Marketing Analysis of Icebreaker: Sustainable Practices and Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Icebreaker, a natural performance and merino wool outdoor clothing brand. It examines Icebreaker's sustainable marketing practices, focusing on its product, price, distribution, and promotion strategies within the marketing mix. The report delves into the company's commitment to environmental and social ethics, as well as animal welfare, highlighting its use of natural fibers and its efforts to minimize environmental impact. A case analysis assesses the effectiveness of Icebreaker's strategies, and the report concludes with a discussion of the company's market positioning relative to competitors like Smartwool and Lee, illustrated through a perceptual map. The analysis suggests recommendations for future strategies, particularly concerning pricing, to enhance customer reach and revenue.

[marketing]
2019
Icebreaker

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of Icebreaker..........................................................................................................2
Marketing Mix.......................................................................................................................3
Case Analysis.........................................................................................................................5
Market Positioning.................................................................................................................5
Perceptual Mapping...........................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The aim of this paper is to discuss the sustainable marketing practices and principles
adopted by Icebreaker Company in order to operate effectively in the market. The paper is
also presenting the product, price, distribution, and promotion strategy of Icebreaker in
relation to the sustainable marketing interest. Besides this, the analysis is being conducted
in order to identify whether the implemented strategies are successful or not by the
company. In the end, the paper is highlighting the positioning of the company in comparison
to its competitors.
Overview of Icebreaker
Icebreaker is a natural performance and merino wool outdoor brand of clothing with
headquarter in New Zealand. The business was bought by the VF Corporation, which is a
New York Stock exchange-listed company in the year 2018 (RNZ News, 2017). Icebreaker is
considered and intended behind the sustainability philosophy, by the use of natural fiber
considering environmental ethics, social ethics, and animal welfare. The business initiated
its operations with the main specialization in the development of merino base layers and
today it provides outerwear, underwear, accessories, socks, and mid-layers with the use of
natural fibers. Icebreaker was established in the year 1995 by Jeremy Moon, and today it
supplies its clothing in 50 nations to 4700 stores (Icebreaker, 2018). The company’s
sustainable marketing principles is to take nature as its guide and focus to incorporate
sustainable, ethical, and natural practices into every activity the business performs,
comprising their product and its marketing. Some of the principles are described below:
Natural – Icebreaker claim that it is the natural performance innovators. The company's
roots are identified in the merino sheep's land. This drives them to lead, create, and
innovate from the things offered by nature (Ross, 2018).
Simplicity – This principle of the company talks about the elegant simplicity that comes
constantly.

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Longevity – Icebreaker Company is said to be the one opposite of fast fashion. By offering
high-quality performance clothing, the goal of the company is to lead in the wardrobe of the
customer and become the initial preference during any event or activity for all the seasons
(Icebreaker, 2018).
Versatility – The clothing of the company transcends sole usage. It designs multi-purpose
products that can be adopted in life and style at home, city, or mountains.
Purpose – The Company designs purposeful clothing that can react to the active needs of
the body (Icebreaker, 2019b).
Sustainable – The Company’s design position is to make use of only what they require and
nothing that is not required by the business. It believes that the business must work to leave
the planet better than we got, by preserving the natural and precious resources and taking
consideration of all steps in the procedure (Icebreaker, 2019a).
Marketing Mix
Product – Company believes in its superfine merino wool power as the foundation of their
natural performance apparel (Richter, 2012). It is superior for making the skin of the client
feel amazing against, as it is breathable, controls temperature and do not let hold odor like
synthetics. In order to make possible the top-to-toe layering system, there are times when
the company combine its merino with any other fibers to offer the performance needed by
its clients (Icebreaker, 2019). Hence, the technology role is to allow, improve, or intensify
the fibber’s natural benefits for the customers. Icebreaker is giving major focus to natural
fabrics because it believes that nature offers a better way. The company is regularly involved
in identifying the alternatives to the natural fiber to the synthetic fibers.
Price – Price is the value paid by the customer in exchange for the service or product
purchased from the business (Raju and Zhang, 2010). The pricing strategy that is adopted by
the Icebreaker Company to sell its natural apparel to its target market is the premium
pricing strategy. As per the concept of this pricing strategy, high price is charged for the
products as the defining criterion (Economic Times, 2019). This type of pricing strategies
operates in the industries and segments where there is the existence of high competitive
advantage for the business. Considering the nature of the business, Icebreaker is involved in

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offering apparel and other related products to its clients manufactured through a natural
fiber that results in reducing its environmental impact. This distinctive feature of the
company helps it in attaining the competitive advantage against its competitors like
Smartwool, North Face, and Lee.
Place – Place is the point of sale where the company decides to vend its services to the
target customer (Campelo, 2017). Place strategy is also considered as the distribution
strategy of the company. The Icebreaker Company was over 2,579 wholesale accounts in 25
nations with e-commerce business in the 23 nations (Icebreaker, 2018). But, the main
markets of the company are New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and North America.
Considering its sustainable business activities, the company has introduced a water-soluble
bag for the distribution and delivery of the product in the year 2019 (Sustainable Brand,
2018).
Promotion – Promotion is the marketing effort exerted by the marketing department to
make the target audience know more about the services offered by the company (Kaser,
2012). Icebreaker Company is regularly hit by the irony of the industry to promote the
utilization of the synthetic fabrics as the most ‘ideal technical' layer (Icebreaker, 2018).
Plastic against the skin is not promoted by the company because it believes that there are
better ways that can be answered by nature. The company believes to promote the use of
natural material in order to reduce pollution and carbon emission in the environment. This
also supports the company in promoting the active as well as a healthy lifestyle. All these
things are promoted by the company by using different promotional mix tools such as
advertising, public relation, and digital marketing.
Advertising – It is one of the paid promotional tools that is used to market products,
services, or ideas with the help of a recognized sponsor in the market (Green, 2011). Some
of the tools of advertising used by Icebreaker Company are television, radio, catalogs, web
pages, emails, posters, hoarding, etc.
Public Relation – It is also called as publicity which is information related to the service or
product of a company performed indirectly by the third party. Some of the examples that
are used by the company under public relation are a newspaper, seminars, speeches,
magazine articles, etc. (Sabharwal, 2018)

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Digital Marketing – It is another form of promotion used for the product or service
marketing by the use of digital technologies, majorly on the internet (Hanlon, 2019). It also
makes use of display advertisement, digital medium, and mobile phones for the promotion.
Case Analysis
The Icebreaker Company’s case highlights that it focuses on using natural fabric material for
the manufacturing and designing of clothing and other products that have limited or no
negative environmental impact. Besides this, the company has a strong distribution network
which supports it in delivering the products timely with quality service (New Zealand Trade
and Enterprise, 2019). But, considering the price strategy, company charge high prices that
are many times becomes unaffordable for many customers and enforce them to purchase
low-quality products manufactured from chemicals and other products that have a negative
environmental impact. Therefore, in the future, the company is recommended to adopt a
customer-centric approach by focusing on competitive pricing strategy under which it can
offer products to the customer at reasonable prices (Schindler, 2011). This will help the
company in increasing its customer base and revenue.
Market Positioning
The positioning describes the image that the business has gained in the eyes of the target
audience. Considering the case of Icebreaker Company, it has been appreciated in the
market for contributing to decreasing the negative impact on the environment by adopting
natural fabric for the production of clothes (Nasdaq, 2018). In the social market, the
company has gained a reputation in comparison to its competitors. Considering the
operations of its competitors like Lee and Smartwool are not involved in adopting
environmental friendly operations for the production of clothing. Further, the quality of the
products offered by Icebreaker Company is comparatively high in comparison to the other
two players.
Perceptual Mapping

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The above perceptual map is highlighting the position of three clothing players that are
Icebreaker, Lee, and Smartwool in terms of quality and price. From the above analysis, it
could be said that Icebreaker Company offers high quality and environmentally friendly
products that are also preferred by the customer due to its low or no negative impact on the
environment. However, the price of its products is high that becomes unaffordable for many
customers. On the other hand, Smartwool and Lee also offer high-quality products at a high
price but in comparison to Icebreaker, it is a little low (Stewart, 2017).
Conclusion
The above paper has discussed regarding the sustainable marketing practices and principles
adopted by Icebreaker Company to operate effectively in the clothing industry. The analysis
has identified that Icebreaker is involved in using natural fiber in the production of its
High
Quality
High
Price
Low Price
Low
Quality
Icebreaker
Smartwool
Lee

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clothes which helps in reducing its negative impact on the environment. However, most of
the customer segment cannot afford the same products due to high prices. Therefore, the
report has suggested the company to adopt a competitive pricing strategy under which it
can offer reasonable prices products to the customer. This will help in increasing the
customer base as well as sales of the business.

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References
Campelo, A. (2017) Handbook on Place Branding and Marketing 1st ed. U.K: Edward Elgar
Publishing.
Economic Times (2019) Definition of 'Pricing Strategies' [Online]. Available from
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/pricing-strategies [Accessed 5 September
2019]
Green, J. (2011) Advertising 1st ed. U.S: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
Hanlon, A. (2019) Digital Marketing: Strategic Planning & Integration 1st ed. U.K: SAGE.
Icebreaker (2018) Transparency Report [Online]. Available from
https://res.cloudinary.com/icebreakernz/image/upload/v1561408911/ourstory/reports/
transparency_report_lowres_2018.pdf [Accessed 5 September 2019]
Icebreaker (2019a) Our Story [Online]. Available from
https://www.icebreaker.com/en-au/our-story/our-story.html [Accessed 5 September 2019]
Icebreaker (2019b) Product [Online]. Available from https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/our-
story/product.html [Accessed 5 September 2019]
Kaser, K. (2012) Advertising and Sales Promotion 1st ed. U.S: Cengage Learning.
Nasdaq (2018) V.F. Corp's (VFC) Icebreaker Buyout to Boost Market Position [Online].
Available from https://www.nasdaq.com/article/vf-corps-vfc-icebreaker-buyout-to-boost-
market-position-cm943436 [Accessed 5 September 2019]
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (2019) Icebreaker: Embracing intuition [Online].
Available from https://www.nzte.govt.nz/about/news/news-and-features/icebreaker [Accessed
5 September 2019]
Raju, Z., and Zhang, Z. (2010) Smart Pricing: How Google, Priceline, and Leading
Businesses Use Pricing Innovation for Profitability 1st ed. U.S: Pearson Prentice Hall.

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Richter, T. (2012) International Marketing Mix Management: Theoretical Framework,
Contingency Factors and Empirical Findings from World-Markets 1st ed. Germany: Logos
Verlag Berlin GmbH.
RNZ News (2017) Icebreaker clothing company bought by US retail giant [Online]. Available
from https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/343017/icebreaker-clothing-company-bought-by-
us-retail-giant [Accessed 5 September 2019]
Ross, T. (2018) Transparent as ice [Online]. Available from
https://www.snewsnet.com/people/icebreaker-transparency-report [Accessed 5 September
2019]
Sabharwal, D. (2018) Fundamentals of Advertising & Public Relation 2nd ed. U.K: Evincepub
Publishing.
Schindler, R.M. (2011) Pricing Strategies: A Marketing Approach 1st ed. U.K: SAGE
Publications.
Stewart, S.L. (2017) Icebreaker, Smartwool, and the Future of Wool [Online]. Available from
https://www.outsideonline.com/2266471/your-favorite-merino-brands-may-be-getting-
makeover [Accessed 5 September 2019]
Sustainable Brand (2018) Icebreaker Aims to Prove Its Apparel Is ‘Made Different’ with New
Transparency Report [Online]. Available from https://sustainablebrands.com/read/marketing-
and-comms/icebreaker-aims-to-prove-its-apparel-is-made-different-with-new-transparency-
report [Accessed 5 September 2019]