CANTON - Step aerobics sold a lot of shoes for ReebokInternational Ltd., and the company is hoping that a new exerciseproduct called the Core Board will do the same.
'We think there's an opportunity to define a look around thisprogram,' said chief marketing officer Angel R. Martinez.
Translation: Expect to see Core Board-inspired shoe and apparellines late in the year.
While Core Board won't generate anywhere near the revenue ofimportant shoe lines, it offers intriguing insights into Reebok'splans to use the online medium and 'viral marketing' as a more cost-effective way for promoting its products than signing up largenumbers of sports stars with expensive endorsement contracts.
Just what is a Core Board? It's an unstable oval platform. Imagineindoor snowboarding movements performed while standing in one place,and that's part of the idea.
Training with a Core Board improves balance, Reebok says, and itstrengthens muscles in the body's midsection that are underworked inmany exercise routines.
With a suggested price of $190, the Core Board recently debuted inhealth clubs as part of group exercise classes. It can be purchasedat a Reebok Web site, www.reebokcore gear.com, and it should reachstores later this year.
As Martinez sees it, the Core Board offers opportunities beyondselling new shoe and apparel lines. At a time when the company isrebounding from several subpar years, Core Board is part of largerstrategy to help reposition the Reebok brand.
'Our goal is to be known as a fitness company,' Martinez said.'Our goal is for consumers to think of us as their resource forfitness.'
The Core Board isn't the only thing Reebok is counting on toaccelerate momentum. It recently signed tennis star Venus Williams toa big endorsement deal. It launched its new 'Defy convention' adcampaign. It also obtained the apparel licensing rights for theNational Football League.
The company's financial performance reflects Reebok's improvingfortunes. The stock has tripled since bottoming out below $10 a sharea year ago, and net income in 2000 was the highest in three years. Onthe New York Stock Exchange yesterday, shares dropped $1.36 to closeat $26.18.
As for the Core Board, outside observers are taking a wait-and-see attitude. A similar product called the wobble board has beenaround for a while, and its sales have been too small to turn up insurveys of the $3.3 billion market for exercise equipment, accordingto the National Sporting Goods Association.
Undaunted, Reebok is out to promote the Core Board with missionaryzeal. At core.reebok.com, people can get an online tutorial on CoreBoard training and learn why its tilting, torqueing, and twistingmovements are beneficial.
Parts of Reebok's Web sites are aimed at health club owners andprofessional trainers. Get those folks excited about Core Board, thereasoning goes, and the buzz should spread to the consumers who takegroup fitness classes at these clubs.
At Reebok's Web site, meanwhile, soccer star Julie Foudy and ChrisSlade of the New England Patriots promote the Core Board in Webversions of TV commercials. The theme? 'Enter the power zone.'
Reebok wants consumers to view its Web site, particularly pagesdesignated as part of 'Reebok University,' as a huge repository ofinformation about fitness.
If Reebok can gain the trust of its customers by providingtutorials about such products as the Core Board, perhaps thesecustomers will be willing to share information about themselves;that, in turn, could help Reebok both in designing new products andin marketing them more efficiently.
With the Core Board, Reebok is hoping history repeats itself. Thefirst company to recognize aerobics as more than a fad, Reebok rodethe women's fitness movement for much of the 1980s.
'There was a parade, and we jumped out in front of it,' Martinezsaid of the aerobics phenomenon.
Ever since, Reebok has been trying to orchestrate new fitnessphenomena. One success came in the mid-1980s, when a trainer namedGin Miller devised Step Reebok, a series of aerobic exercise anddance movements originally based on stepping up and down on a milkcrate.
Reebok refined Miller's idea and sustained it with a series ofvideos, each adding a new wrinkle to the basic routine. To promoteit, the company tapped into a network of club trainers it oftenprovides with discounted sneakers and apparel, and Step Reebok soonbecame a popular group class at many health clubs.
An investor who decided against backing Miller later told her, 'Imissed out on a $750 million business.'
Reebok sees a similar opportunity with Core Board. Plans call for$25 videos with Core Board exercises designed to help golfers.Another Core Board video might be aimed at yoga practitioners.
According to inventor Alex McKechnie, the Core Board is partly theoutgrowth of physical therapy sessions with Paul Kariya, a hockeystar with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and, previously, with theUniversity of Maine.
By 1996, Kariya's regular exercise routines were causingrepetitive stress injuries, weakening muscles around the pelvis tothe point where he could barely play.
Using a prototype of the Core Board, McKechnie devised exercisesthat worked the body's central muscles in an unpredictable sequencethat avoided repetitive stress.
Two years later, McKechnie helped basketball star Shaquille O'Nealrecover from a muscle tear in his stomach. By the time O'Neal hadhealed, McKechnie was convinced that his Core Board could be afitness breakthrough.
'I could have gone the infomercial route,' said McKechnie, whoinstead partnered with Reebok because 'they could give it research,credibility, and marketing support that I couldn't.'
Once Reebok was convinced that a program for rehabbing proathletes could be modified into a safe, fun, and easy-to-understandfitness routine for the average person, it decided to put its Webmarketing muscle behind Core Board.
That's quite a change from a few years ago. In the early 1990s,sneaker makers signed hundreds of athletes to endorsement contractsin the belief that jocks could move their product.
But when sales later slumped, many companies, including Reebok,cut back on athlete endorsements and looked for more cost-effectiveways to get out their marketing messages.
With Core Board, much of the offline marketing focus will be onfitness trainers at health clubs.
At WellBridge Health and Fitness Center, a 50-club chain with fourclubs locally, the Core Board meshes neatly with the chain'smarketing goals, said East Coast manager Bill Patjane.
More and more, clubs rely on revenues from consumers hiringpersonal trainers or signing up for group exercise classes.
As with fashion or toys, newness counts for a lot in fitness, andCore Board training is something new that fitness instructors can useto induce members to sign up for more group and one-on-one exercisesessions and boost club revenues.
As its Web sites strive to educate consumers about the Core Board,Reebok hopes to convey a larger message.
Said Martinez, 'It is integral to Reebok that we be defined forpeople as the world of fitness.'
SIDEBAR: THE REEBOK CORE BOARD PLEASE REFER TO MICROFILM FOR CHARTDATA
Chris Reidy can be reached by e-mail at reidy@globe.com.
