Activewear Champions & Challengers: The New Rules of Engagement - 'Amplified Experiences'

Our team has been taking an in-depth look at the Activewear sector and how brand communications and retail design are evolving to meet the needs of younger consumers. Here we consider Amplified Experiences – how must brand experiences evolve to catch the attention of Generation Z?

01 – AMPLIFIED EXPERIENCES

It’s a really popular myth that Gen Z would rather shop online rather than in-store. Despite all of the time they spend online, this generation desires real-world experiences the most, and they’re keen to enjoy physical experiences that are geared towards personal enjoyment and exploration.

We think the opportunities in this sector are huge, as the associations of sports and outdoor wear are so naturally linked to high-octane and exhilarating experiences. In our deep-dive into this sector we found many brands exploring ways to capture this dynamic energy and spirit in their brand communications and retail environments; creating highly sensorial, playful and memorable encounters.

Product Playgrounds

A growing number of activewear stores are transforming into product playgrounds, enabling consumers to play, test and try products in a way the digital world could never enable.

Scaling new heights to deliver the ultimate product trial, the Sporthaus Schuster store in Munich was named best-in-class by Monocle magazine and features a huge rock face soaring through its seven stories. Customers are encouraged to clip in and use the climbing holds to scale the summit.

Also in Munich, customers at the German outdoor retailer Globetrotter Ausrustung’s store are invited to try out waterproof clothing in a rain chamber and paddle a canoe around an indoor lake!

Thanks to virtual reality, those brands and retailers without the size and scale to re-create mountains and lakes in their store are still able to help their customers to imagine their products in action. In their ‘Future’ store in Berlin, Intersport have introduced virtual reality to enable their customers to immerse themselves in all kinds of sports worlds, without leaving their seat.

Try-before-you-buy

Proving that the best retail experiences don’t need size and scale and enormous budgets, they simply have to be useful and relevant, the Canada Goose Cold Room was recently voted by Fast Company as the best retail experience of the year. The idea is simple, but really effective - a tiny room in the store enables customers to put their jackets to the test at extreme sub-zero temperatures.

Also taking the idea of try-before-you buy to the literal extreme, New York based fitness company Peloton launched a series of showrooms dotted around London to enable customers to take part in 20-minute spin sessions, staged in themed rooms designed to mimic home environments, complete with beds and sofas! 

Unexpected collaborations

It’s interesting to see how effective it can be to collaborate with another brand to take product trial to another level. 

One of our favourite examples of this was also one of the most unexpected, with New York based direct-to-consumer outerwear brand The Arrivals partnering with Dyson to create a wind-themed pop-up in SoHo. The Arrivals’ jackets could be tested in a wind tunnel equipped with 3D Dyson high-speed dryers – intended to instil a sense of weightlessness as guests bounce on the puffy vinyl floor!

Why do we need to amplify the experience?

As Gen Z crave the antidote to their digital lives, it’s time to think of retail spaces and brand activations as the opportunity to provide highly immersive experiences they would never be able to experience online. 

Of course, the best concepts are the most imaginative and unexpected, but they also serve a genuine purpose too. Ultimately, it’s about elevating peoples’ understanding of the product benefits and ensuring they feel rewarded for their visit.

Read more of our thoughts on this subject...

If you would like to talk further about anything discussed in this article, or receive a copy of our ‘Activewear Champions & Challengers’ trend report, please contact Mynt.