Clarks targeting Jamaica for cult buyers

British shoe company Clarks has launched a dancehall campaign aimed in part at reconnecting with “cult” consumers, as a way to regain lost sales.

“We have lost connection with the main customers and accounts in our key wholesale markets,” said now former CEO Giorgio Presca in the company’s annual report.

Presca joined the company in 2019 with the mandate to cut costs and grow the brand. He reportedly resigned in February 2021.

The problem, as he saw it, was that most consumers lack a connection with the brand, except for cult consumers.

Clarks, the unofficial shoes of the dancehall music scene, continue to sell within that market segment, despite changing trends that sees brands such as Nike, adidas and Timberland becoming more dominant in street culture.

Clarks sold over 42.9 million pairs of shoes in 2020 but that was 3.3 million fewer pairs than the year before that. It also closed some 140 locations globally, up from 56 stores in 2019. It wasn’t immediately clear the number of stores remaining.

“Consumers lack emotional affinity with our brand. People today buy a brand because they feel that the brand represents them and has created an emotional connection with them. Clarks scores poorly on emotional brand affinity compared to its competition in key markets, impacting its brand perception and consumer consideration,” said Presca, later adding that it has resulted in competitors selling shoes at higher profit margins than Clarks.

The company in March unveiled a series of Jamaican-inspired shoes which featured their staple designs in Jamaican flag colours. It was followed this month by a new marketing campaign featuring new wave reggae artistes including Koffee, Protoje, No Maddz, M1llionz; Lila Ike, Sevanna, and footballer Raheem Sterling. They wore the classic Clarks Original shoes rather than the multi-coloured flag-inspired designs.

An artiste and fashionista, who has played sets with some new wave reggae artistes, told the Financial Gleaner that the sponsorship of clean influencers as opposed to the hardcore dancehall artistes made good marketing sense.

“I don’t readily associate Clarks with some of those guys, but it is a re-imagining of the brand. They are influencers so it makes sense,” the artiste said asking not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the industry. The artiste said that the Clarks will get all the street respect without the criminality linked to other artistes that sing about the brand.

Clarks said that the campaign pays homage to Jamaica which continues to buy its products almost religiously.

“Our shoes have been ingrained in island life for almost 60 years now. But they mean something different to everybody you ask,” stated the campaign.

The artistes all paid tribute to Clarks. For Koffee, when she thinks of the word Clarks, she automatically thinks of Jamaican culture, said the campaign. For Protoje, there’s no other international brand that has roots in Jamaican culture quite like Clarks. For Lila Ike, it’s the versatility that makes them so special. For No-Maddz, Clarks have been an obsession since childhood and everyone wears them. For Raheem Sterling, there’s quite simply no other shoe that can compare.

The nearly 200-year-old company has been losing appeal for some time and the pandemic sped up the process. Presca, in addressing the issues, said that the first action to increase brand appeal was to tap into the cult consumers. The group exited 144 stores in 2020, of which 103 were permanent closures of Clarks and 31 of subsidiary brand Mothercare, while the other 10 were converted into licensed or franchise partnerships.

Clarks anticipates a loss in 2020-21 due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.

“In the medium term we face the risks put on us by the COVID-19 virus and protecting liquidity. These are uncharted times and this uncertainty means we will report an unquantifiable loss in 2020-21 with significant uncertainty in the speed of recovery beyond,” the annual report noted.

Presca said he believes “passionately” that Clarks can become more competitive and sustainable, but that it would require “swift and radical” action to deliver results.

In 2020, the company reported a 6.4 per cent decline in revenue to £1.37 billion. The company made pretax profit of £21.6 million, in a turnaround from a loss of £85 million in 2019 associated with non-cash write downs. The company sold 42.9 million pairs of shoes last year, down from 46.2 million in 2019.

Sales by region were 17.7 million pairs for Europe, down from 20.2 million pair, which Clarks blamed on a decline in trendiness and low consumer confidence; 20.8 million pairs sold in the Americas, down 21.2 million pairs; and 4.4 million pairs in Asia, down from 4.8 million pairs.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com