If it’s not immediately evident how beloved outdoor and performance brands such as Simms Fishing Products and Bushnell Golf can extend into areas such as pop culture, toys, and snacks, Simon Waters suggests Fox Racing’s recent collaboration with rapper Travis Scott as an example of what’s possible with Revelyst’s portfolio of brands.
Waters was appointed Revelyst’s first president of licensing and entertainment in January. And last month, Revelyst – which completed its long, drawn-out separation from former parent company Vista Outdoors late last year – announced that it has signed on with licensing agency Evolution to unlock new partnerships for six adventure sports and outdoor performance brands: Fox Racing, Simms Fishing Products, Camp Chef, Primos, Hoppes, and Blackburn.
“It sold out really quickly,” Waters said of the Fox Racing-Travis Scott limited edition collection in an interview with SESO. “It was a great example of how these worlds converge, whether it’s outdoor, music, fashion, lifestyle.”
Events such as Coachella demonstrate how consumers now embrace multiple genres of music, food, and have a vast appetite for experiences, he said.
“We’re starting to serve and actually understand our consumers even better than we have in the past, through research and insights,” Waters said. “And sometimes we have fun taking what might be considered creative risks, but actually make a ton of sense.”
And that includes outdoor consumers, according to Waters, who previously worked in licensing at both Hasbro and Disney. Evolution, with its experience working with intellectual property such as Ghost Face, from the horror movie series Scream, and competitive singing show The Voice will work to extend Revelyst’s outdoor and performance brands into pop culture and new categories.
But those brands will lead the strategy, and not the other way around, Waters said, with the goal of expanding each brand’s footprint at retail and expanding the touchpoints it has with consumers in new categories.
“Licensing is just a business model,” Waters said. “Lots of people think of licensing as an entity unto itself, but really it’s part of a brand management strategy.”
SESO asked Waters about his plans for Revelyst’s portfolio and how they fit into the company’s long-term strategy.
How did you choose Evolution as your licensing partner?
Simon Waters, president, licensing and entertainment, Revelyst: It’s much like an audition in many ways. We have a lot of criteria in terms of ensuring that our values are aligned, that our understanding of brands are very similar, and in particular, storytelling. We’re big storytellers at Revelyst. And that was important for any agency that we hired, that they could understand that the story of our brands is more than the product. It actually is the lifestyle. It is the meaning that people get from our brands, from the activities that our brands really help them do better.
How do you feel confident that brand integrity across Revelyst’s portfolio will be retained as this process evolves?
Simon Waters: That’s the fundamental [goal] for any brand that moves into using licensing as a growth engine. I came out of a business, originally at Disney, that was 100% licensed. I have seen the power of smart brand licensing. If you look at the landscape of brand licensing today, whether it be BMW, John Deere, Authentic Brands Group, it is a whole different landscape to the world of old, where licensing was maybe considered a bit of a race to the bottom, and what we would call a character slap or a logo slap. That world is not a world we play in.
When you put the brand first, everything really does follow. I’m a passionate believer that you get your story and your DNA, and that filters out a lot of the noise in the marketplace. We only work with people who understand how to translate that into an experience that, frankly – whether we made it or licensed it – it kind of doesn’t matter. It comes from the same heart.
I was in the music business, and worked at Disney, and then Hasbro. The fans – whether you’re a fan of Simms, Fox, Mickey Mouse, Transformers, My Little Pony, or Sting – they’re a really important community that you have to manage in the right way. It’s about honoring the legacy. It’s about giving them that excitement. It’s about treating them the right way. So I feel very confident that we have the brand discipline to do that, because our fans are the lifeblood of our business. I call them fans – people who love our brands.
Are there any specific product categories across these six brands that are prime candidates for licensing opportunities?
Simon Waters: It does vary brand by brand, because some brands are more vertically integrated across more categories than others. But when I think about some of the white space that we can play in, we know that we can play in the toy business. There’s a huge segment out there of “kid-ults,” which is an adult consumer who is not only playing with toys, but collecting. We have highly collectible brands. We also know that as kids come into our brands, they can come in through role play where they’re mimicking what their parents do. Toys are an important category.
Publishing is an important category. We tell lots of stories in our business. We have the authority to bring to market more how-tos and guides, whether it be running, hiking, racing, because we have all that credibility through our brand. So I think the storytelling around publishing is going to be really interesting.
And categories like food, health and beauty, where you think about snacks, personal care, endurance, fitness, and wellness. We’re in this world, so we’re taking it brand by brand, and thinking about those moments in the day that before, during, and after that we can play. Every brand doesn’t have to be everything, but there are moments that we know would make a person go, “I love this brand. They bring me really great stuff.”
Will you be staying involved in the development of new products and partnerships as they evolve, or is this something you’re handing off?
Simon Waters: Evolution will help us with business development and finding partners. We are managing the process internally. That’s the process that I did at Hasbro and at Disney. We’ll be doing the product approvals. We’ll be working with the licensees on product development and creative ideation and marketing. We won’t be manufacturing because it’s through a licensee, but we’ll be very involved in that process to make sure that what we create all comes from the same world.
What regions are you targeting?
Simon Waters: We have a core focus in the short term in the North America market, because there’s lots of opportunity. I’m global, so we’re working through Asia Pacific, LATAM, and EMEA on opportunities as well. Over our strategic plan period, it is absolutely a global growth strategy.
How are you working in tandem with the rest of Revelyst?
Simon Waters: Each of our brands has a long-range plan. The simple way to think about it is: Here’s the brand we’re going to build; here’s the business that we’re going to drive and build ourselves vertically, and then here’s the business where we’re going to work through other people. It all starts with the brand, so the alignment starts at the very beginning. And then we choose the business model to execute it. I happen to be on the business model of licensing, so the alignment starts at brand.
Is there a brand that you’re prioritizing or that’s primed for development through licensing opportunities?
Simon Waters: We obviously have our power brands, and those are brands that we have deemed to be at the forefront of our resources, and then we have our challenger brands. The beauty of licensing is that opportunities can come from pretty much everywhere, but for now, our power brands of Bushnell and Simms are an immediate focus, along with Fox. But we follow the priorities of the company. We don’t step out and do things independently.
This interview has been condensed and edited for publication. Kate Robertson can be reached at kate@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com.
