Image Repositioning in the Retail Store Licensing Space - Case Study

Web design helps the licensing operations of a niche retailer to reposition its corporate image in an industry fraught with stereotypes.

Renegade Classics is a successful retail brand in the motorcycle apparel & accessories space. Starting from a small California outlet store in 1991, the original owner of the trademark got the idea of licensing it out to a few passionate bikers wanting to open similar outlets in their local areas. Armed with simple ideas derived from his own retail experience, he sold a few licenses to bikers-turned-retailers in a handful of States.

From local stores to concept licensing

In 2005, a young financial consultant from Sacramento, CA bought out the trademark to bring its licensing operations to a new level. Troy Rowsey started by revamping the initial retail concept: from cheap outlets located in low-rent industrial areas to full-on stores in bubbling downtown areas and large thoroughfares.

When sales at his own stores of Sacramento and Modesto, CA had proven the new concept was right, Troy created a 'Licensee's Operating Manual' designed to help brand licensees to set up same-format stores with much stronger chances of survival.

Today, Renegade Classics is a highly visible local name in 28 urban centers with a vibrant motorcycle community. Licensees compete successfully against local Harley-Davidson dealerships and niche retail chains like Cycle Gear.

Since 2017, Renegade Classics is also becoming a full-fledge biker apparel brand with its own line of leathers, shirts and tees. The original merchandise helps licensees differentiate themselves and fight off the competition of online retailers such as LeatherUp.com and JPCycles.com

The new situation of the brand called for a revamping of its corporate site. Vanguard Websites had already worked successfully with several Renegade Classics licensees to build modern websites, well-positioned in the search engine results. Troy called the web agency to work with him on the new corporate site design.

Designing beyond the industry stereotypes

Even in a glamourous market like the motorcycle industry, opening a retail store requires hard work, significant capital and the werewithal to sustain potential losses for at least a couple of years.

It was crucial for the Renegade Classics brand to attract the right type of would-be licensees, and to steer clear of the hardcore 'babe-on-bike' cliches that pollute the industry image.

As the success of the brand is fundamentally tied to the success of its licensees, the corporate site would also have to downplay the business opportunity rather than hype it up. The site copy would therefore highlight the hurdles and spell out the conditions for success rather than presenting an idealized 'lifestyle' image.

A cleaner design with a heritage

The dominant color of a conventional biker site is black and silver with red, blue and orange accents.

Among the graphic memes used by the industry: diamond plate sheet metal, rust, concrete, dirty/grainy surfaces. Typical words used to describe this type of sites: hardcore, metal, rock, heavy, raw feel, tattoo.

The new Renegade Classics site breaks with traditional biker sites to present the business opportunity with a cleaner, business-like look. Nevertheless, Renegade Classics is a motorcycle apparel brand: it had to pay hommage to its heritage. Its visuals describe well-known aspects of the motorcycle culture.

By way of example, the top slider in the home page features photos created by Shooters Inc., one of the best motorcycle photographers in the industry. Coincidentally, one of the shots used in the slider was taken by Shooters in Sturgis in the late 1990s: it shows a Renegade Classics storefront sign. Troy Rowsey and the original owner of Renegade Classics used to rent store space on the main drag in Sturgis to sell t-shirts during the famous bike rally.

In contrast with the traditional design rules of the industry, the dominant colors of the Renegade Classics corporate site are white and shades of grey. The accent colors are bronze, yellow and light orange.

The use of light orange is a reminder of the secondary color of the Harley-Davidson brand. After all, the site speaks to people who probably are die-hard fans of the iconic brand. Associating orange with white and grey instead of black, however, moves the design a couple of degrees away from the signature H-D look. 

The site also uses translucence with semi-opaque layers over colored layers, and a lot of negative space. The look & feel is much lighter and more luminous than a stereotyped motorcycle shop site.

Visuals vs. text

One of Troy Rowsey's requirements was to make the site essentially visual. We used text only to the degree necessary, highlighting major points rather than describing them. Tables summarize what would otherwise call for lengthy explanations.

In most cases, we avoided reverse print (light color font over a darker background) to improve legibility: another departure from typical bike sites, in which reverse print is overused.

To give prospective licensees an idea of the nationwide footprint of the brand, we avoided creating a long list of cities. Following Troy's lead, we created a map of the U.S. with interactive blinking red dots symbolizing stores. When hovering the mouse pointer over a dot, a small javascript pops out a photo of the store, the name of the city and the year in which the store was established.

Even with less text, the new site gives a good overview of what owning a Renegade Classics store means for someone interested in the business opportunity. It doesn't sugar-coat anything, and certainly doesn't hype up the deal.

Contact form

Contrary to most business opportunities, the site does not aim to attract as many bizopp seekers as possible. It would be a waste of time for the CEO of Renegade Classics to go through unqualified applications.

Instead, the site clearly explains the type of territory where a potential applicant for a Renegade Classics license would have to operate to increase his/her chances of success. This is meant to weed out applicants living and working in markets that would probably be too small or too inadequate for this type of store.

Moreover, the contact form presents specific checkboxes and questions to weed out applicants with a financial standing too frail to take a risk on opening a Renegade Classics store, or with so little business experience that Troy Rowsey would not feel comfortable trusting them with a territory.

The contact form is clearly laid out, with checkboxes and fields to fill out, segmented in separate sections (chunking principle). We decided to create it in a full page instead of cramming the data in a pop-up. An easy user experience generated better response rates.

The reveal & the lessons

It was important for Troy to get the feedback of Renegade Classics Store owners and professionals in the motorcycle industry. When the website was revealed, the comments were overhelmingly positive.

From a design standpoint, the site illustrates that 'less is more'. With a clean design and a visuals-to-text ratio favoring visuals, it achieves one of its two core objectives: highlighting the fundamentals of the business opportunity in a way that gives the Renegade Classics brand the credibility it deserves, in an industry fraught with financial stability issues.

From a business standpoint, we don't have yet enough hindsight to confirm that the site has reached its second core objective: to generate calls to the corporate office from pre-qualified potential licensees. Troy is developing a marketing campaign designed to reach out to people with a profile matching that of a typical Renegade Classics licensee.

For more information and to benefit from a 30-minute SWOT analysis of your own website, contact via LinkedIn the author of this case study, Phil Chavanne. I work with businesses generating annual revenues >$750K and employing a minimum of 4 persons. I love to serve passionate business owners burning to generate more sales opportunities from their website and social media presence.