Vans: Skating on

air

Introduction
Vans is best known for selling footwear and apparel to

skateboarders, surfers, and other alternative sports athletes.

In April 2002, Gary Schoenfeld, the CEO, is facing a number of
challenges.
With respect to footwear, he must decide what to do about two
product lines that are struggling--the outdoor line of hiking shoes
and the women's collection.
More broadly, Vans is currently embarking on a number of new
ventures, some of with which the company has little experience.
For example, Vans is in the process of promoting a full-length
movie, creating its own record label, and working with video-game
developers to develop games based on its sporting events.
Traces the up-and-down history of a niche fashion brand in a
market in which consumers are notoriously fickle.
In recent years, the CEO appears to have revived the brand;
however, it is unclear whether the company is in danger of losing
its hardcore customer base as it ventures into the consumer
mainstream.

Early days: rise-fall-rise

1966-Paul Van doren launched Vans with his brother and

two partners
Built like battleship(twice thicker than normal rubber
soled shoe was produced , priced@ $2.49 to $4.99)
Planned through own retail stores-unconventional method
Made to order customized shoes were made for surfers
because of its own manufacturing.
Vans was a favorite of hard to fit customers who required
non standard width and lengths.
By end of 1960 the canvas , easy to wash shoes had
developed a good name.
In 1970 for California based skateboarding rebel group
Z-boys, Vans quickly became the sneaker of choice.
In 1975,z-boys dominated the first national skate
competition and t-shirt and shoes were sponsored by
VANS and it increased VANs popularity.

Early :days-rise-fall-rise
In 1970 for California based skateboarding rebel group Z-boys, Vans

quickly became the sneaker of choice.

In 1975,z-boys dominated the first national skate competition and t-shirt
and shoes were sponsored by VANS and it increased VANs popularity.
With Z boys skateboarding became popular and it became industry of $
400million.
At the same time VANS sales also had risen rapidly. By decade end
skateboarding market started decline because skateboarding was
replaced by other sports .
By end of 1980 skateboarding was almost died and company was turned
over to Vans brother James.
But James van responded by broadening product mix in an effort to
grab share from Nike and Reebok.
Soon VAN was producing shoes for basketball, football ,soccer , wrestling
, boxing and even umpiring.
But the move backfired due to High cost of manufacturing ,strong
competition from main brands which lead to bankruptcy in 1984.
Paul Van Doren returned to revitalize the company.Paul Van managed to
get the company out of debt ,pay back all the debt and then sell the
company in 1988 to a private equity firm.

How the turnaround took place

In 1995 ,Gary schoenfeld took over at Vans , assumed the mantle of CEO
First move was to effectively eliminating the manufacturing units due to

high cost.
Gary worked on Vans strong connection to this new generation of sports,
the kids who played them and their lifestyle.
Vans customer base included both hardcore enthusiast as well as
occasional athletes.
The average Vans customer was a white, skateboarding male aged
between 12 to 18 yrs.
His interests are hip hop music, videogames ,skateboarding and other
sports.
The companys key challenge was maintaining a relationship with these
young customers.
Gary encouraged internal marketing of the product
He spent lots of time with atheletes ,young staff members which lead to
the development of a number of carefully selected ,alternative sporting
events and related forms of entertainment.
Redifined the Goal-It was to create a proprietary brandingh platform that
would build on our unique heritage and gives us a long term possition.

Turnaround
The promotional mix
Triple crown series-competition consisted of three different events
(street skating, bowl riding and vertical ramp riding)
Van warped tour- organizing skateboarding with hip hop music
Vans skate parks-opening of skate parks and making them popular
Endorsement of athletes
The channel mix
Independent specialty skate stores
Mall abased specialty stores
Better department stores
Sporting goods stores
Moderate department stores
Family shoe stores

The product mix

Signature collection
Pro series collection
Skate performance collection
Skate casual collection

Future plan
Vans had always been organized into three

business units:retail,wholesale and

international . But Gary was now considering
reorganizing the company along six business
lines:
Mens footwear
Womens footwear
Kids footwear
Apparel
Entertainment(Triple crown series, warped tour ,

Dog town movies)

Hard goods(wheels , helmets ,pads , other
paraphernalia)

Conclusion
Vans has expanded in a number of directions and the company

is still looking for the specific position and place in the market
when Schoenfeld led to the company.
The company started expanding its network into number of
directions and other locations that has been the important
association for the company.
This also increases the number of sports affiliation and is also
known well with the help of promotion that increased the form
of concentration of the industry in the field of athletics.
This was also important for new opportunities with respect to
the involvement of particular youths in different types of sports
so as it was important in different trends.
Therefore, the cost of promotion also started increasing that
created the diversified products within different market place
for different nature.
The athletics industry is large itself and the industry is required
to change its originalstrategyof performing well in the
competition so there was the important need to address the
organization in terms of varieties and collections for different