Jon Frederick, group marketing director at Rab, knows what it’s like to manage a subsidiary at the brand – he used to manage its U.S. business.
And while the subsidiary model has been going well, the English outdoor apparel brand, which sits under the Equip Outdoor umbrella, is in the midst of realigning its six subsidiaries to make them even more effective, Frederick said in an interview with SESO.
“Having managed a subsidiary, sometimes it’s great because you’re in control of your destiny,” Frederick said. “But sometimes – and this is probably not the best description – but you feel like a bastard child. How do we make it actually feel like a functional family?”
Rab’s subsidiaries, which include the U.S., Canada, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, are now aligning with functional global leadership to improve communication across the global teams and building on their strengths.
“A lot of times the Euro side is a little out of touch with the U.S. market and expectations, demands, needs,” Frederick said.
In addition to moving back to Colorado this summer after two years in England, Frederick will now appear on panels at events such as Switchback in June and meet with key wholesale partners to have high-level conversations and maintain relationships at a senior level, he said. And even though he used to manage the U.S. business before Adam Chamberlain, who departed at the beginning of the year, Frederick’s focus will remain on its global subsidiaries.
“When we have a meeting with an REI or Backcountry, I’m there to support,” he said. “Even though I’m not directly responsible for the North American business function or North American sales, I provide the oversight, if you will.”
Strengthening the Feedback Loop
Frederick sits on the board with six directors and serves as a North American regional expert. Head of Marketing Trudi Boswell works with marketing managers in the U.S., Canada, Norway, and so on, to help bridge gaps on subsidiary teams. That way all subsidiaries might learn to host more successful events from the U.S. team, retail marketing from the U.K., and partnership alignment from Canada.
Last fall, the company hosted its first-ever international marketing meeting. The idea isn’t to create more top-down leadership, Frederick said, but rather to ensure different subsidiaries can learn from each other’s strengths to create stronger teams in every market.
So far, creating a stronger feedback loop has been working well. Previously, for example, a lot of the point-of-purchase (POP) marketing wasn’t useful to U.S. retailers, Frederick said.
“Now the markets are feeding back what they want,” he said. “My go-to-market team is now making stuff that everybody wants. So when we send it out, it’s used. It’s not just put it in the dumpster.”
Wholesale Focus
Rab’s North American business has been positive, Frederick said, although the last two years have had slower growth than in prior years.
Photo courtesy of Rab.
“It’s not a frictionless ride to the top,” Frederick said, “We’re fighting for every bit of it. But it’s been totally positive.”
Frederick attributes the brand’s success to its no-discount policy, which aligns with its commitment to supporting its wholesale partners.
“If you don’t have your brick-and-mortar retailer down the street, or even a really good online retailer, how will you know – even outside the Rab world – what Mondo size you are when you’re trying to buy a pair of ski boots? Or, how will you know how to build your first trad rack? Or, in my world, how will you know whether you want to buy down versus synthetic insulation?” he said. “We do believe that the industry is in a really poor place without good retail.”
Rab’s policy not to discount eases retailers’ worries about competing with the brand.
“Rab works closely with their dealers and will really listen to any feedback that we have,” said Jon Ingerson, buyer and manager at Bent Gate Mountaineering in Denver, Colorado. “They don’t markdown current in-season products on their website, and they keep the same colors for at least a few seasons on apparel. This is all extremely beneficial for independent retailers.”
Maintaining positive relationships with wholesale partners is paying off. And Rab’s focus on core mountain products is starting to resonate outside of the West and the Rockies, with bright spots in the South and Central U.S., thanks to help from sales agency High Plains.
On the product side, Rab has historically been an insulation brand, but its Pertex waterproof shells have also become a popular item in the U.S. market. The brand has also worked on differentiating its mid-layers and how those differences are communicated to customers, which are increasingly growing beyond the middle-aged male customers, to more women and younger shoppers.
Rab’s Khroma ski apparel performed well at Bent Gate, Ingerson said, with a good fit, high-quality construction, and solid color choices that work well in the Rockies – which is unique to Rab among other European brands that have entered the U.S.
“I sometimes forget that Rab is a European brand because the colors aren’t crazy,” Ingerson said. “And the clothing fits like comparable U.S. brands in that category. There is often a tendency for Euro brands to make ski clothing ‘American Free Ride’ for the U.S. market. And for various reasons that doesn’t work at our shop.”
Refreshed Identity
Frederick and his team have also invested in enforcing more brand consistency across the global teams. So far, Rab’s growth has come from its products and relationships, Frederick said, so it was time to start clarifying the brand’s identity by defining its colors, language, and other elements.
“We haven’t done a good job defining our brand, therefore our retail partners have had to define the brand for us, and that’s not appropriate,” Frederick said. “Then we just show up different in every market.”
Photo courtesy of Rab.
Now, Rab’s guiding principle is always that it makes high performance apparel for mountain people. And while fashion and style are a consideration, the brand isn’t chasing lifestyle or fashion.
“We want to make high-performance mountain apparel. That’s what we do for mountain people,” he said. “And so that now drives what events we do or don’t do, what partnerships we do or don’t engage in, what magazines we do or don’t advertise in. And then it also identifies how we look.”
Rab’s refreshed website showcases how that guiding principle has come to life, and along with Rygr and Meteorite PR, invested in its largest-ever brand awareness campaign with a major focus on North America.
“Now that we have this strong content and we have a really strong in-house digital marketing team, they can again start pumping that (out) and try to get eyeballs and support our retailers,” he said.
Rab’s new global alignment and creating a stronger feedback loop are also demonstrated among its athlete roster. Climber Anna Hazelnutt, for example, has taught Rab a lot about engaging in new media formats such as social media and developing products for female athletes. Selecting athletes is also challenging because Rab is a smaller player than the bigger brands, so they’ve had to get creative in what they can offer, and very selective in who they work with by aligning sales with marketing.
Frederick couldn’t share details about how Rab is navigating tariffs and other trade policy issues, but he did talk about how the company is navigating another major federal issue, the threats to public lands. Rab has joined the Conservation Alliance’s Brands for Public Lands initiative, but its team is sensitive to the fact that it’s a U.K. brand engaging in U.S. issues. That’s why it will approach the topic in the same way it approaches the U.S. market as a whole – in partnership with its retailers.
In June, Frederick will attend Grassroots Outdoor Alliance’s C-Suite Leadership Summit in Reno, Nevada, where one of the four main topics will be public lands and how retailers and brands can work together to protect them.
“For me, the goal is definitely to align with our key retail partners and be able to push out the initiative that way,” Frederick said.
Kate Robertson can be reached at kate@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com.
