Joe Preston discusses how New Balance has moved on from the 2016 Trump controversy and his strategy to appeal to new customers.
For a long time, New Balance sneakers had the image of the “dad shoe” that fashion-forward people didn’t want to be seen in. Often associated withJoe Preston, who took the helm at Boston-based New Balance in 2018, has been leading the push to broaden the brand’s appeal to Gen Z and Millennial consumers. So far the strategy appears to be working. The company reported a record year in 2023, with global sales of $6.5 billion, a 23% increase from 2022 and nearly double its 2020 sales.
Preston spoke to TIME in September about how the company has moved on from the 2016 controversy, his strategy to appeal to new customers, and what he’s learned about leadership during his career.New Balance has had a dramatic shift in image, from being famously seen as uncool to becoming very fashionable in recent years. That's not an easy thing for a brand to do.
At its core New Balance is a performance brand, no question about that. If I look at our industry, it's the intersection of performance and fashion, and that intersection is where the energy is. We have one of the state-of-the-art product innovation centers at the track, built in 2022, which is right outside our headquarters. And this world class facility allows us to develop product for athletes in all various sports.
end of 2018, beginning of 2019, we felt like we just weren't keeping pace with the consumer. The consumer was changing the way they were interacting with brands and the way that they were purchasing. And so we came up with this motto of “control our destiny.” And controlling our destiny was all about meeting that consumer where they wanted to be. When we signed Kawhi Leonard in 2019 and then won the NBA championship, and he was named MVP, our website crashed.
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