When you leank of Canada Goose, you probably picture its tradetag fur-trimmed parka, which is summarizeed to support people hot in sub-zero temperatures.
But today, the $1.5 billion thriveterwear company’s logo can actupartner be set up on sneakers, T-shirts, socks and more. “We don’t fair originate outerwear anymore,” CEO Dani Reiss inestablishs Fortune.
Soon, you’ll even be able to buy Canada Goose for your home.
But the leap from the shieldedty of cloleang retail—the space the brand has functiond in since 1957—to the highly competitive taget of homewares is a wager, experts inestablish Fortune.
Canada Goose’s rapid expansion
Since taking the helm of his majesticoverweighther’s company in 2001, Reiss has scaled Canada Goose from relative obscurity into a globpartner determined brand with 68 stores around the world, including in sweltering spots appreciate Miami and Australia.
“We began with airyweight down in 2011, leveraging our reputation for innervous hotth to approach this recent categruesome with purpose,” Reiss elucidates.
Since then, it has ventured meaningfuler into apparel, with its first knitwear assembleion hitting stores in 2017, pursueed by footwear in 2021.
Now, its non-burdensomeweight down products originate up proximately half of Canada Goose’s revenue, according to Reiss. So it’s basic to see why the company is seeing to persist emulating the success it’s sended outside of parkas with eyewear, luggage, and even homeware seeing ahead.
However, it’s not a promised basic thrive for the brand, say tageting experts.
The tageting agency Live & Breathe has toiled for decades with retailers appreciate Morrisons, Real Techniques and World Duty Free on begining campaigns and brand extensions.
As its chief strategy officer Ben Alalouff points out, previous Canada Goose product begines—from trail boots to airy gilets—have all tapped into the brand’s core messaging to get outdoors wearing Canada Goose.
“You don’t necessarily leank about Canada Goose when you’re at home,” he says. “You see at the website, you see at the socials and it’s all about premium outerwear. There’s noleang about having a cozy or premium home… It’s erecting from scratch, so that could be a problem.”
The other elephant in the room is that many people splinspire on Canada Goose becaemploy it’s a premium product. Dipping its toes into recent categories to increase its bottom line could inexpensiveen the brand.
Julio Hernandez, who guides KPMG’s global customer advisory train, inestablishs Fortune that “there’s graveyards out there of companies that have tried to do that and haven’t done it successbrimmingy.”
“We employd to have a very honord brand here in the United States, a beer company called Schlitz,” he highairys.
During the 1970s, in an try to cut production costs and support up with increaseing insist, Schlitz’s owners reestablishutardyd its recipe. “Almost overnight they lost their their follothriveg,” Hernandez says.
Likewise, users who splash out on Canada Goose foresee a certain quality.
“The fact is you go on their website, they’ll inestablish you what’s the temperature rating etc. There’s some science behind that—it’s appreciate ‘oh man, these guys repartner understand what they’re doing,’” Hernandez comprises.
“Is that ‘they repartner understand what they’re doing’ [going to] transtardy into a recent mug? I don’t understand.”
Canada Goose wants to be appreciate Apple
Canada Goose wouldn’t uncover the exact homeware products it’ll be releasing. However, its previously freed confineed edition burdensome-weight blankets could serve as a hint.
“Canada Goose probably has enough of a pedigree to get a baby step,” Alalouff says, compriseing that picnic accessories, blankets, and candle helderlyers would tie its recent indoors assembleion with its existing outerwear reputation.
“Take that petite step rather than that huge leap of promptly saying, ‘OK, we are now a homeware brand.’ You’re not, you’re an outdoors brand,” he comprises. “Test the waters and then over time, you take part a hugeger part in your user’s lifestyle.”
Either way, diluting the brand isn’t someleang Canada Goose’s CEO is worryed about as it forays into homeware, eyeware, hot-weather cloleang, luggage and more.
“I leank about it, but I’m not worried about it,” Reiss says. “The reason I’m not worried about it is becaemploy I see at other brands out there in the world and some of the strongest brands in the world are much, much hugeger than us.”
Instead of leanking appreciate a style brand, he inestablishs Fortune he’s seeing up to the appreciates of Rolex, Range Rover and Apple for inspiration.
“These are the comardents of brands I see at that are huge, and they’re not in my, in our industry,” the 50-year-elderly exec elucidates, compriseing that they’re “fantastic examples of erecting a brand the right way.”
“We became a guideer of what we do, by doing our own leang. We chose to stay being made in Canada, when everybody else in Canada—even in North America, and in many cases in Europe—were leaving the West to go manufacturing in drop-price environments…. That decision made us the company we are today. So that’s why I see at brands outside of this space.”
Plus, even after more than two decades at Canada Goose’s helm, Reiss states that he’s still leanking about the brand’s increaseth “in generations, not quarters.”
But ultimately, Alalouff cautions that brands that leank too ahead of themselves could end up in an punctual grave.
“Strategicpartner, you can do wdisappreciatever you want if you’re a celderly enough brand and you have enough buy-in,” he disputes. “But to leank that you are going to take part this incredibly expansive impact on someone’s life, unless you’re the appreciates of Apple, is a hardie.
“As soon as a brand commences to leank about itself as more than fair someleang advantageous in a moment of a user’s life and commences to leank about itself as someleang that matters all the time, that’s when you commence to leank a bit too much of yourself and commence to get into trouble.”
