Monday, August 28, 2017

Iconic Canadian Brands: 5 Questions With Adam Ketcheson, Arc’teryx

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Arc’teryx is one of Canada’s premier brands in technical outdoor clothing. Whether climbing, skiing, or hiking, their innovative clothing is sought after by outdoors enthusiasts the world over. The Vancouver-based outerwear and equipment purveyor has expanded into footwear and continues to impress with its urban Veilance and military/tactical LEAF collections.

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In our latest Q&A, Adam Ketcheson (right), Arc’teryx’s Global Vice President of Marketing and B2C, chats with Rob Manne, Interbrand Canada’s Vice President of Client Services, about the brand’s inclusion in the Interbrand 150: Iconic Canadian Brands report, the company’s outlook, its design process—and how a relentless focus on innovation pays off.

As one of the Interbrand 150 Iconic Canadian brands, what are the main ingredients that contribute to the success of Arc’teryx in Canada?

They are probably the same ingredients that contribute to our success globally. The brand has always had a very strong point of view from a design value standpoint. Ever since the get-go we’ve broken new ground on technical innovation, design aesthetics for apparel and industrial design. We’ve always positioned the brand as being market-leading and best-in-class. It’s always stood out in its space regardless of whether that was in Canada or that was abroad. So the same values that worked for us here really worked for us everywhere.

How does Arc’teryx differentiate from competitors and carve out its own space in the segment? Do you deal with the same customer segments, or is there a special customer that may be different than some of the other brands you’re up against?

The big difference between us and our competitors is that we have the ability to be way more focused. We can really be relentless about driving technical innovation and being consistent from the design value standpoint because we don’t try to be everything, we don’t try to appeal to everyone. That really allows us to stand out from some of those bigger and broader brands.

We’re all pulling from a broad outdoor consumer for sure. Our bread and butter tends to be the people that are the most active, who spend the most time outdoors and who are looking for a competitive edge.

Where do you see tastes changing in the outdoor category? What are customers going to be looking for in the future from a brand like Arc’teryx?

It’s a little bit different around the world. In North America, there’s definitely a real sort of casualization of the space, especially among younger consumers. More and more people are looking for things that can bridge different of parts of their lives. They have a style, an aesthetic that they’re looking for. They want authenticity and performance, but they also often want something that they can wear in their daily lives.

In places like Europe, that change is slower to come. It’s a very technical market; people expect their gear to look very technical and look very “traditional outdoor.” Color trends change faster there. They’re definitely less timeless than some of the stuff that’s going on in North America.

In Asia, it’s a whole other case again. There are three big markets: Korea, China and Japan, but they’re all very different markets, and the consumer trends are moving differently in each. China’s is really an emerging outdoor market. A lot of people are coming into the middle class and looking for opportunities to connect with nature and be outside more. Whereas in Japan, it’s gone very lifestyle and Korea has gone very technical. So all the trends are a little bit different. We believe that, long term, the North American millennial trend will probably influence all of those global markets. But you can’t lump them all together today.

You recently opened a retail outlet in Vancouver—how are you thinking about the retail experience, and how is that guiding where you’re going be growing in the future?

We try to think of things in three- to five-year windows. We probably haven’t seen the biggest changes that are going to come in and disrupt our industry. But the thing we do know is that consumers are moving around between all the different brand experiences they have, whether that’s an online, product, community or a retail experience.

We make sure we’re present in all of those spaces, and that we’re consistent and totally on-brand. We take those opportunities to enable people to get what they need, to inspire them to do more things outside and connect with them on a human level. That’s one huge advantage to a retail store.

What role does data play in your decision-making, and has that changed over time?

We use it a lot to run our retail and digital e-commerce businesses, we use it a lot on the marketing side. But from a from a creative strategy standpoint, we still try to have our own point of view and drive our values regardless of what we get from a data report.

There are a lot of products that we’ve built over the years that, if we had paid too much attention to what everyone was telling us, we wouldn’t have brought them to market, such as our thermo-laminated backpack panels or our Gore-Tex-based footwear.

You can use data for clues and insight, but you also have to be fearless about going into spaces that appear counterintuitive. If you build a product that doesn’t have a vision, it almost always fails. But when we’re fearless and we really follow our gut—and are really stubborn about how we want it to look and how we want to build it—we often do really cool stuff.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

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