Running remains a hot category in footwear and classic styles continue to find new life with today’s sneakerheads. Saucony, a brand well positioned in both areas of the business, has tapped a new global chief marketing officer to help further improve its position in the marketplace.
Joy Allen-Altimare, who joined Saucony in June, has nearly 25 years in marketing leadership experience, most recently serving as the chief revenue officer of North America for Havas Media Network. Now at the Wolverine Worldwide-owned brand, she has been tasked with developing and executing Saucony’s global branding initiatives.
Although new to the role, Allen-Altimare has long had a relationship with Saucony and its parent company, both personally and professionally, and has arrived with a set of ambitious goals. She shared some of those goals in an interview with FN.
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What has the dynamic been like with Saucony global brand president Rob Griffiths since you arrived in June?
“Rob is great. He has a long history with Wolverine, and he was an athlete growing up. I was a competitive swimmer growing up, so when we met, we came from the same kind of fabric. We understand the value of sport, the value of competition. Additionally, I’m a marketer and I think Rob would be the first to say that’s not his thing — he actually is a marketer, I always tell him he thinks like a marketer — but he loves product. We complement each other very well. I’m new to footwear, but he’s been the most excellent teacher — he and [chief product officer] Brian [Moore] — from the innovation that we use for the product and the sell through process and this balance between wholesale and DTC. He’s been very patient and kind around making sure that while I know marketing and consumer and user journey and all the tricks and tools to get people engaged, how do we marry our two skill sets to make this brand more engaging, more desired, etc. We both have this winning perspective and we both can see how great the brand is today and how great the future of the brand is.”
Your experience before joining Saucony was outside of footwear. Why does that help you in this role? And what do you need to learn the most?
“No. 1, I’m a consumer. Beyond being just a marketer, I’m new to this category, so I have fresh eyes. I’m seeing everything for the first time. When we think about what’s happening in the category right now, so many people are being introduced to running, so I can understand where they’re coming from, understanding what they need to hear, both from a functional perspective and from an emotional perspective that I think will really help Saucony tell better stories, greater stories. I’m not new to running in a sense. I grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., my dad was a triathlete and I was a swimmer. I did a lot of endurance running, that’s how I was introduced to Saucony. My father had a friend, Dick Dillard, who owned run specialty store called Athletic Attic, so I was very familiar with the pros and cons of different shoes. While I haven’t had two decades of experience, I started very young understanding how people — particularly athletes — look at running and look at the shoe as one of the most important tools, so I have a healthy respect for it. But I am learning the entire process, the balance between how we talk about the amazing innovation with how we talk about the engagement that one has. How do we crystallize and bottle up this amazing feeling people have running as individuals, but also the community that’s now emerging in this run club culture. I have this background of really deep rooted sport, but I also have this great curiosity as a consumer, coupled with this amazing background of making revenue driven initiatives to drive growth for the brand. I’m hoping that all three come together in a very easy way so that I can work with the team to help elevate what we’ve already been doing really well, just elevate it and amplify it a little bit more.”
Janice Tennant, the global brand president of another Wolverine brand, Merrell, also spent much of her career outside of footwear. Have you spoken with her about making this transition?
“I was at Havas [Media Network] before I came here. I had been on the agency side earlier my career and then I spent about a decade in private equity-backed companies, and then I went back into the agency world at Havas as the CRO. That’s how I was introduced to Wolverine because the company was a client of Havas. Janice was a person I talked to a lot about thinking about different ways in which to engage consumers to drive Merrell’s growth. I have had hundreds of conversations with her, she’s one of my biggest inspirations. And now as colleagues, we definitely go back and forth all the time about things that I wouldn’t say they’re completely parallel from retail or CPG [consumer packaged goods] to this space, but there are definitely lessons to be learned and things that we can apply to help grow our two brands.”
What did you know about Saucony before joining the brand?
“I wore Saucony as a swimmer when I did an endurance training, so I have a long history. When I was 13, 14, 15 years old, I wore Saucony a lot — and I continue to wear Saucony throughout my life.”
Do you have a go-to running shoe from Saucony?
“I’m a big Hurricane fan, that’s what I love to run in. I’m 46 so I can’t run all the time, but when I do run, that’s what I run in.”
What did you see in Saucony that made you want to make the jump?
“It’s rare that a marketer has an experience, has an opportunity to really be not only in a category that has momentum — as you know running is the only category within footwear that has really seeing great growth — but also should be a part of a brand that has such heritage and is at this intersection where it could explode because of how great the products are. I probably had more line of sight to that than any of the other people that were interested in the role because of my relationship and understanding of the product. This is where the product is, we have a back catalog, but we also have this really good perspective around product to build better product, to build greater product. I do my research. This is the best time for a person like me — I’m naturally curious, and I love to understand how marketing can help enhance a product strategy. I also am a person that loves to be in very small, intimate teams. We don’t have huge teams here at Wolverine. We have really nimble, agile teams who are in it every day. As a CMO, particularly on the global, sometimes it could be a figurehead role. I’m not that person. I very much love to get in there, roll up my sleeves and learn from my colleagues, learn from my team, and build things together.”
The running market has been consistently strong for since COVID, and Saucony is having a moment in the lifestyle category. How will you work to improve both?
“There’s a phrase we use in swimming: keep focus on the line. The one challenge we have is to get distracted, to try to do everything and not stay true to who we are as a brand. Running is having a moment, Saucony is having a moment, the opportunity for great growth is lifestyle, but we can’t forget our heritage in performance. We’re going to keep our eye on the line. We know who we are, we’re not going to alienate our core consumer who really loves the performance of the shoe. In fact, we’re going to use some of that language, maybe make it more emotive in nature, and use it to educate the consumers around the lifestyle part of our business, letting them know that it’s built on a very solid foundation.”
Where will your impact be felt with the most immediacy?
“I would imagine if you ask the team today, they would be like, ‘Joy is asking all the questions that we probably have asked ourselves but didn’t ask fully and have a solution.’ That’s what I hope. My goal is to continue to be naturally curious so that I can enable the team to think about strategies and ways in which we can engage at a higher level. I have this saying: ‘We want to go far and we want to move fast, and we have to think about how we can do it together.’ I’m hoping that my most immediate impact is creating avenues and work streams where we can do it together. We’re a small but mighty team, so we have to be agile, we have to move with the same rhythm, still challenging each other because the beauty of marketing is we have multiple perspectives and then you figure out what we should do. I’m hoping that my most immediate impact is on the team, to make sure we’re a collective, we’re listening and we’re moving in the same way. And second is thinking about ways in which we can think more omnichannel of how we talk to the consumer. Particularly this consumer that we’re going after, they consume media in so many different ways, hey consume messaging sometimes online, sometimes offline, they’re looking for great experiences that mimic their great life. I’m hoping we can figure out a way in which we create a user journey that meets them where they are versus relying on lower funnel, programmatic, transactional messaging.”
What are your goals for year one?
“They’re ambitious. I want our team to continue to grow. I want Wolverine to see that Saucony is the brand to continue to invest in because of the momentum that we’re creating in the space. I’d like to get more people on the team that are eager and excited, make sure that our ground game is solid and that you see Saucony out there more. From a brand perspective, I want new buyers. I want more people falling in love with Saucony. The people who love us, I want to share their stories with people who are new to running, discovering running, falling in love with running. And obviously I quantify that with a number. My goal is to make sure that we have a strong brand that is healthy, that there’s strong brand love and that people literally are energized around what we’re doing.”
About the Author
Peter Verry is the Senior News and Features Editor for Athletic and Outdoor at Footwear News. He oversees coverage of the two fast-paced and ultracompetitive markets, which includes conducting in-depth interviews with industry leaders and writing stories on sneakers and outdoor shoes. He is a lifelong sneaker addict (and shares his newest purchases via @peterverry on Instagram) and spends most of his free time on a trail. He holds an M.A. in journalism from Hofstra University and can be reached at peter.verry@footwearnews.com.
