feedback. In the final analysis, they still adopt a direct sales model. For example, using Tmall's data and consumers' comments and messages on the platform, we can learn about the changes in the look and feel of its products and marketing to customers.

At first, most Chinese consumers did not “buy” high-priced brands under the banner of environmental protection and sustainability, and only a small number of high-end groups agreed with the concept of sustainable consumption. The minimalist design of Allbirds itself is also not in line with the tastes of most Chinese consumers.

Therefore, the team tried to spread its brand concept from other aspects.

In the preliminary survey, they found that Chinese consumers are very interested in new brands and pay attention to the matching of shoes in addition to the individual product display, which is greatly affected by the trend. So we can see Allbirds later released special color shoelaces in China, such as the shoes in the Shanghai store with Wukang Retro Red, Hengshan Indus Yellow and Bund Neon Purple.

In addition, they also found that Chinese consumers value brand technology stories more than its environmental significance. Therefore, when Allbirds' Chinese team entered the Chinese market, they paid special attention to the promotion of the comparison of synthetic and natural materials behind their products, in order to attract most Chinese customers who are curious about technological innovation.

It is reported that even in the "Double Eleven" event, Allbirds did not lower the price. The "Carnival Shopping Festival" in which other brands cut prices became an opportunity for Allbirds to expand brand awareness.

Allbirds is very clear about where its core consumer groups are. Currently, its offline stores in China are located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

Brand going to sea: difficulties, even if it is far away

From Allbirds’ overseas experience, we can also see that Western brands’ investment in entering the Chinese market is huge. Brands that are carefully designed, tested, and resonate in the Western market may face a completely different treatment in China.

This means that without any preconceived assumptions about overseas markets, brands should design their own marketing and product strategies for entering overseas markets. When going abroad, any brand will face different competitors than they are familiar with in the local market-these competitors may be local, have a deeper understanding of the market and how to control the market, and have a stronger foothold.

As Allbirds has proved, listening to consumer feedback and taking action is crucial. This requires overseas companies to use the tools they have mastered to tell a brand story that can be closely connected with consumers in the target country, so that the other party can understand and recognize its philosophy and values from the bottom of the heart, so as to abandon the familiar brand and buy a brand new product. .

Of course, the most basic thing is that before going to sea, you must first ensure that you have a certain market potential in the target country. For example, Allbirds decided to expand into China after noticing that people were shopping with Chinese credit cards on its e-commerce website, and tourists from China patronizing its US stores. At the same time, the experience of Allbirds also proved that it is important to have similar values, otherwise the output of different ideas will consume more energy.