Vans Makes a Play for Consumer Awareness With Retail Store Collab
Communicating directly with consumers has been a growing focus for many action-sports brands. Social media, online stores, websites, blogs and contests have been universally embraced, but bricks-and-mortar retail stores used as brand-marketing hubs have been reserved for the likes of Quiksilver, Volcom and Hurley.
Now, Vans is getting a boost from parent company VF Corp., the Greensboro, N.C.–based apparel biggie that also owns Reef. In November, the brand made its second foray into domestic retail with a partnership with Thalia Surf Shop in Laguna Beach, Calif. The store, Vans by Thalia Surf Shop, occupies a 900-square-foot former art gallery/event space attached to the independent surf boutique. Vans, which operates retail stores in China and Europe, first tested the retail waters stateside in 2009 with a pop-up shop at Fred Segal.
Packed with select Vans surf apparel and footwear, the Vans by Thalia Surf Shop is a move by the company to highlight its surf roots. “Vans has a strong surf heritage—it is as established as our skate heritage but not as well-known,” said Chris Overholser, senior communications manager at Vans. “This new store will help us tell that story in a way we couldn’t before. It’s an outlet for pinnacle product and special projects.”
Shoppers will find the brand’s limited-edition Vans Triple Crown of Surfing collection, signature Joel Tudor apparel, select hard goods, Vans Classics footwear and exclusive Vans x Thalia collaboration pieces designed by Thalia owner Nick Cocores. The store, which is connected to the Thalia Surf Shop, will also play host to a variety of events and marketing projects meant to engage core shoppers and further highlight Vans’ surf/street credibility.
Vans chose to partner with Thalia as a way to piggy-back off Thalia’s well-established credibility as a surf shop that carries independent and emerging brands. Thalia opened in 2001 and sells brands such as Ando and Friends, Yellow Rat, Lightning Bolt, Hippie Tree, Matuse and Toddland.“We really admire Thalia. It is at the forefront of surf boutiques, has a great blend of product and tells a great story,” Overholser said.
For Cocores, partnering with Vans made sense on a day-to-day retail level and on a larger marketing level. “We don’t sell any of the major brands. We do our own thing,” he said. “[Collaborating with Vans] made sense in this niche market. We’ve been working with them since we opened, and it has been great.” Vans, he said, is big enough to operate a successful stand-alone space and add value to Thalia’s existing business—but not so big as to overshadow Thalia’s indie-leaning product mix.
The grass-roots feel of the store, however, is part of a much bigger move by VF to expand consumer awareness of its action-sports brands.
According to Eric Wiseman, VF’s chief executive and chairman, the company’s Outdoor and Action Sports coalition (which includes Vans, Reef and North Face) will account for more than $3 billion in revenues in 2010—roughly 41 percent of VF’s business. That strength, and the coalition’s 13 percent growth in 2010, inspired VF to dedicate more than half of its $100 million marketing budget to Vans and the other brands in the Outdoor and Action Sports coalition, Wiseman said during VF’s fourth-quarter earnings call. New retail operations, such as the Vans by Thalia Surf Shop, and expanded social-media efforts fall into that category.
Overholser and Cocores both say the Vans by Thalia Surf Shop will be an ongoing and long-term partnership. It is unclear if VF Corp. will be dedicating any more of its marketing budget to additional Vans domestic retail stores, however. “We’re looking into it and exploring different types of retail environments. We’re experimenting, but there are no plans [for more stores] yet,” Overholser said.
