German sports brand Adidas reported its fourth-quarter earnings results today (March 11, 2020) and company CEO, Kasper Rørsted, weighed in on some highlights for the coming year. Included at the top of the list was the brand’s debut launch of Ivy Park in partnership with Beyoncé.
Preceded by widely publicized videos showing friends and family of Beyoncé opening gifted wardrobes and boxes, the collection launched on January 18th and sold out almost immediately.
On the call, Rørsted explained, “One of our latest launches is our Beyoncé launch of Ivy Park, which was a great success. Taking place in January, it was completely sold out.”
While he didn’t provide any timing, Rørsted said to expect more Ivy Park launches this year. “And we expect a similar run rate throughout the launches we’ll have this year,” he noted, and hinted at a higher-priced collection when he added, “We will launch a broader and a more varied set of different price points for this year.”
At the same time, Rørsted reiterated that Adidas’ plan for Ivy Park in 2020 is to create a solid platform and grow the brand slowly.” He explained, “I also want to say, which we’ve communicated consistently, we’re not driving a big commercial business around Beyoncé in 2020, we’re building the platform to insure this will take place in the future. And the demand profile we’ve seen gives us every confidence this will happen.”
