How to create a knockout brand

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Necessity is deemed the mother of invention, but adversity can be its father.

In recessions, as Ian Cheshire wrote here last week, we must focus on more inventive ways to perform better; he cited own-label products from the Kingfisher Innovation Centre as a powerful illustration.

History has many examples of iconic brands and products being born at unpropitious times. Interestingly, one of Kingfisher’s latest board appointments is Pascal Cagni, the EMEA head of Apple, a company that’s thrived in good times and bad. The iPod, for example, was launched in 2001 – the year the dotcom bubble burst – one month after 9/11.

Decades earlier, it was in the Great Depression that Revlon was created, splashing vivid colours of varnish when everything was grim and grey (a phenomenon reflected today as cosmetic sales stay buoyant while fashion revenues sink; “the lipstick effect” as Debenhams calls it.) Despite US stagflation, arising from a major oil crisis and stock market crash, 1974 saw the registration of one of the world’s most successful logos-to-be and the birth of a revolutionary new sports shoe: Nike’s first own-designed product, the Waffle Trainer, became almost as iconic as the swoosh that adorned it.

The raison d’être for this trainer was performance (it was specifically designed to help athletes perform better on the University of Oregon’s newly laid urethane track surface). And Performance, with a capital P, has been the prime mover of all Nike product development ever since, in fabrication and styling alike.

Luta, a new, equally performance-oriented sports brand, has just been launched in the UK – it too, against the gloomiest of economic backdrops. But Luta has been born and bred in adversity of a far greater human magnitude and has its very own birthright lined up in its sights.

11 years ago, Luke Dowdney MBE founded the Luta pela Paz (Fight for Peace – FFP) Academy in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent favelas to offer a way out to young people caught up in Rio’s drug wars. FFP now works with more than 2,000 young people every year through boxing and martial arts, education and personal development programmes in two purpose built academies (Rio and east London). Organisations in 10 countries around the world are being trained to implement programmes to help young people in communities affected by crime and violence.

Luta (luta.co.uk), which is positioned as a premium fight wear and training wear brand, has a 50% profit share scheme with FFP International. The Luta Pro range takes its cues from the rigours of fighters’ training regimes, but Luta is really targeting the ever growing fitness market, and its training range focuses on crossover high-performance fitness pieces for multi-sport/gym training sessions. Global distributors should be fighting each other to get signed up.

The Luta presentation at the World Retail Congress in Berlin last month, was quite simply a knockout. This brand is authentic and unique, and has the mother-and-father of a story to tell.