Salomon’s Graeme Moore: New stores, customers and accelerating growth in ANZ

French outdoor adventure and lifestyle brand Salomon has recently become a staple of style-conscious sneakerheads, despite traditionally being known for its functional hiking and trail apparel.

Today, the Salomon customer includes Pilates princesses whose ‘fit checks’ on social media have contributed to the virality of the shoe styles, whilst the brand still caters to its core original consumer of adventure seekers.

This month, Salomon opened its first direct-to-consumer store in Australia at Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre – a milestone in the brand’s journey of accelerating its growth in the ANZ region.

The Chadstone store design takes inspiration from the brand’s Paris Champs-Élysées store – its newest global flagship which opened earlier this year.

In 1997, Adidas acquired the Salomon Group and its brands, Salomon, TaylorMade, Mavic, and Bonfire; but later sold the brand to Amer Sports in 2005.

New vision

Graeme Moore is the head of Salomon ANZ and joined the business in 2019 after 14 years with Adidas Australia.

An immense passion for outdoor sports and strategically accelerating brands drew Moore to the Salomon business, where he is now leading its next phase of growth within the ANZ market.

“Over the past three to four years, the brand has worked extremely hard to become more inclusive, we want to invite a much broader spectrum of modern outdoor enthusiasts to experience the opportunity to become the best version of themselves through spending time in the outdoors,” Moore told Inside Retail.

“This new positioning has driven incredible innovation in product development to ensure Salomon has authentic and relevant offers,” Moore said.

He attributes this new positioning to driving the huge growth of the brand in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

The new store in Melbourne prominently features clean and premium finishes from the brand’s global store design concept as well as unique elements like a hero tree in the middle of the store. 

Constructed of reclaimed timber from central Victoria, the tree showcases the brand’s connection to the Australian outdoors and its DNA.

“It is a fantastic centrepiece to the overall store design,” Moore said.

Community-driven brand experience

This year Salomon launched its National Golden Trail series in Australia to raise the profile of trail running as a sport locally. The unique set of Salomon partner trail events is an expansion of its global strategy.

“Authentic connection with our core communities is vital,” Moore said. “Providing unique experiences for consumers, and investing in and helping to build outdoor communities is important to Salomon,” he added.

“Creating elevated and more premium retail experiences is also a vital component to the future of the Salomon brand.”

“We want customers to feel and see the brand’s DNA through premium physical retail experiences and services, in our retail stores and key strategic wholesale partners.”

Salomon has its sights set on being the leading modern mountain sports lifestyle brand in Australia and New Zealand, which Moore plans to achieve by being an authentic, premium and innovative brand.

“Whilst I cannot provide specific detail into the strategy drivers, we have a very clear focus of what it will require to achieve this over the next three to five years,” Moore said.

“I see the opportunity for growth in several key categories.”

Salomon has a unique brand positioning, with a product offering consisting of winter sports equipment, running and hiking apparel and increasingly in-demand sportstyle footwear. 

“Footwear including run and sportstyle is most prevalent, however, we are also the market leader in premium hydration solutions for outdoor activities,” he said. “In winter sports and snowboarding is a key growth opportunity for the brand.”

Providing consumers with more paths to purchase the brand has helped drive Salomon’s viral success in recent years.

The brand’s organic momentum on social media has helped amplify awareness across a broader target demographic, from Pilates princesses to sneaker enthusiasts.

“Some items are promoted for purchase to our targeted audiences via our social platforms; however, we encourage our community to immerse themselves in our brand content, discovering extensive features and benefits along with opportunities to explore a demo event or run group near them – all of this content is housed on our e-commerce platform,” Moore said.

Creating for the future

With a strong growth forecast for Salomon over the next three years, innovation will drive the next chapter for the business, influencing how it connects with the community and the products it produces.
“To quote Salomon’s founder, George Salomon: ‘What excites me the most is what we are going to create tomorrow’,” Moore finished.

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