I got a direct mail piece today that was interesting. It was from New Balance and it was for the “Race For A Cure” Breast Cancer Cure promotion.
Here’s my question: Do you perceive New Balance as being predominantly a women’s brand?
I hope not. I just started running in their NB 765 this year after being a loyal Nike fan and the shoes performed great. I would hate to see the predominant colors turn to pink and silver vs. blue and gold. I’ve seen many ads recently that have nothing to do with branding the shoe for women. Just my thoughts.
Now I’ve got to get back to running, cycling, and swimming after all this holiday cheer and food.
Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Roger
I notice that some running shoe brands have really earned or crafted a new identity for their brand. Asics seems to be the emergent brand with the highest degree of technical credibility.
In the “What do you run in?” thread I detected that athletes who seemed most technically oriented and trained more (or at least my impression is that they do) were using Asics shoes.
It seems as though the Nikes and New Balances have a big box, name brand appeal but lack the technical credibility of an Asics.
It is as though Nike and New Balance are predominantly “marketing” driven brands and Asics is predominantly technology/credibility driven, i.e., the Asics product is good enough to speak for itself. Better fit, more durable, more logical cross section of models and features.
At least that is how it strikes me. Comments?
New Balance is one of the few manufacturers that makes shoes for guys with really big feet. Size 4E in most models. Their range of shoes for heavyweight runners or big pronators is far more extensive than companies 100 times their size…did anyone say Nike???
They also make the best lightweight trainer ever made the NB 833 series…I’ve been wearing them since the 825 which was the first pair of running shoes I ever bought.
They don’t make fancy gimmicky fashion shoes with springs or shiny metallic fabric…did anyone say Nike? Just no nonsense quality running shoes tailored for serious runners not runway models.
So I’d have to say that they aren’t a womens oriented shoe company.
Disclaimer: They’re a sponsor…but I wore their shoes long before they ever gave me any free stuff!!!
I don’t see it that way at all. I think they were the official shoe of the Chicago marathon this year. My dad still runs his 50miles per week in the ugliest gray NB shoes you have ever seen. I don’t think a women would be caught dead in them. He ordered like 10 pair of them 5 years ago. Since they still make old models available to people, he’ll probably wear them forever.
I’ve never thought of New Balance as a womens brand. I do think of them as the “shoe for the hard to fit person” brand because they seem to carry more widths in more of their styles. I usually run in NB but have loved the couple of pairs of asics I have had. If I could get Asics in my size in a shoe I want (Shawn, DS racer in 7 1/2 EE) I would buy them.
since some NB-literate people are reading this, what NB shoe would be comparable to the Asics Gel Empire? I looooooove the empire but it costs an arm and a leg and if I could get something similar cheper it would be nice!
For what it is worth in my N=1 study. Of all the runners I know, none of the men I run with have NB, but about 1/5th of the women know run in NB… but it is a small sample size I suppose.
New Balance used to mean made in the USA, so I give them credit to holding on to that as long as they did. Sadly, that era is long gone.
Tom,
I agree with you about asics. But that is not why I posted. I have notice with the varioius signature that you use at the bottom of your posts that you mention your url to the shop. However to go there a reader would have to copy and paste it to the adress line (not to complicated of a procedure). But I have a feeling you would get some more hits from this site if you made a click through to it. Below I have copied and pasted you signature but made the url more user friendly simply by palcing the cursor behind the end of the url and hitting the space button.
Please do not think that I am too lazy to copy and paste an address. And BTW I have your shop in my favorites so that I can check out your editorials. I simply mention it to make it more user friendly for the masses. There are other posters who may want to try this too.
At least that is how it strikes me. Comments?
Happy Holidays to all my Slowtwitch friends!
http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/
(NOTE: This poster owns a retail business selling triathlon related products).
vs.
At least that is how it strikes me. Comments?
Happy Holidays to all my Slowtwitch friends!
http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/
(NOTE: This poster owns a retail business selling triathlon related products).
What do you think?
I don’t get that feeling. I suspect that NB will still be selling men’s running shoes in men’s colours for a good long time.
In my past 6 or 8 pairs of running shoes (2 to 3 years) I’ve had mostly Adidas but one pair of Brooks and two pair of NB. They all served their purpose without issues. Every year or so I tend to go into a running store without any pre-concieved notion about what brand of shoe I want or need. Then I try on everything that the “running shoe expert” recommends for my running style and give each reasonable pair a once around the block. In this way I would say that I would not be swayed too much by the marketing of NB or any other shoe brand - if their shoe seems to work best for me at the time, then I’ll buy it, and probably buy one or 2 more pairs of the same shoe before I go in and start with a clean slate again.
As for the technical merits of one brand over another, I don’t pay much attention to that either. As noted above - it’s what seems to work/feel/fit best at the time that wins my $$'s.
One impression that I do have of NB is that they make some shoes suitable for larger runners/triathletes - and I think this is basicaly true. However, being but a wisp myself, I know from personal experience that their shoes will also work for the little guys (and gals).
Clay
You know, I tried to do that but couldn;t figure out how to make the link work. Thank you!
tom.
New Balance is an excellant case study in how to do things right from a focused branding and marketing perspective. Years ago they tried to do it all in the sporting goods shoe business. Then someone suggested that they drop, or at least not promote, just about all shoes except the runnning shoes and push the width sizing( a real point of differentiation at the time). The timing was perfect as this was when the current running boom really started to take off and many of these runners were NOT the classic runner build - small and skinny. They needed proper shoes. The program was a huge success and NB leap frogged past some of the more established players in the market and remains ahead.
Fleck
Hmmm. It just struck me that with all they were doing with “slide” type casual, quasi-athletic look shoes in five color ways (white, navy, pink, baby blue…) and today this mailing that at some point a decision at New Balance had been made to target the female consumership specifically.
I contrast that with seeing top athletes in top races in Asics shoes and perhaps more significantly, the bulk of our age group customers.
It seems that an emerging group of “in the know” consumers are Asics buyers. I buy into that too. I have had excellent luck with their shoes.
I work part time at a shoe store and I do have to say that we have more customers that are women saying that they have NB’s. Most of those women use them for walking and they wanna get into running. Mostly the people that do request NB’s want them because of their width.
I would say that more females use them than guys.
Tom,
I don’t know what NB is doing now, my sense from what you are saying is they are expanding the foot-print of the brand beyond just the running market. My comments date back to the mid 90’s when the current running boom really started to gather momentum. NB made focused effort to appeal to these new runners, and it’s still paying off for them in that market today. Look at Nike and Reebok - they have been spending massive amounts of $$$ and reasources to win some of this business back and they have barely scratched the surface. If you go into any specialty run shop, NB, Saucony and Asics duke it out for #1 status. Real marquee brands like Addidas, Nike and Reebok are often way behind or not even on the radar screen. Strange for Nike, because they really invented the high-end technical running shoe for real runners!
Fleck
Tom, I’ve always viewed New Balance as a “big guys” shoe brand. Good for heavy pounder Clydesdale type and excessive pronators.
Dave from VA
Do you perceive New Balance as being predominantly a women’s brand?
No, I’ve always perceived New Balance as a brand for . . . um, er . . . “big and tall” runners. The Clydesdale shoe, I guess.
Thankfully for NB not all runners are influenced by coming out with a different color “slide-on” as a signal of the demise of their competitive line 
Actually, they’re both great shoe companies (NB & Asics) Fleck is right in that they really catered to the wide foot market… I think you’re really starting to see more people do research into to foot wear. I really like NB shoes. I switched to a high level Mizuno wave creation this past summer and i’ll likely switch back this upcoming summer… Why? The NB shoe fit me better.
Like you’ve preached in bike fitting… Buy the one that fits.
Another vote for not seeing NB as woman oriented. My perception is that NB wearers I see are 55% female.
They have a retail store in Portland. OR and if anything it seems to be missing some of the “softer side” of running one might associate with female aimed marketing.
PS. Konaby2008, you should program a reference number into that link for Tom so he can see how many hits he gets off it. Maybe get you a commission or something.