For the Love of Merino Wool!

Icebreaker is a global outdoor apparel manufacturer and retailer headquartered in New Zealand. Launched in 1994, the brand created an entirely new clothing category - merino wool fibre active clothing for the outdoors. Today it is a global brand synonymous with quality, style and high performance, as well as sustainability, ethical manufacturing and animal welfare. The brand is built on the stories behind where the raw materials come from. They have a great yarn to tell and want to tell it well.

Challenge

Icebreaker had grown to a point where managing the brand across local marketing teams in eight markets globally, distributors in over 30 countries, retail sales staff in 2000 stores, customer services people and even external designers was becoming harder to control. Finding a brand and digital asset management tool to communicate and distribute the brand values, brand stories and digital assets quickly and efficiently was vital to building Icebreaker’s business further.

Solution

One of the first Icebreaker garments was worn by the late Sir Peter Blake. He returned from the Southern Ocean claiming the fabric was “superior in every way to anything I had ever worn before”, and revealing he’d worn his Icebreaker for 43 days and 43 nights without changing.

This and other anecdotes which bring the brand to life can now be found in ‘thestation.icebreaker.com’, Icebreaker’s new online brand management tool from Brandworkz. Communicating the brand personality, vision and meaning, ‘The Station’ is also where you find all the marketing and brand tools you need anytime, anywhere. Brandworkz digital asset management functionality means logos, photography and videos to sales training materials or even marketing campaigns can be accessed and used in any country. Even the latest in-store POS, new season photography and web-to-print toolkits to allow teams to customise artwork, are available. Materials for PR agencies and the media can also be downloaded, saving huge amounts of time and resources and reducing the duplication of work.

Results

'The Station' is the central go-to resource for Icebreaker's brand management and digital asset management. The brand stories, the product facts, the incredible benefits can be communicated to consumers consistently by everyone in the business to increase customer trial, promote repeat purchases and build a word-of-mouth network. Innovations like the Baacode™, a pioneering system that enables consumers to trace every step of their Icebreaker’s evolution, starting with the sheep station where the merino was grown, are promoted and explained in ‘The Station’.

ROI

At the end of 2011 the company posted turnover figures of US$100m. With a marketing strategy that eschews traditional advertising in favour of word-of-mouth and PR, a powerful, consistent brand is absolutely key to building sales and the business. It is estimated that by using Brandworkz, the savings to Icebreaker in efficiency and speed to market will be 30%. Brand consistency could improve by 35% post launch of The Station.

“The Station, built with Brandworkz technology, is a major part of making our marketing strategy a success, providing full brand and digital asset management as well as web-to-print technology to all our marketing and sales people. As a one-stop brand experience it is second to none!” Rachel Schnurbusch, Global Marketing Operations Manager, Icebreaker

Brandworkz modules used:

• Digital Asset Management
• Web-to-Print
• Reporting & Analysis
• Guidelines & Positioning
• Workflow & Approvals