Building Brand Connection in the Competitive Athleisure Market

There's a lot of competition, a lot of dupes in the athleisure and athletic wear space. And I think that some of the leading brands, or all the leading brands, or any company that wants to become a leading brand in that space, I think they have to be very aware of the fact that there's a lot of competition, there's a lot of dupes, and I think they need to make their consumers fall in love with their brand.

I think they need to think of their products as merch the same way an artist will sell merch at a concert. Companies like athleisure brands, they're selling their own merch and that's their only source of revenue. An artist, they've got other sources of revenue. Even companies like Perplexity, tech companies are selling merch, a tiny source of revenue for them because the bulk of their revenue is coming from their business offering.

But in the case of an athleisure brand, your merch is your only, or your sole, your majority source of revenue. Therefore, how do people decide to buy merch from an artist or from any entity that they love? It is due to the fact that whoever's selling the merch has a deep connection and relationship with the consumer, and that consumer loves them.

So as an athleisure brand, if I was running one and I was in today's market, I would invest heavily in building a strong brand. But that only works if you've got a superior product or a product that accomplishes what the consumer needs it to do.

I actually experimented with some workout shorts for training from Alibaba and Timu. And they're fine. I don't need the most expensive, high-quality products. And these products were good quality. They are definitely good quality. They fit well. They sit right. So this is just for practice. If this was for a competition or something that I cared or needed a higher quality shorts, then yes, I would invest in the higher quality. But for practice, it doesn't matter too much.

And so even I'm falling away from buying from any brands that I like when it comes to just practice attire. So in order to capture some of those people who are like me or even to remain top of mind for when we do make that important purchase decision, superior product has to be number one and a very close second is building brand love to have people ready and willing to pay once they're at that point where they need your product.