Reebok looks to recapture past glory with ZPump Fusion
By Park Si-soo
Chad Wittman, senior director of Reebok Korea, running in a pair of ZPump Fusion shoes during a product launch at the Times Square shopping mall in Seoul, Sunday. / Courtesy of Reebok Korea
Reebok is attempting to recapture past glories by marketing new running shoes designed with air-pressure shoe-fitting technology.
The brand-new product named ZPump Fusion is light and made without stitches, giving wearers ― regardless of size and shape of foot ― locked-in and custom fit by pumping air into an embedded bladder.
Though it may seem something new, the pump technology was first developed in 1989 and the company has since launched several hit products, especially in the category of basketball shoes.
“Technology has come a long way,” Chad Wittman, brand senior director of Reebok Korea, told The Korea Times recently in Seoul. “Pump is a beautiful technology. It’s simplistic. It uses natural things like air to fit a foot perfectly. That’s why we have brought it back.”
He noted the firm’s technology advancement team has developed a new way that “perfectly wraps” around the foot.
ZPump Fusion’s launch was the firm’s biggest event since Reebok transformed itself into a brand specializing in fitness products in 2012 so that the company has high hopes that the new running shoes will lay the groundwork for Reebok to become the leading fitness product brand here.
“It was the most coordinated project that has required the biggest money spending on marketing and promotion. It was the single biggest well coordinated and invested products in Reebok’s history,” he said.
Wittman said ZPump Fusion manifests the firm’s new vision, adding it will expand pump-based product lineup continuously to appeal to those who do “tough fitness” such as CrossFit.
The director said the firm’s new campaign slogan “Be more human” was made in line with this strategy.
“Too many people live a sedentary lifestyle, attached to phones, sitting in front of computer all day long, not using and honoring the body they are being given,” he said. “So, ‘Be more human’ is a message calling for people to ‘get out and move your body.’”
Wittman said the firm’s primary work at the moment is making people recognize Reebok as fitness product brand, not hitting sales or other financial targets.
“It’s the most important year for Reebok,” he said. “We are going to spend great resources this year to build our brand, which will end up lifting sales and revenue automatically.”