Winners and Losers
We don’t need the Superbowl to know that people are very interested in winners and losers. The headline of any news item makes it clear. If you want clicks, you better be talking about winners or losers or both. The pandemic has both reorganized and reinforced our winner and loser lists. Some politicians have lost their jobs because they handled public health poorly. Unsurprisingly, some already strong ecommerce companies got stronger. And some surprises came out of nowhere. Tupperware for example, is trading at $32 today, up from $1.15 earlier in the year.
Stories about those that come out on the top or the bottom are rarely as straightforward as they seem. Some winners deserve the spoils of winning because of virtue or hard work, others just got lucky. Some truly lovely people come out on the short end. Life is certainly not fair and even less so in pandemic times.
While some of the winners were using their added advantage to pound more nails in their competitors’ coffins, other winners where using serendipitous winnings for good. In addition to the many stories of much needed food banks and offers of shelter and healthcare, the story of Brooks Sports is worth retelling.
Brooks Sports is no stranger to winning or losing. It has seen both multiple times since its founding in 1914. It has made everything from ballet slippers before the great war, to the #1 rated running shoe in 1975. Brooks has built a solid business and currently commands about 25% of the running shoe market. Since 2011 Brooks has been a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet has famously said, “Never invest in a business you cannot understand”. People like to run, runners need shoes, shoes wear out…good business. Straight forward enough, but who would have guessed that Brooks’ revenues would jump 22% in the time of the coronavirus? People work out, gyms close, people like to run…and spend their gym membership budget on shoes.
Now the good guys win part of the story. It turns out that frontline healthcare workers who spend all day on their feet, also like the lightweight and comfortable shoes Brooks makes. Knowing their customers, and knowing their healthcare customers were facing great challenges, Brooks took their winnings and contributed 45,000 pairs of shoes to frontline healthcare workers. You can read more about their “Our Heroes Wear Scrubs” campaign here.