breaking newground together

BACKGROUND

Founded in 1981, Underground has established itself as a champion of subculture consistently interacting with the music, fashion and art associated to those cultures.

It has, in forty years,created and curated, a range of footwear that is identifiable as “subculture inspired alternative footwear“. The brand has built up and maintained a customer base that appreciates the brand values and products, with artists, musicians, creatives, creators, and early adopters in the vanguard, together with a wider demographic of followers who appreciate those same attributes.

Here is a brand that beats with a British “musiculture” heart, has provenance and authenticity in abundance, an unswerving narrative, and an inexhaustible contemporary relevance.

“In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic.” Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks.

WHAT WE HAVE WITH UNDERGROUND

We have created a unique and instantly recognisable brand through a consistent and stable product and story, and in the process, developing extensive global goodwill and reach. The bandwidth of the brand DNA and stability of the image, provides Underground with an enormous opportunity to expand its product and customer base.

The Underground brand is built on four pillars:

i. Stability of Product

The brand has several strong identifiable products renowned for their authenticity and quality. Many of the products have achieved near archetypal status and in the process created a generic term of an “Underground style “

Producing in the U.K. and Portugal with established partners, the brand has created a stable supply base delivering consistent and reliable products.

ii. Well Recognised Intellectual Property

Underground has well established intellectual property registration and protection globally. Early and widespread registration of the mark, consistent application of the mark and sales over 40 years of product with the mark, have established the legal position of the brand IP. But this is only one part of the IP or brand DNA.

BRITISH VOGUE

JEFFERSON HACK

YUNGBLUD

iii. Strong Global Goodwill

Well known and highly regarded in Asian, Italian, and French markets, Underground has exposure in the key global trend making markets.

With a product that is popular amongst musicians, Underground has developed strong connections to music artists, stylists, and influencers. The brand has achieved consistent high quality press exposure and placement.

Due to the consistency and authenticity of the brand and its British heritage, Underground enjoys substantial goodwill amongst the press, stylists, and fashion community.

iv. Consistent Branding

Underground is a unique brand with a clear identity and relatable name. Underground by name and nature, we have kept true to our roots and in doing so have created a much-loved familiarity and respected identity.

The brand DNA has been formed through the combination of four identifiable strands.

i. British Heritage

The UK is the home of many subcultures that have themselves reappropriated British heritage products- the Crombie, the Dr Marten, Fred Perry, Pringle, or Burberry (chav). This is obviously where George Cox score high but whilst we can stand our own here also, unlike those brands we also have these other touchpoints to draw on.

ii. Influence and Adherence to Subculture

We have been influenced by, and have been part of the subculture. That is ongoing with the Art Punk or Queer Punk subculture of today. We have been pleasantly surprised along the way, by how we resonate with not just a cliche punk subculture but far further into almost any type of independent underground and Avant Garde subculture - the powerful energy of the new, independent, resourceful, disruptive, and unexpected!

iii. Silhouette

Ugly luxury or Ugly Beautiful has always been a feature of Underground. This look has also been adopted by many brands and especially luxury brands. Balenciaga, Prada, and Givenchy have all developed that look and Givenchy, by example, use “underground shoes” as a search term for shoes with an “underground” silhouette in their Google ads.

iv. Founder/genesis story

It has been pointed out by marketing consultants, that Alan is part of the brand DNA. It is not important to him, but it is true and something the brand needs to embrace. The early days of parallel importing Adidas in the back of a van pre-EU! The quarrels with Dr Martens, the independence and the resourcefulness and spirit that comes with that and the singular determination are all a synergistic part of the story.

These strands form a strong brand identity that has few if any peer competitors and has created a value beyond the component parts.

TIME TO BREAK NEWGROUND

It is time for the Underground brand, with its provenance, authenticity and unswerving narrative and inexhaustible contemporary relevance, to break out into new categories, and territories and to launch new products. But it is also time to break with the past and move forward with a new model and a new company.

Newground will be the company that will take Underground forward, discarding many of the old practices connected to stock holding and distribution channels, but instead embracing the new fashion paradigm of zero inventory, mass customisation, circular models, virtual products and NFT’s.

Our originals product range will be rationalised, and faster order turnaround achieved with our partner factories. Sales channels will be broadened through new distribution agreements and licencing and our Marketing activities will be built around a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. But most importantly our “Breaking Newground” campaign will drive us forward with new products and partnerships. It will bring new opportunities as we explore and develop the potential of working with both new and established designers to create products aligned to the new consumer.

STAGE ONE BREAKING NEWGROUND

While we must retain our roots and values, these too can be applied to new movements and technologies. Let us take that rich DNA and put it to work with an emerging and upcoming generation to create subculture products for a new age. Those inspirations and values that we have championed, can be applied to new physical and virtual products and applied to imaginative collaborations.

Newground started life as a campaign idea pitched by our brand strategist. To keep moving forward we would need to be “breaking Newground “. The concept seemed too good for a single campaign, and it developed to be an R and D project but potentially more like a start-up (but a start up with 40 years’ experience). As its very much like a disruptive or pioneering start-up, it is something that might attract the attention of institutional venture capital and angels especially as it qualifies for highly attractive government sponsored grants for tech related schemes. Newground will develop innovative ideas and concepts. It will not be a brand but the vehicle for the new ideas for Underground.

Newground will embrace the opportunities arising from innovative technologies and new business models:

i. Collaborations

Newground will absorb some of the Underground brand DNA to collaborate with new designers in a “design lab “type format, using a new manufacturing paradigm of short lead and made to order production as well as virtual products. In return it will create a halo effect for Underground, keeping it relevant and “ground-breaking “.

We have already laid the groundwork for several collaborations that will take us to new frontiers. Working together with Charlie Cohen, a pioneer of extended reality fashion we will create both physical and virtual product with her RSTLSS brand.

A project with Yeule, a contemporary artist that is a proponent of glitch and distortion, that will see an original steel cap boot transformed for a digital age.

ii. Key Market Focus

There will be focused collaboration and marketing in the key fashion forward markets of Japan, Korea, and Italy. Collaborating with designers and innovators in those markets to create new products and variations of existing products that seize on innovative technology and on the shifting consumer perception. Even in a global marketplace, prowess in the key fahsion markets of the world provides brand kudos and leadership.

iii. Custom Made

The custom-made service will champion the cause of sustainable and sensible manufacture. Eliminating over-production and waste, whilst simultaneously offering the consumer a truly customised and potentially unique product. The service will be built around a dedicated website that will include a “3D configurator “enabling the customer to build and visualise their own unique Underground product. Partnering with a U.K. shoe factory and supported by grants made available for forward thinking sustainable brands, we will create a model for zero inventory custom made footwear.

Augmented reality will also be added to the service to enable the customer to visualise their creation in wear and NFT’s added to create a unique proposition allowing the shoe to retain and build its own unique existence and identity.

iv. Short Lead, Low Volume Product

Many manufacturers are now recognising the move toward lower volume production, customisation and zero inventory. Working with existing and new manufacturers we will build new collections around the short lead, low volume model with limited collaborations and new designs.

Key components of core styles will be stocked at the factories to support fast turnaround of orders. Soles , in particular, will be stocked to overcome the minimum orders and delays experienced with the sole manufacturers. With willing shoe factories as partners , small batch manufacture can be achieved with an overall reduction in inventory.

v. Close to market manufacture

In partnership with our licencee/distributor in Thailand we will utilise the production set up under licence in Thailand and make that available to other Asian markets, avoiding the high transport costs associated to shipment of footwear. China and Japan will be the key target markets.

vi. Made in the UK manufacture

We will increase the production of our footwear in the UK. This production will allow for locally sourced new product at low volume with the valuable cache of “Made in the UK “. Production at the current UK factory will be increased and two additional suppliers will provide new capacity, one of these focusing on high price point traditional welted production and the other providing a dedicated custom made service.

vii. 3D Printing Or Additive Manufacturing

Using the breakthrough technologies and materials that are now available for manufacturing we will be able to realise stunning innovative designs that were not possible with conventional shoe manufacture. Combined with low environmental footprint technology we will be able to produce unique low volume production runs that embody the spirit of the brand in a contemporary guise.

viii. Virtual Product

The emergence of virtual products and NFTs provides us with the opportunity to leverage the brand equity, spirit, and highly sculptured and collectable silhouette in the virtual world. Collaborating with artists and other designers we can create virtual products that mimic our real-world products as well as more imaginative ones.

ix. Under

We will use the UNDER brand to reach consumers of contemporary products that have a subcultural strand.

Under maintains all the core values of the classic brand, at the same time pushing forward creatively into a slightly alternative high-end electro and street style generation allowing us to be diverse and responsive to trend changes. Under can be developed for footwear and sneakers and apparel. Having origins firmly embedded in the underground culture that it represents gives the label a rare authenticity.

STAGE two taking underground forward

The agility and innovation that is applied by Newground will then be applied to the current

Underground activities, with the company taking on responsibility for the Underground Originals collection.

PRODUCT

The existing core products will be reinforced as instantly recognisable products of the brand. We will extend the existing production with an emphasis on maintaining a good core product that is familiar to the consumer, B2B buyer and the press.

New collections will be developed that retain the strong brand DNA and encompass current trends to target a wider demographic. The brand DNA is like a concentrated essence. It is possible to dilute it to broaden the market but still retain the brand spirit. Attention to design will ensure that the products are recognisable as Underground products but reach a new audience at the same time. These collections will be manufactured in newly sourced partner factories.

New variations of existing products can also be developed including those that use innovative technologies and materials, recycled, and upcycled materials with Vegan friendly being a particular example.

New products will be produced in sensible batch size quantities to create a scarcity and to allow continual newness to come through.

B2B SALES

We will leverage the goodwill, brand image and product recognition to grow the sales globally and reach the potential that exists for the brand.

Stability of production supporting quick to market re-supply and greater visibility will be one of the main sales drivers. The availability of working capital will ensure that all orders received from B2B customers can be produced and delivered on time. Increased visibility through B2B placement will stimulate further demand within the market.

We will build the wider Asian market through the presence in China and through premium collaborations and new distribution channels in Japan and Korea. We will further develop the market in Thailand with the current distributor/licencee.

LICENSING

We will develop the Chinese market through a broad licence agreement for manufacture and retail operations. The licence holder will also manage the sales and distribution of core Underground products in China. The store concept in China will be templated on the UK store and supplemented by marketing campaigns that deliver the subculture message through instore events and activities.

COLLABORATIONS

Collaborations will be sought and developed with UK and International designers and artists. Partnerships with high level brands and designers are quickly able to increase the brand equity and help to reach new retail sales points and markets. Collaborations are of specific value in attracting celebrity customers and high-level press and are continued at several levels. With high end designers such as Limi Feu, with niche brands and designers such as Solene Lescouet and with young or emerging designers such as Celine Kwan. There are also exciting opportunities in collaborating with artists such as Julie Verhoeven, photographer Derek Ridgers and celebrity chef Gizzie Erskine.

FLAGSHIP STORE

Relaunch a London flagship store that will be a real-world sales point and function as a platform for the brand through product launches, collaboration product launches and music and subculture events. These marketing activities will help to perpetuate the brand message and generate more content and reach for Underground. The store will be the heart of the brand and function as a template for potential international stores.

MARKETING

Increased resource will be devoted to improving and increasing the Underground digital footprint with a new website, new campaign photography, and enhanced SEO.

Working with both existing and new artists and musicians we will solidify our position as a champion and gatekeeper of subculture. Collaborating with artists on product placement and live music events we will continue to strengthen the association between Underground and music.

Enhanced branding and communications will ensure that we continue to build our reputation as a brand that encompasses a broad range of subcultures.

We will increase our networking activities to link up with new designers, young creatives, and fashion schools, working with the likes of CSM and Goldsmiths.

Our activities on social media platforms will increase encompassing those platforms where we are already active and by entering on to those, we currently lack a presence such as Tik Tok.

WHY NOW

We constructed a five-year plan in 2019 (pre-pandemic) with the intention to attract investment to grow Underground again and to launch Newground as a start-up. With the pandemic overcome we were already planning to continue with the process but there now seem to be additional positive forces in play.

The coincidental events that we are seeing such as the interest from collaboration partners, the press call up and articles in magazines, the trend predictions, and the intensity of cooperation with musicians and artists are all coalescing to create a strong brand direction. From the outside these may appear as a lucky circumstance of events but what we are seeing is a return on our perception.

We are confident here that the right circumstances that present themselves now are a consequence of our brand perception and consistency and have resulted in an opportunity that is additive and synergistic.

We are faced here with the decision to address coincidence or ignore it. Opportunities that presented themselves early on in our journey have been missed, or partially missed. But these individual developments that we have before us now, taken together, result in a huge opportunity for the brand that should be taken now.

Newground offers a novel approach and new opportunity break into new categories and markets and to bring Underground with it.