How adidas Outdoor Changed the Behavior of Outdoor Sports Enthusiasts With Greg Thomsen, Former Managing Director at agron, Inc.
Greg Thomsen retired as Managing Director at agron, Inc., the exclusive licensed dealer for adidas products, at the beginning of 2023. Greg is an outdoor industry icon who earned the Lifetime Outdoor Retailer Inspiration Award from Outdoor Retailer in 2019 for inspiring countless generations to embrace the outdoors. With his accomplishments at Nike, where he served as Director of Marketing, and the successful introduction of adidas Outdoor, Greg is a pillar of today's $360 billion outdoor community and continues to have a positive impact.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Greg Thomsen details his journey in the outdoor sports industry and how it began when he was 14
Why adidas launched outdoor sports apparel under Greg’s leadership
What was the reaction of outdoor sports enthusiasts when they tried adidas Outdoor gear?
How adidas differentiated itself upon launching its outdoor sports apparel line
The athlete Greg is most proud of hiring to represent adidas Outdoor
Greg explains his association with the movie Air
The worst advice Greg has ever received
What you’ll learn in this episode:
When adidas decided to offer outdoor sports apparel in 2011, store shelves were already crowded with gear from well-established brands like Patagonia and North Face. Although industry experts warned adidas against competing in this space, the brand expanded its offering and aimed at new potential customers. A decade later, adidas Outdoor is a primary option for outdoor sports enthusiasts everywhere. How did the brand reposition itself and capture market share?
Greg Thomsen, an experienced corporate leader in the outdoor sports and sporting goods industries, explains how adidas (and agron, inc., the exclusive licensed dealer for adidas products) leveraged its place as an authentic athlete support system. The company identified young climbers who could introduce adidas Outdoor to the masses. Since this demographic wants a fresh style, the updated performance gear resonated among outdoor sports enthusiasts. Additionally, adidas Outdoor provided content ideas and stories for popular magazines, featured a well-known mountaineer at trade shows, and hired a champion female rock climber to wear the apparel, effectively reaching its target market.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni discusses the launch of adidas Outdoor with an icon in the outdoor sports industry, Greg Thomsen, who recently retired as Managing Director at agron, Inc., the exclusive licensed dealer for adidas products. Greg talks about why adidas decided to join the crowded outdoor sports apparel market, its targeted audience and marketing efforts, the people and channels used to promote the products, and the value of ignoring naysayers.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:00
This is From Persona to Personal podcast, today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. Off Madison Ave creates meaningful moments of brand trust and influences how people interact and engage with brands. The science behind their approach taps into your audience's motivations and desires. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. Now, let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:34
Hello, everybody, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to speak with top leaders changing customer behavior so they can propel their brands forward. But before I get to today's very special guest this episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Our behavioral approach taps into your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior and if you're not shifting your audience's behaviors, you truly can't unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success visit OffMadisonAve.com to learn more. Now without further ado, I have the pleasure of having a conversation today with Greg Thomsen. Greg is an outdoor industry icon and has been awarded the Outdoor Retailer Lifetime Achievement Award for inspiring countless generations to go outdoors with his accomplishments at Nike, ACG and the successful introduction of adidas Outdoor. Greg has been a pillar of today's $360 billion outdoor community and he continues to have a positive impact. Greg has also fostered the careers of numerous young and up and coming climbers find their way in this competitive category, guiding them not only with their life skills, but also shepherding them as they enter this niche evolving category. And I couldn't be more thrilled. Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg Thomsen 2:06
Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you, Roger,
Roger Hurni 2:08
Did I get anything wrong there or hype you up too much or not enough?
Greg Thomsen 2:12
I think it was pretty, pretty good. Pretty darn good.
Roger Hurni 2:15
All right. I'm getting better and better than intros. That's awesome. I have had the opportunity to read your bio, you and I've had a couple of conversations, I would like to give listeners same that same insight about your background and how you entered the sports outdoor industry, maybe even a couple of highlights in your career. With some brevity, of course, we only have a certain amount of time.
Greg Thomsen 2:40
Well, I'll kind of go back to the beginning. I started rock climbing when I was maybe 14 years old. And there weren't very many climbers in those days. And we mainly did bouldering and some small rope climbs. And then when I was 17, there was a draft in the United States for the Vietnam War. And I realized if I went on an expedition, I could register for the draft in Europe somewhere that turned out to be Yugoslavia. And that would put me in a different type of draft board that generally they didn't call you in for. So me and two friends hitchhiked across the United States took a prop plane over to Iceland, and then to Belgium, we bought an old Toyota Corolla station wagon. And we drove it from Belgium to Nepal, which goes through Afghanistan, and, you know, Iraq, Iran, and quite a few places, Pakistan, where it's hard to drive nowadays, but anyway, we ended up going on an idea to go try and climb as high as we could on Everest in 1978. And we got pretty high. But we also realized when we got there, that it's not Yosemite, it's not California, it's much, much bigger and more dangerous. So we spent, I spent about six months climbing there and came home with an idea that the gear we had was not very good, and it didn't hold up very well. And in those days, there was no synthetic materials, no Gore-Tex, no DOM chants no that stuff, no internal frame packs. So I started creating my own products, started with packs, and then ended up designing pretty much every kind of product you could think of. And in 74, my brother and I started a company called wilderness experience which manufactured packs, sleeping bags, tents, jackets, ski wear, and in 81. We took it public and sold the company. I stayed on with them until 86 and then went, sold my ownership and SR looking for what I wanted to do next, and I got a phone call from Phil Knight from Nike to see if I was interested in going up to Nike to talk to them. I'm about a project that they were looking for. And I went up and I think I was hired the next day to be director of marketing for Nikes apparel division. And my first project was to start all conditions gear, which was their outdoor brand for the, for Nike their first time they had gotten into the outdoor business. I did that for a while. And in 1990, I left to start my own company, again, which I call the American Sports Group. And that company was taking what I'd learned at Nike, which was the marketing of products, how to position products, how to change people's minds about products and position it in their mind, which I had not really ever done before, I always believed that products were everything. So if you made a great product, people would come to your door and buy it, which turned out not to be at all true. And Nike really taught me a really good lesson. So I would I took that understanding, I went to brand names like North Face and Patagonia, Orvis ended up being you know, 50 different brands. And I would create products for them, but also positioning them with their brands so that they could enter a market with categories. They weren't necessarily and, and then I would supply them with all the production because I'd been doing production in Asia for so long. So I would walk into someone like North Face and say you should be doing technical software. And they would say we don't have anybody working on that. Why don't you create it, make the sales samples and then supply us with the production when, when we need it. And that was one of my early customers along with Remington hunting brands and Orvis, LLbean, quick, quit quite a bit of everybody that you can name in the outdoor industry. I built that up until 2008. So about 18 years of doing it. And it was quite a substantial sourcing design manufacturing marketing company. And at that point, I decided, with my wife that we had, we probably should just stop doing what we're doing, if otherwise, we would keep, keep doing that for the rest of our lives. So we sold, we woke up one morning, and we just started selling everything, we sold the company, we sold our cars, we gave away all of our clothing. We gave away most of our possessions that we rented out our house that we had in Southern California for two years, and we took a day pack and a roller bag and our youngest daughter who was just going into sixth grade, we took her out of school and our oldest daughter who was just entering college, we begged her not to come with us, because I knew from experience, it's pretty hard to go back. So we, we we left the states and we traveled around the world for about a year. Visiting country and, and cities that we had never been to before. And with the idea that every city we went to we had to live in the city and not just the hotel. So we would get rent someone's apartment or you know, small condo that, that we had to cook our own food or buy our own food. And of course, we could go out whenever we wanted to, or stay in hotels whenever we wanted to. But our main goal was to have to like, kind of learn the cities. And we did that through about 27 countries. And came back in 2010, I thought I was done. You know, I'd already started a couple of companies, I'd sold a bunch of companies. And I thought well, maybe I'll just consult or something and out of the blue, adidas called me. And Adidas asked if I would be interested in putting together the plan and the whole process of starting an outdoor category for Adidas. And so I started that in 2010, I teamed up with an adidas licensee called agron, a great group of people that couldn't have done it without them. And it turned out to be maybe the best experience of my life. And so I did that for about 12 years. And at the end of 2022. That was my my last days. And I'm officially retired as of January of this year. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.
Roger Hurni 9:32
Well, it's a fascinating story. I've been to a lot of the places that you have. I wanted to focus the now that you've demonstrated your expertise. I mean, there's just a little bit of experience there. And let's be honest, now that you've demonstrated expertise, I really wanted to focus in adidas Outdoor because it seems like an unlikely company to go into that space. So was kind of curious, what did Adidas see? Or what were they hoping to accomplish by by bringing you on board and going into outdoor sports market?
Greg Thomsen 10:08
Yeah, adidas had identified the outdoor sports market as a big growth area, probably watching the growth of companies like North Face and Patagonia. And they wanted it to be authentic, because they have this feeling that all of their products need to be kind of athlete driven, you know, it should be authentic product, and then it could branch down into more of a streetwear. And they didn't feel at the time that the US team, the adidas team in the United States, had a love for the outdoors, and would be able to actually pull off of such a difficult introduction on their own because they were busy with, you know, everything else. And so their mind was, let's find somebody who's an expert in this area. And let's see what he can do to put it together. And then if he comes back with a big enough, strong enough plan, we'll go with him. And that was what I did, by putting together a five-year plan, and then also incorporating one of their licensees. So they felt comfortable with the people that they were going to be working with, and that we were substantial enough that we could manage the growth of the company. And that I think that was their decision, their main reason for doing it as I think they liked me. You know, they kind of said, well, if anybody's going to pull this off, it's going to take somebody who's kind of fearless about, you know, jumping into that market, because it was absolutely not an easy decision for them to make.
Roger Hurni 11:44
Well, it sounds like the odds in this particular instance, were a little more stacked against you. I mean, did you, you know, everybody in the category was there? Were there a lot of naysayers? And Greg, what are you thinking? Did you run into that?
Greg Thomsen 11:59
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We joke about it. Well, I hired a sales manager right away, a friend of mine, his name is Larry Harrison. He's quite famous in the outdoor world. He knows everybody. He's been a sales rep forever. And we, between the two of us, we pretty much knew almost every, you know, certainly every major retailer, if not all of them. And we joke because the first 100 retailers we saw, we got no, from every one of them. And the first trade show we did at the Outdoor Retailer show, we had a beautiful booth, we had some nice products, but we had no orders. And in fact, the CEO of North Face, and he later became the CEO of a Vanity Fair, VF Corporation, bet me $1 that we would not be there in two years. So I begged him $1 years later, he paid me $2.18 back. He said he owed interest on the very nice, I don't think anybody believed it was possible. In fact, a lot of my friends in the industry said, Why are you doing this? You know, you should be going out on a high note and not on a, you know, a failure note. And so it was a little bit frightening to take off, because it was clearly a soccer sports company entering a technical outdoor market.
Roger Hurni 13:32
Well, when, when some of those outdoor sports enthusiasts started using the products, and what was their reactions?
Greg Thomsen 13:41
Well, it was a long process of working with the German design teams, to get them to think more American, which is one of the biggest problems companies have that try and bring in products or work with European companies since in the United States. The United States is different from Europe, and I would try to explain to them you wouldn't hire me to start a new outdoor company in Germany because I don't speak German. I didn't grow up there. I don't know the people there. Why? So you think you could do that into the United States, which is a much, much harder, more competitive marketplace. And that took a lot of, of work internally with adidas to get the products correct. And then it took a lot of work to figure out how to position adidas as a brand that, that a retail store needed. You know, it's one thing to have good products, but every store had every shelf and every rack, and every you know, hanger was already filled with North Face and Patagonia and Mountain Hardware and Marmots. And everybody else, you know there wasn't a lack of product in the market. So we repositioned the brand as really trying to build off of adidas’ authentic Athlete Support System. And I went out and started identifying a lot of young climbers to take kind of the be the tip of the spear of introducing this brand at a very technical point, but also with a bit of fashion. So you had not only performance, but you had a little bit of style to go with it. And most young climbers were also stylish. So they were looking for something new than, than what their parents had worn, and grandparents had worn. And so we launched it that way, we launched it with a number of young people. And it turned out a lot of the young climbers turned out to be women, because they hadn't been addressed by the other brands very much at that time. Most brands hired men for their mountaineers or their climbers or is like more buff, hard, hard story. And ours was more of like, no, we have the strongest women, but they're also, you know, interested in style and taste. And plus, they climb incredibly hard and do incredibly new routes. So we had something that was newsworthy with, with individuals who are also highly promotable wearing the product right from the beginning. So we started to get like what they're wearing it, it can't be all bad. And then, as we expanded that, you would start seeing the product in the key areas in Jackson Hall or in Yosemite, or, you know, in Boulder, you start seeing these cool jackets and products and boots being worn on worn by kind of the Hometown Heroes, and the people that the locals knew. And then we started to build those individuals, reputations as national figures, and that by the advertising and promotions, the advertising and the promotion part.
Roger Hurni 17:02
I mean, it seems obvious, particularly with your background at Nike, to get the gear and the people that really know what they're doing, allow them to experience it, get their personal take on it. You know, once you gather those behaviors, we start to amplify that. Were there something specific? Was there anything specific you did in terms of marketing, those people, or those experiences to help the brand catch on?
Greg Thomsen 17:31
Yes, actually, we identified the most core magazines, climbing magazines, rock and ice and climbing, and some of those. And then we started to work with those magazines not only with an ad but also by supplying them with articles or helping them follow up on athletes and do an article on those athletes with something meaningful. And then at the trade shows, we started to bring in people that the industry hadn't seen in years. So one of our first projects we brought in was we brought in a Reinhold Messner, who's arguably the most famous mountaineer of all time, the number one guy in the world. And he hadn't been to the States in a number of years, no one had invited him and I invited him over and how pay as it were airfare. And he gave a speech. And that kind of brought in a lot of the key retailers, like especially the owners, and the upper management, wanted to meet him. So they started to see oh, this is a good group of people making good products with legitimate really good marketing efforts. And that started to turn their mind around on where the brand really stood. So I would say it was a combination of bringing in people from Europe who are substantial building people in the US who could be substantial and eventually turned out to be world-famous. And, and that at the trade shows, really becoming part of the community, instead of coming there with just products to say, here's what we have to sell. We were immediately involved in how do we help the industry do more. How can we set up events that the show is how can we help you bring speakers and be part of the industry so we really took a community approach to you know, bringing Adidas and to the, to the fold, you know, even things like helping to sponsor annual meetings with the American Alpine Club? All these companies, and organizations needed help, and we were in a good position to be able to offer that and to do that, and at the same time, really carve out a niche for Adidas in the, in the market and the community itself.
Roger Hurni 19:53
It, bringing in the world's most famous climber, that can certainly be a tipping point and be, be very successful. Is there? Is there one other success story during that time that you're like? Yeah, I'm really proud of this moment, because I knew we would make it.
Greg Thomsen 20:12
Well, why not? One of the athletes that I hired, her name is Sasha DiGiiulian. And Sasha is probably the number one woman climber in the world or certainly was for a while. And I didn't know her. And I called her, I got her phone number from some photographer, friends of mine. And I gave her a call. And I said, Hey, would really be great to talk to you. Would you like to come to New York because she was on the East Coast and meet with me and some of the adidas execs and, and she said, Well, I can't talk right now. I'm in a calculus class in high school. I was like, Oh, I forgot completely, that see, was like 16 years ago. So eventually, we did get her on board. And that next year, she won every single competition and was ranked number one in the world. And then from that point on, she just says, her career has just blossomed and grown. And so I feel a real, you know, warm spot for being able to help kind of kickstart her career, she would have done it on her own anyway, I think. But this really helped her really accelerated, that made me feel good. And it also helped the brand with getting into that market to a lot more women followers, then a lot of the other brands had, so we were able to just kind of immediately get a position that other companies didn't quite have didn't quite have in the, in the consumers mind.
Roger Hurni 21:53
Well, it's a fantastic story of you doing that, in creating that great brand. I have just a few more questions, not to take up too much of your time. Richard Bangs, so I had to give a shout-out to is the one who got me introduced to you. And he was a previous guest on the show from, from stellar, which is a fantastic social media travel app that I recommend to everybody. But he emailed me this morning, because he said, have you interviewed? Yeah. And I said, No, it's going to be in Vegas. He goes, have you seen Air? And I said, Yes, I'm a massive Nike fan. I worked with the Corporate Responsibility group for about 10 years. And one of my companies and he said he was involved in the making of air asked him about it. So I don't know if that's true. Or he's pulling my leg. So I'm asking, Did you have a personal the movies? Amazing, but did you have a role in that?
Greg Thomsen 22:48
Well, probably not in that in the Air part, which is the shoe part. Right. I did do the I think the first of the Jordan apparel programs and did the Morph suits that really took off, they may have done some T-shirts prior, prior to that. But in 87, I think we started doing the development of some of the more, more warm is oriented clothing, which just took off to a big degree. My My position was kind of split up because there was a guy his name was Rob Strasser. And Strasser was the Marketing Manager for adidas and pretty much put adidas on the map. And I give him and Peter Moore, actually, I think they get credit for creating air and creating the visible air and also bringing Jordan, and even though I know Sonny Vaccaro had some context there, I think those guys are the guys who really did it. And when Strasser left, they split his division experience his role into two, and I took over marketing for apparel, and Tom Clark took over marketing for footwear. And so I was intimately involved in every bit of apparel that Nike made during those years.
Roger Hurni 24:09
No, it's it is that's an amazing story. And it really, I know Arthur Ashe did have the racquet and everything, but the way that deal was structured really changed the business for every athlete after that. And it's a pretty phenomenal story.
Greg Thomsen 24:24
Not Nike’s, you know, irreverence was that attitude we had in those days? And it was like, no, just go for it. And the idea of just do it was really just something that happened every day, people would say, Well, I'm going to try this and they will go, we'll just do it, and eventually became the catchphrase that widen the kind of put together. Yeah. Are you seeing I'm looking forward to seeing the movie? I'm always, I'm always aware that whoever writes the history tells the history the way they want it to be told and so I'm sure there's a lot that I will probably just agree with but I hear it's a great movie.
Roger Hurni 25:02
Yeah. I did hear Dan Wieden of Wieden and Kennedy speak in the early 90s. About the JUST DO IT line because they mentioned this in the movie where he had, he had heard a prisoner on death row. When they asked him any last words, he just went, Nope, just do it. And he thought that was a really good time. Anyway, the movie mentions that moment and mentioned it to him by name. And I was just like, maybe that's true. So
Greg Thomsen 25:32
Dan is probably the, if not the best marketing advertising person ever, who ever lived? So yeah, I not seriously always necessarily true, but it sure sounds good.
Roger Hurni 25:46
Well, they came from dead, maybe he was just being a story. So I only have two more questions for you. And you've again been great with your time. Yeah, they retired. And what are you excited about? Is there anything you're doing now? Next adventure, next adventure venture, if you will?
Greg Thomsen 26:05
Well, well, we've taken a little different tack on how we're living, my wife and I, and we, we bet we've always lived in Southern California, and Malibu for forever. And we decided that we would try living in different states for periods of time. So we split our time now between Utah, New Orleans, in Louisiana, and Hawaii. And then we go back to Los Angeles every once in a while, but mostly the rest of the areas and most of the time spent in Utah. And in Louisiana, because we've never lived in those areas. Before, we've never been in the South, we never really had that many friends that were that different politically than us. And also in Utah, which was quite different than what we were used to. So we wanted to kind of understand the thought process of people in different parts of the country, and live in places that we really thought would be fun to be on. So that's kind of a lifestyle change. And we were moving around quite a bit. And our cyber now is that we, we, you know, we can plan trips, and we can go on adventures. And then we have these homes that we keep building or, you know, remodeling or redoing so that takes up right now all the time that we have. Yeah, so we'll see what goes in the future. With no big expeditions planned for sure.
Roger Hurni 27:38
All right, well, you have to keep us updated. Here's my wrap-up question. And I think you'll you probably over your, over your career, have had people tell you all kinds of crazy stuff that you just went? No. So what is, what is the worst advice you've ever gotten? Well,
Greg Thomsen 27:58
I mean, there’s so much bad advice. But I think maybe it's before you start a business, you have to write a really detailed business plan. And what I also learned in the last 10 years from the guys that Aggron, everybody always says we'll put together, you know, five-year projections. And basically, we learned that things change too fast and too quickly and out of your control. So the projections are, when you see them from anybody, they're always going up. They don't plan for big drops, which are going to happen, it'd be inevitable. And the markets changed. The world changes, people come and go. So I think, you know, the naysayers who say, Don't go start something because you don't know enough about it. I took it the opposite and said, well, I need to really understand how to sew something I need to operate a sewing machine fixed sewing machines, learn how to make things, learn how to make patterns, learn how to make it so that when I did it, I really was knowledgeable. But you would never learn that without jumping in with both feet and just having to make it work. And, and so I think the opposite of the bad. Bad advice was you know, everybody always said, Well, you need more money, you need more experience, you need more. And I always felt like well, no, you really need to be a little bit more at risk. You need to put yourself out on the cutting edge. Otherwise, you'll never learn it and you won't ever do it. You'll never do it. A lot of this came from a climbing background and Expedition climbing, you know, if you don't kind of just go for it. You know, it's so easy to stop, but it's so easy to turn around. You need to have this energy to go and you need to be a little bit of a delinquent. You know, you have to be able to just do it on your own and figure it out. How to make it work. And, you know, the naysayers are everywhere. Right?
Roger Hurni 30:04
They are having having done a bit of climbing, alpine climbing myself it is, it is one of those things that you have to put some stuff at risk, but you have to be smart about it. You know, you're not just gonna be, you know, caution to the wind for the sake of throwing caution to the wind. Well, I very much enjoyed today's conversation, and I thank you for being on the show. For everybody else. I've been speaking with outdoor sports guru. That'd be my turn out his Greg Thomsen. Greg, where can people learn more about you, and maybe what you want to do next, if you want to throw that out there?
Greg Thomsen 30:40
Well, I don't really have any websites anymore. My brother and I started this company wilderness experience. So there's still a wildernessexperience.net, a site that we post all of the old stuff on and we show you know, the history of outdoors. That's the easiest place to get me or LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. But that's about it. There's not a lot more going on.
Roger Hurni 31:10
That's fair, that's fair. You can always contact me anybody out there and I'll find a way to connect you to Greg. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you once again. Perfect. Great, thank you. I'm Roger Hurni. This is From Persona to Personal and we'll see you next time.
Outro 31:29
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
