Athletes show the collection during the unveiling of the Team Canada Lululemon Athlete Kit for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Toronto on April 16.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Team Canada’s Olympic uniform may have generated backlash from people complaining some pieces look like they’ve been blood-splattered or resemble uncooked bacon, but marketing experts say creator Lululemon Athletica Inc. won’t suffer because of the criticism.
Instead, they see the Vancouver-based brand behind the uniform scoring both sales and brand awareness from their Olympic association.
“The backlash on the design or colours may have had some negative feedback but it won’t make a dent in the profitability,” said Liza Amlani, co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group, in an e-mail.
“I was in two Lululemon stores in downtown Toronto (last week) and they were packed with shoppers. The Olympic section was very busy and many customers were lined up to purchase the red gear.”
The red gear they were buying is part of the Canadian team kit for the Games in Paris. It was first revealed in April at a flashy fashion show hosted in Toronto by Lululemon, which will clothe the athletes through the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
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Athletes who appeared at the April reveal donned a wide range of pieces from the kit, including $398 vented bomber jackets, $198 pants that can zip off into shorts and even $298 rain ponchos made to fit athletes seated in wheelchairs.
Some of the looks bore a dotted red pattern many immediately likened to blood stains. Others on social media called them “an eyesore” or “ugly.”
Asked about the feedback, Lululemon did not respond to a request for comment.
Joanne McNeish, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University specializing in marketing, said the “love-to-hate and hate-to-hate” dynamic that the uniform has generated is not unusual.
She said she skimmed social media and found positive and negative comments on uniforms worn by the Australians, British and French. At the Tokyo Games, there were even complaints about a streetwear-inspired and graffiti-covered denim jacket then-uniform provider Hudson’s Bay had released.
McNeish likened negative chatter about uniforms to talk about the weather.
“It doesn’t actually have an effect,” she said.
“In fact, conversations about brands are always a good thing because sometimes it can result in (people saying) ‘Let’s go to the store and look at it, let’s go online and look at this.’ All of that is great for the brand.”
Sporting brands stand to get an even bigger boost than usual given how viewership has increased and social media has been a big marketing platform this Olympics.
The CBC said last week that it had seen a rise in average daily hours streamed for the first four days of Paris 2024 compared with past Olympics, noting increases of 70 per cent over the Tokyo 2020 Games held in 2021 and 75 per cent over Beijing in 2022.
Many are also taking in Instagram videos showing athletes including gymnast Ellie Black, tennis star Bianca Andreescu and wheelchair rugby player Zak Madell either unboxing or showing off the Lululemon kit.
“There will always be critics, but it will not stop consumers getting excited about wearing the same products as their favourite athletes and will support their country’s Olympic fit no matter what,” Amlani said.
She thinks the company should continue to forecast strong and positive results from the uniform.
“Lululemon has nothing to worry about,” she said.
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