Goodbye activewear brands just selling apparel and/or footwear. Hello activewear brands that are no longer constrained by their original categorical boundaries. From Nike to lululemon to Alo, these activewear brands aren’t just selling apparel…they’re selling a lifestyle. But I’ve started to pay closer attention to the strategic decisions at Alo of late because the brand keeps moving further into my domain…which is the emerging and intersecting categories of functional food, beverage, and nutritional supplements. I’m not going to provide all the product extension breadcrumbs here, but Alo reportedly started to originally develop a line of ingestible beauty and wellness supplements in 2019. With the pandemic-aided “work-from-home athleisure fashion trend” powering those next few years, Alo smartly put that project on the proverbial focus back burner. Then, in August 2023…Alo officially launched its Stackable Wellness System. The initial three ingestible beauty and wellness supplement SKUs were all utilizing a single-serving gel pack format…containing vitamins, minerals, and “hormone-balancing” adaptogens that addressed daily needs in skincare, immunity, and physical recovery. Along with the fact that most of these products sold out on Day 1, Alo also created a retail partnership with Sephora to sell its beauty and wellness segment. Feeling good from early feedback on its product extension strategy, Alo decided to double-down on the Stackable Wellness System last month by introducing five more SKUs…this time in the traditional capsule format. Those now eight SKUs of the Alo Stackable Wellness System (great or not) are only the entry fee to compete in the market. Instead, winners/losers in the broader consumer goods space (let alone CPG) are largely determined by what you build off those great products. This is why the smartest companies are focused less on product-based differentiation, as they know that competing on that alone will only provide a transient advantage. With today’s fast-follower low barriers-to-entry supplement business landscape, your best product features are too easy to copy and an insufficient defensible moat. The solution is having a bold strategic narrative…because that enables brands to create a unique story that will guide their entire internal and external business activity. Alo is a brand with a bold strategic narrative. In today’s marketplace, younger consumers are increasingly looking for visionary brands that are radically and bravely changing both our individual and global cultures with exciting and bold new lifestyle choices. It’s that strategic narrative boldness that attracts these younger consumers, but also provides a distinctiveness that’s highly defensible from competitive landscape perspective. By continually and almost gradually changing shape to predict its customers’ needs, Alo seeks to seamlessly become truly essential, visible, and celebrated parts of its customers’ lives without them even realizing it.

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