Atomicdust Helps Warson Brands Debut the Reebok KRIOS
It’s a classic marketing situation. You’re introducing a new product that’s genuinely different from anything on the market. And while the product’s features and benefits are convincing, they’re also overwhelming. Your audience doesn’t have a moment to spare. What do you do?
This was the challenge when Warson Brands asked Atomicdust to help brand and launch the Reebok KRIOS with GORE-TEX® Extended Comfort Technology, the first waterproof hot-weather tactical boot.
The KRIOS is truly innovative footwear, but the technical details are complicated, and the risk of confusion was high. We needed consumers to instantly associate the KRIOS with “hot weather comfort,” a huge differentiator. But the GORE-TEX name and logo, which carries huge brand awareness and loyalty, is associated with cold weather. Additionally, every new product in the category calls itself unprecedented and groundbreaking. It’s no surprise that the audience suffers from “innovation fatigue” when it comes to marketing.
How could we break through this fatigue – and GORE-TEX products’ cold weather associations – without burying consumers and retailers in a long list of technical facts? We did it by boiling down the product’s impressive list of features to a clear story that people would immediately understand and like.
We started with a new tagline – “Come heat or high water.” – that embodies the fearless, “bring it on” spirit of law enforcement and military audiences, and instantly communicates the boot’s key benefits. The KRIOS’s new core positioning language gets right to the benefits, focusing less on how the technology works, and more on why it matters.
Additional language fills in the details, explaining how GORE-TEX fabric technology keeps feet dry, and how fused nylon and leather layers ensure the boot is lightweight and strong. Clear, concise facts take the place of adjectives like “groundbreaking.” Consumers can quickly learn what the KRIOS is, what it can do for them, and how it works.
With the new story in place, as well as photography from Fedele Studio, Atomicdust created a new landing page within the Reebok Work site to showcase and sell the boot. We also designed a brochure for the sales team, point-of-sale materials to promote the boot in-store and a box sticker to remind customers of features and benefits while they’re trying on a pair (or putting the boots on for the first time at home). Everything is designed to live comfortably and recognizably within the Reebok brand guidelines.
The KRIOS debuted in February, and can be pre-ordered on the Reebok Work site. Congratulations to Warson, Gore and Reebok on a successful launch. We were proud to be part of it.
