On (2010), a history of the shoe brand

The use of landing pages in eCommerce for sports and outdoors

If you’re serious about selling online in our segment, you simply have to become hugely familiar with the use of landing pages. A landing page is defined as thus:

“A landing page is a stand alone web page that's reached, after a click, either from an email, ad or other online marketing resources. They're a crucial part of online marketing and they're designed to encourage users to take one specific action.”

It’s likely that we’ve all interacted with landing pages at one time or another, whether we knew it or not. They are used for a multitude of purposes, such as:

• Generating Leads

• A/B testing of pricing, messaging, imagery etc.

• Get email newsletter subscribers (ring a bell!)

• Test click through rate, specifically

• In our case, test a product’s appeal to early adopters vs early majority

So, they are a critical part of the eCommerce ecosystem. And you should more than just familiarize yourself with them. You should know them intimately. As an example, we used to work with an agency for product launches. Their sequence was roughly as thus:

1. Landing page 1 - signup to know more about a product - track CPL - drive meta traffic

2. LP2 Number also requested for SMS notice

3. ‘Thank you’ would click through to LP3 - where they would ask for a small deposit to get first notice on a launch

All the above would be tested once as a control, and then pricing would be added. The accuracy with which we were able to calculate the effect that slight changes in price-point on conversion rate for instance, was astonishing. This is a science. No doubt.

There are various tools that are dedicated to creating these pages, with a focus on analytics. Note that you can feasibly build a landing page on your own site, but the results won’t be as accurate due to the other activities on a site as the analytics won’t be as clean. These building tools include Unbounce and Leadpages. There are many others but these are the ones I have experience with. Clean analytics is key. I suggest you find one, learn it and use it if launching, changing or updating. We’ll get into this in much more granular detail in our proposed P/M fit course.

Important: Speaking of which, our upcoming webinar detailing our proposed meeting in April, and the proposed launch of the P/M fit course, is postponed a week. This is due to a schedule clash. We’ll now hold it on Wednesday November 20th at noon EST. You can still sign up here: https://cruaoutdoors.typeform.com/to/UBq6AbXR

On - the shoe phenomenon

‘On’ was initially incorporated as a sporting goods company in 2010, when founder and former Swiss Ironman champion Olivier Bernhard brought two co-founders on board with an idea for a better running shoe. They were Caspar Coppetti and David Allemann. Caspar had been Bernhard’s agent in his previous life, and David was Caspar’s close friend- who he had got to know during their time at McKenzie. This for me is a key insight. Olivier recognized quickly that his strength lied in his energy, athleticism and knowledge of the game [he won the Powerman Zofingen Duathlon 8 times, Ironman Switzerland 5 times, won the 1994 Almere Iron-distance Triathlon and placed 5th at the 1999 Ironman World Championship capped off with a 2:41:57 fastest run] but knew that he wasn’t the numbers guy. This high level of maturity has been key to the company’s enormous success.

The original idea for the unique shoe came from an engineer in Zurich who came up with the initial idea of adding strips of rubber hose to the bottom of Olivier’s Pegasus (Nike runner). Originally skeptical, Olivier eventually gave in and tried it, and he says it struck him that this was a completely different running ‘feel’ or ‘sensation’, both in the vertical and horizontal movement. And he was sold. The trio went through a rather crude prototyping process and they continued to innovate, eventually deciding to place a first order for 10,000 units. The products were very much a basic MVP which enabled them to dip their toe in the water. Further innovation got them to the initial ‘Cloud’ shoe, which is now their signature range.

Encouraged by progress, in 2013 the On team flew to ISPO in Munich, Europe’s biggest sports and outdoors trade show and scooped the coveted gold award by beating 300 other products. This was a big win for them and what they describe as a ‘needed’ push, as they were only looking to sign deals in 3 countries - Switzerland, Germany and Austria, as they wanted to focus. But, as all best laid plans do, that went by the wayside and they ended up taking orders from 19 countries. They took 4 angel investors on board to help with this production run.

I simply love the next bit, as I’ve been there so often. Olivier speaks of having to convince the retailers first, even more so than the end consumer. He speaks of attending so many meetings with retailers and being told we’ll think about it. He bluntly says, “well, we all know what that means!” It wasn’t working. And it was after a few of these presentations that they wondered “why don’t we go run with them?” Olivier calls this the turning point. While running the retailers would start to ask questions about why the landing is so soft and others. It got the much sought after engagement. An absolutely perfect example of B2B experiential marketing, at its very core. Show, don’t tell. Honesty and authenticity.

2014 saw another couple of big milestones. Firstly when Nicola Spirig wore On when winning the silver medal in triathlon during the Rio Olympics. They call this mind blowing and ‘super emotional’. Next, they saw an Instagram post of Roger Federer wearing their shoes! Like all hungry marketers, they saw an opportunity and sent him a package. Soon they were having dinner and discussing how they could work together. While this was a huge vote of confidence in their shoes, it was also a worry. If they are too closely linked, would the brand of Roger Federer overshadow On? This again showed a great maturity, and between them all they managed it. Ultimately Roger invested an undisclosed sum in 2019. They are quick to point out that Federer found them, not the other way around. As he reached out first..! They have since developed a specialist tennis shoe…unsurprisingly!

By 2019, the company held 40% of the Swiss running shoe market. That same year, they also held 10% of the running shoe market in Germany. It’s a very ill wind that doesn’t blow some good and like many sports and outdoors brands, the pandemic was good for sales. Again the team saw opportunity and launched their IPO in Sep 2021, at the height of their revenues. Why? Well, they say they wanted to compete in the ‘Champions League’ of Brooks, Nike and Adidas, and to do that they needed the big funds to play the same moves for a period of time. (We can be pretty sure there were some personal ambitions in there too, and good luck to them.) They were also careful to employ a dual share class to retain control. While some investors don’t like that, it didn’t do On any harm and they raised $746m at a valuation of $7.3 billion. To be clear, that’s 13 years from a garden hose attached to the bottom of Nike shoes to $7.3 Bn. Let that sink in for a while.

And the company has thrived since. $2.03 billion in revenues in 2023 was up 55% on 2022. And this with a gross profit margin of 59.6%. The company reported a net income of $90.6 million USD. Absolutely phenomenal. I’m glad to see that trail runners and hiking boots are now a big part of their offering as well, although I’ve heard mixed reports on durability on the trail so far. Maybe room for improvement. I need a new pair of (medium use) hiking boots and funnily enough I’m more inclined towards Hoka due to available social proof..

Olivier’s last word? ‘We want to make the best product on the planet.’

Let’s see.

I’ve purposely shortened the format this week. What did you think?