The Rise of New Balance

How an uncle and Dads crep became popular...

New Balance a crep that was known to be only be worn by uncles and Dads is now an upcoming brand on the horizon as even now you can see the younger generation sport these creps, and these are definitely worth it.

Its no doubt that New Balance has popped up on the sneaker scene as of 2019, when Kawhi Leonard, New Balance's Basketball athlete won an NBA championship

In this issue of CrepTalk we talk about the rise of New Balance, how the shoe brand that was seen as a 'Universal dad shoe' to now a trendy shoe that has been rocked by many young stylists out there.

The 'Dad' Shoe

Before we get into how New Balance has risen through the years, its essential to highlight its origins. The New Balance company first started out as an Arch Support Company which was founded 116 years ago in Boston by William J. Riley a British migrant in the US.

The company sold arches door to door for $5 US dollars, which is $159.72 today, basically the cost of a new pair of shoes at the time.

New Balance prides itself on quality rather than affordability itself, till this day NB maintains this strategy. It is also one of the main shoe companies that retains it's factories in America as well as the UK, as they firmly believe that shoes made in the US are of higher quality.

One thing about New Balance is their pride about having American made products for decades and their reluctance to outsource. This pride of American heritage and culture has been one of the main appeals overseas, as the 'American' heritage has always been an appeal to overseas markets such as the UK and Europe.

This leaves the final question, what's up with the 'Dad' shoes?

Well NB is often putting performance over aesthetics and its not by mistake either, as the brand consistently looks to expand their large amount of technologies including a unique foam/rubber cushioning system, and GORTEX linings to prevent water damage.

Marketing

New Balance primarily stands out to me amongst other athletic brands due to its unorthodox approach to marketing and endorsement.

When you think of brands such as Nike, Adidas and Puma, you can name a whole bunch of faces that represent those brands, such as Michael Jordan, Kanye West, and LaMelo Ball.

NB however, embraced a lack of endorsements as they used the "Endorsed By No One" campaign for numerous years, which is basically one of the reasons why New Balance primarily uses distinguished numbers instead of catchy names, which enhances NB brand loyalty itself rather than the slight reliance of well known athletes or influencers.

While this did make sense make sense for customer loyalty, and separating themselves from the rest, it kind of shot themselves in the foot, being that it just didn't create that kind of hype in comparison to other brands.

Eventually NB gave into pressure, their first ever endorsement was James Worthy, an American NBA player for the LA Lakers, in which New Balance signed to a $1Million deal. This deal didn't necessarily go on for long as James Worthy would have some off court controversy which gave NB no choice but to drop James Worthy.

Why is it so Popular now though?

Now that we've gotten to the bottom of NB being a dad shoe and how they used to fly under the radar for many years. Its time to answer the bigger the question at hand.

Well there's two man reasons why New Balance is popping right now.

One main reason is influencer power.

Influencer power is real, one thing about fashion is that for a fashion piece or a brand to reach particular form of success it needs a degree of influencer power behind its drive. Take for example one of the reasons why Adidas reached success in the late 80s is due to the influencer power of RUN DMC by wearing Adidas tracksuits and retro sneakers.

With the age of the internet maximising the influencer potential, New Balance has been the personal choice for film stars, football players and models, but not just your average Instagram influencer, but more so the biggest names in their industry, from Raheem Sterling, Bukayo Saka, Zoe Kravitz and Kawhi Leonard . These names stand out and provide the boost in influencer power New Balance needs.

As these significant people have gained influence through their fame and work, add that with social media capturing their moves and analysing their outfits, just creates a broad following for New Balance.

Another reason would be price and affordability. While I previously stated that New Balance would never sacrifice performance over affordability, that doesn't mean that New Balance is mad expensive, if anything its cheaper relative to it's competitors Nike and Adidas, as you can get a New Balance 550 for retail cheaper than that of a Jordan 4 and a Yeezy.

Lastly, New Balance has gained popularity primarily due to its recent spurts in collaboration with other brands such as Aime Leon Dore, and Concepts. With collaboration comes attention as its no secret that when brands collaborate, there's an increase in attention and awareness to that collaboration, which basically puts different brands on the map, and depending on the success of that collaboration, it can often elevate the brands success and notoriety.

As with NB, their success has come from a traditional performance driven ethos and now they're just getting started, its definitely going to be exciting what type of collabs and creations they'll be putting out in these coming days.

There you have it, the rise of New Balance and their dad creps that are going crazy.

Let me know what you guys think of New Balance these days and what new creations would you like to see them push out.