H&M aims to sell 1 million pairs of sneakers to become a credible shoe retailer like it is for clothes. It will launch a basic sneaker in many colors, as well as limited edition collaborations, to get guys to experiment with sneakers without compromising their self-image. An interactive campaign nudging people to new places will build excitement for the launch. The strategy establishes H&M as the source for sneaker basics while making shoes a central part of its retail experience.

1. APSOTW: H&M
This is an answer to a fictitious RFP for the Account Planning School of the Web and has
nothing to do with anything H&M is really doing.

2. The RFP,
Summarized:
By selling 1 million basketball
shoes to an influential target
audience we will change the
perception of H&M for the many,
which is important for the core
business.
The following slides will analyze
the current state of H&M, as well
as the sneaker business, identify
an opportunity and present a way
http://www.realliferunway.com/real-life-runway/2012/1/16/pumped-up-kicks.html
to make use of it.

3. Where is H&M
Now?
H&M is the world’s second biggest
fashion retailer, known for its basics
and as of 2004 designer collections
for the many. It has changed the way
people shop for clothes by selling
the aesthetics of high fashion at an
accessible price.
While H&M is still growing, and its
core brand might possibly be the
single biggest fashion retailer,
Inditex and Uniqlo growing faster
with their respective retail
portfolio.

4. Why is H&M Here?
Unlike Old Navy, Gap or Banana Republic, H&M doesn’t
signify class.
Unlike Urban Outfitters or Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M
isn’t aligning with a particular lifestyle, or e.g. rebellion.
H&M is not selling a prefabricated meaning.
“Clothes reach stores with practically unspoiled semiotic
potential, and consumers are invited to be expressive rather
than imitative with the goods [...].” - Rob Horning (n+1
Magazine)
http://www.highsnobiety.com/2012/10/25/highsnobiety-photo-editorial-maison-martin-margiela-with-hm-collection-lookbook/

5. H&M is Covering the Spectrum.
H&M caters to the fashion-involved as much as less-daring freshmen
pondering a bright chino for his first date with the girl sitting in the
second row in class.
Precisely because H&M isn’t selling a ‘meaning’ to a subculture or a
lifestyle, catering to a niche isn’t commercially viable. It has to attract
the many as much as the so-called-influencers. Regarding the
assumption that we’re going to reach the many via influencers, they
would’ve to be found. In addition, recent research by Yahoo shows that
‘influential’ members on twitter usually aren’t more effective in
spreading a message than regular users. In addition, there is increasing
evidence that trends spreads through large-scale random copying, rather
then specific influencers.
(cf. Duncan Watts, Everyone’s an Influencer and Earls/Bentley in I’ll Have What She’s Having,
cf. McCracken’s model in Flock & Flow: 2004)

6. H&M is About Experimentation
H&M allows people to experiment with fashion without
risk – they'll never go too far and look stupid, nor will
they spend too much doing it. It’s about mixing and
matching basics with a sometimes fancier choice.
Starbucks is taking the rough-edges off alternative,
neighborhood coffee culture to attract people who’d
otherwise not consider this ‘high risk’ option.
H&M is doing the same with design and high fashion.

7. “H&M offers fashion and quality at the best
price.” - Its offering of basics and always-
current designer collections allow people to
experiment with their appearance.

8. Now What Has This to do
With Basketball Shoes?

9. What’s in a
Basketball Shoe?
Basketball shoes aren’t
simply basketball shoes.
They are collectibles,
objects of desire in
many dedicated blogs,
centre of a subculture
and most recently
heated focus of a debate
“Nike touches a nerve in the debate over race and about race.
marketing with $315 shoes -- and black leaders may finally
be saying 'enough.' A wrap-up of the week's debate.”

10. Domination
Nike is dominating the US$2
billion basketball shoe market
with a combined share of 95%
for Jordan and Nike.
In a market where Adidas and
Under Armor have been trying
to win tenths of share points
with much higher budget, one
million pairs of for-purpose
basketball shoes seems
unrealistic.

11. Challenging Nike in ‘real’, purpose-built
basketball shoes is like getting into a game in
Rucker Park with your casual jeans.
People would remember us, but only for how stupid
we looked.
For-purpose basketball shoes are too far from what
people associate with H&M to be a viable fit in the
short term.

12. Sneaker
Culture is
Brand Culture
Contrary to a t-shirt at
H&M, Nike’s, Adidas’
Originals and Converse’s
Chucks are built on history.
Sneakers point to music,
skate or hip hop culture,
even if two thirds of them
are not used on a court or
a stage anymore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/style/sneaker-stories-
following-the-trail-of-a-cultural-shift.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

13. Shoes are Changing
However, shoe categories have been blurring. Casual,
slightly-branded high-top sneakers are making their ways
into schools, clubs and offices, removing them further from
their heritage.
And while everybody from YSL and Prada and Zara are trying
to sell them, H&M is primed to capture this market.

14. Where Can H&M go in The
Future?
Instead of trying to sell real basketball shoes in a market that works
opposed to H&M, or to address sneaker heads who won’t be
attracted because H&M lacks street credibility, the long-term goal
for H&M has to be different: H&M can become for shoes what it
has become for t-shirts. The source of basics and more daring
special editions.

15. Fast, as in ‘More’, Sneakers?
A Barrier for H&M.
What happened to t-shirts and fashion a while ago is now starting to hit shoes:
Less branding and much more product choice, a trend embodied e.g. by
ALDO, which sees itself as the H&M or for shoes.
Regarding H&M, one assumption is that women should have less of a barrier
to buy shoes at there, also because of some preceding designer collections
(Choo). However, most guys, even if they own fashionable sneakers, are
usually only wearing one pair or two until they are falling apart*. For them, it
is about ‘one pair of shoes combined with a combination of what’s in the
wardrobe’. Every additional pair of sneaker bought is seen as a bit less
important and because most guys have one or two, in comparison to many t-
shirts, that one pair is still a bit special. Men still see shoes as a pretty stable
foundation for how they’ll look. This might be why they don’t by them much
at places that only sell them only on the side, like H&M or Zara.
http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/10/ceo-talk-aldo-bensadoun-founder-and-executive-chairman-aldo-group.html
* lack of sales data, derived from observation and chats

16. Where Can H&M go Now?
The short term business challenge for the series, then, is to get guys
to try sneakers at H&M while building the H&M brand towards
credibility as a shoe retailer. In most of the 1,000,000 cases this
means nudging an initial purchase.

17. How do we Get Guys
to do That and What is The Barrier?
There is no reason to change H&M’s successful strategy of basics
and collections, as this is still what H&M is about: experimentation,
combination and trying out things.
Nevertheless, for H&M to become credible, and to get guys to try
out sneakers, H&M needs to overcome the mindset of sneakers as
lifestyle markers.
A point of view like “It is not what you wear, but how you wear it”
would be fine for H&M. However, in a culture where wearing
trucker caps and glass-frames without glasses is perfectly normal,
this doesn’t excite anybody. And what does the ‘how you wear it’
part mean anyways?

18. “It’s not how you’re wearing them,
it’s where they take you.”
Turning the phrase ‘good shoes take
you good places’ on the head, this is
what all the experimentation is for:
getting to new places, real and
metaphorical ones, new feelings, new
experiences. Like a first date as the
trigger for trying out a different style.
This is not about a brand or a band or a
subculture, but the fact that nothing
gives you ‘swag’ like a fresh pair of
sneakers under your feet.

19. Make One Basic Product First
and Extend It.
H&M should launch one flagship sneaker in many colored variants, as
prototypical as the H&M hoodie and t-shirts in many colors. As this is
about introducing a colorful range of one type of sneaker, there should
be a batch of a limited edition that marks the launch of this new shoe (e.g.
the H&M One) and the ‘historic’ move of H&M into footwear.
HistoryTag has been developed for Hiut Jeans and gives every product a
unique ID that can then be ‘furnished’ online with a personal history of
places and experiences. In the absence of a Nike ID-like configurator, it
would be a way for H&M to bring the story of ‘getting to new places’ alive
online, to a way bigger audience than Hiut and attract a more fashion
conscious audience first. The packaging can also point to destinations,
both literally (“There’s more route to work than one.”) and more abstract
(“She likes green, doesn’t she?”).

20. While This Doesn’t Sound Very
Creative: Launch Loudly.
To sell 1.000.000 sneakers, H&M needs to reach many people, and not only a small group of
fashion lovers. H&M has experience in doing this successfully and can frame the launch with
press as the biggest thing that hit the shoe market since Nike met Jordan.
To build anticipation for the limited edition they will be pitched to specialist blogs like
www.highsnobiety.com and magazines. Then, the basic product and its combinatory
possibilities (e.g. color by weekday, sneaker pairs by national flag colors) will be presented in
media channels with a bigger reach. At a launch event held at some hard-to reach and only
walkable place, the first batch of limited editions is then sold to a selected audience.
As an ‘activation’ element, people could get e.g. an additional pair of sneakers if they agree on
going to whatever place a little microsite/interactive banner, POP kiosk suggests, obviously
before knowing what it will be. They should be somehow eyeopening, only to reach by foot,
places nobody checks in on FourSquare. Documenting it with a predefined checkin/post/
photo unlocks the discount at POP and gives H&M content to back up it’s claim.
To tell its point of view on shoes, H&M should consider a film, given studies by the IPA
demonstrate TV’s continuing reach and effectiveness and H&M’s own success stories.

21. Collaborate and tell a
longer story.
After the launch, the idea could be extended
over the year with special edition-themed
products and collaborations.
Moving away from the usual topics of music,
sports and subculture into ‘metaphorical’
places, there could be, for the US and UK, a
Kickstarter and Skillshare themed edition
and tie-in, where the purchase of a pair
supports Kickstarter initiatives or works as
Skillshare credit.
This could connect H&M with a progressive
audience and give those platforms a bigger
audience. Other collaborations, like with
UNICEF could also get an edition.

22. The Importance of
H&M’s Shops
The most important place to make people
realize H&M is taking sneakers seriously are
the 2472 shops that see thousands of
customers each day. Therefore, the sneakers
have to be featured prominently, like H&M’s
designer collections usually are.
The working hypothesis as derived from e.g.
Nike’s stores is that flagship shoes need a
separate presentation area or wall,
symbolizing the idea, instead of being put
on display with certain looks on a display
dummy. Therefore, there is the question of
how to design and present shoes not as a side
part, but a central part of the offering, should
this be the case in the long-term.

23. To Sum it up
By offering a range of basic sneakers in many colors and special edition
Business Strategy H&M can become for shoes, what they have become for clothes and
accessories: The source for basics and sometimes a more fancier choice.
Get guys to try sneakers at H&M, while making H&M credible as a shoe
The Key Challenge
retailer.
Guys in their late teens and twenties. They want to experiment and do
their own thing, but at the same time, they don’t want to look stupid.
Target audience and mindset They aren’t particularly into fashion, but they feel the pinch to look and
behave ‘properly’ and be a bit more interested in those formerly unmanly
topics.
“I only need one pair of sneakers, but that has to be a bit special and ‘fit’
The barriers
me.”
The role of communications - What To make them think “Ah, why not. I could do with another pair. That’d
should they take out of it? probably look quite good on me”
By demonstrating that a fresh pair of sneakers can take you to awesome
The Comms Strategy
places every day.
Interactively, by nudging people to go to interesting places themselves.
How it will work Collectively, by building anticipation about a limited edition and ‘the
biggest thing that hit footwear since Nike met Jordan’.

24. 5 Questions
What is the sales history and long-term plan for footwear at H&M?
How does H&M define ‘basketball shoes’?
How will the design process for the shoes look like?
How large must special editions be to justify a price of 50$ and what
is the justification of the price point?
How much retail space will H&M reserve for the launch of the series
and subsequently for shoes in general and why?

25. Thank you!
Thomas Wagner
http://www.sophisticated.at/blogs/thomas
@thomas_wagner
Fresh in Singapore: http://sg.linkedin.com/in/wagnerthomas