Teva President Joel Heath and Mickel Tingley, Business Development Manager for Action/Outdoor, updated us at Outdoor Retailer on Teva’s business, including details about two water athletes recently signed, how the move into action sports is going, and about the challenges in Europe.
How is business? I read in Deckers’ annual report that Teva was down overall for the year, yet business seems to be good?
In the U.S., we are hitting record numbers. The brand is larger than it has ever been, but Europe continues to be a challenge. If Europe were flat, globally we’d be killing it.
What’s exciting?
From a pure outdoor stance, what’s going on with bike is great. We are continuing our commitments to water, and the new trail shoes program is exciting.
Tell me about the trail shoe. Is it for running?
The new trail shoe, or Teva Sphere, is more of an urban type shoe. It is designed to be for the person who is a bit more dynamic, and meant to be used not just for running, but for outdoor conditioning, whether that’s pre-season ski training, obstacle racing, trail running, etc.
These days, athletes are cross training. You can’t just be a biker anymore. You need to have endurance to make it on and off your bike.
Our brand is always about changing the rules, so while a lot of shoes are tending to cater to forefoot running, we built a shoe that embraces the reality that most of us are heel strikers.
On the bike side?
The bike community has embraced Teva really well this year. We’ve received great response from riders and media alike and are starting to see success at retail and online. We’ve opened several important bike specialty accounts as well.
And on water?
We just sponsored the Molokai to Oahu paddle race this year. We also added two new riders: Big wave surfer Jamie Sterling and standup paddler Tucker Ingalls.
A lot of people don’t remember this, but water is the most authentic point for the brand. Just like Volvo is to safety, Teva is to water. Water is the DNA of our brand. We are still moving strongly with our partnership with Waterkeeper and Surfrider. We are still a water brand; we don’t call ourselves a surf brand.
See Page 2 for details on Teva’s push to lower its target demographic
Last time we spoke, Teva was making a commitment to lowering its target demographic. How has the company done?
In the last 18 months, we have dropped our average age by six years so that’s huge for us.
In 2014, Teva will be 30 years old, so you’ll see us really dive into the “Live Better Stories” campaign. We’ll also be bringing back our originals to celebrate our history and our heritage in and around the water, but we’ll be speaking to consumers who weren’t even alive 30 years ago! That will really bring some youthful energy to the brand.
What kind of progress has Teva made within action sports doors?
California has been a good market. We’ve reconnected with a lot of retailers we dealt with at one time – stores like Hansen’s and Hobie.
People have not stopped walking in the door for Teva. It’s a fickle market, but we’ve had some great success as well.
Even shops back East, such as Brave New World and Kona, are doing really well with the brand.
So many surf shops are involved in so much more than just surfing these days. Our consumers might go to Tavarua to surf, then standup paddle the river – and they get excited about Teva because we have great footwear that’s functional for their lives.
