Recovery footwear brands are trying to market to the masses
Recovery footwear brands, long popular with athletes like runners and basketball players, are tweaking their messaging to better market to the masses and increase education around their products.
Recovery footwear, also known as post-workout or post-activity footwear, is a type of footwear designed to help one’s body recover from high-intensity exercise. Recovery shoes often have extra cushioning and breathable materials that help support feet and ankles and allow muscles to relax. They are sometimes used for relief from plantar fasciitis and other conditions. And unlike performance footwear, recovery footwear is most typically worn after — but not during — a workout. As Darren Brown, head of marketing at the footwear brand OOFOS, put it, recovery footwear is “for the other 22 hours of the day when you want your body to be at its best.”
Recovery footwear is now carried by major brands including Nike and Hoka, and it’s become a go-to for athletes pounding the pavement. The words “recovery footwear” remain relatively unknown to many everyday consumers. However, in a trend that began during the pandemic, consumers are looking for comfortable and supportive shoes, and recovery footwear fits that bill. To reach more people, recovery footwear brands are often adjusting how they talk about and promote their products to help their products inch toward the mainstream.
One such recovery footwear brand is OOFOS, which launched in 2010. OOFOS shoes provide arch support and they absorb impact, rather than propel the body forward. OOFOS uses a proprietary foam, which it first applied to slides and sandals before branching out into sneakers. However, its closed-toe shoes look similar to other athletic footwear on the market, which can make explaining the difference to the everyday consumer “more complicated,” OOFOS’s Brown told Modern Retail.
To help with this, OOFOS has tried to get its shoes onto as many feet as possible via demonstrations at places like medical conferences. It’s introduced its shoes to physical therapists, podiatrists and other medical professionals who treat people with plantar fasciitis and mobility issues, and it’s taught its retail partners how to answer questions about its shoes. OOFOS has also gone to trade shows and asked people to take a pair of OOFOS and a pedometer and literally “walk a mile in their shoes,” Brown said.
“I can tell you ’til I’m blue in the face that we have this incredible technology and that there’s nothing like it on the marketplace,” Brown explained. “You can look at it and go, ‘OK, I get that there’s data behind it, but it sounds like marketing.’ When people put our product on and experience it, that’s when [they] fully understand. That’s when minds are typically changing.”
Another recovery footwear brand, Kane Footwear, launched in 2021 and is also “doing a lot of education” as it grows, CEO and founder John Gagliardi told Modern Retail. Kane Footwear’s shoes use a sugarcane foam and have small holes on the top and sides to let the foot breathe and expand. The brand largely caters to professional athletes like NBA players, and it holds demonstrations at marathons in New York City, Austin and Miami.
Recently, though, Kane Footwear has noticed its products are being used in other settings. “It’s evolved,” Gagliardi said. “I see a lot of parents wearing them now, just watching their kids play sports. I see people at the beach wearing them or using them as boating shoes. People are wearing them at airports. … We’re getting adoption from outside.”
Kane Footwear — which sells via its online website, as well as wholesale accounts like Dick’s Sporting Goods — is now championing those other use cases in its marketing. In fact, it’s been running two different versions of a streaming TV advertisement to cater to two different audiences. One is for the “hardcore athlete,” while the other is for the more casual user, Gagliardi explained. In a testament to the brand’s widening popularity, Gagliardi said that the two ad spots are performing “even.”
Beth Goldstein, footwear analyst at Circana, told Modern Retail that data indicates that recovery footwear is starting to catch on. An April 2024 survey by Circana found that 50% of consumers were interested in recovery footwear. Of those 50%, 67% said they were drawn to the idea of everyday comfort, while 45% cited post-workout recovery. About a third, 32%, said they were interested in recovery footwear due to standing for long periods of time.
“There’s definitely interest in what those types of shoes provide,” Goldstein said. She added that while the typical consumer may not know what “recovery footwear” means, “they do understand comfort.” “If it’s marketed right to different audiences, I think there’s growth potential,” Goldstein said. “Maybe in sporting goods retailers, the merchandise could be by the performance footwear, but in other types of retailers, it could be on its own, and the messaging might be different.”
Ultimately, while the concept of recovery footwear is still “very, very new to consumers” today, there’s plenty of opportunity in the market, OOFOS’s Brown said. “We’ve been around for a decade-plus, but I think people are starting to finally understand recovery and this broader concept of health and wellness and holistic well-being,” Brown said.