Case Study
DuPont™ Kevlar®
Lifestyle, Fashion, Footwear
Bringing the world’s strongest fiber to consumer products.
Kevlar® is a world-renowned brand best known for its strength and durability. DuPont™, the developers of the Kevlar fiber, saw an opportunity to leverage Kevlar’s brand equity by developing a collection of products that would expand its presence in the consumer marketplace. They partnered with Earthbound to bring their vision to life through branded and co-branded products.
Services Included:
- Brand Licensing Strategy
- Day-to-Day Management
- Deal Negotiation
- Marketing Support
- Finance and Legal
- Style Guide Creation
Co-Branding Success: Kevlar’s $100M+ Sales Surge
Retail Sales in the First Year
Achieved immediate scale with our co-branded licensing efforts, generating $100M+ in the first year of sales.
Success in Apparel and Footwear
Earthbound teamed up Kevlar with Reebok to develop co-branded footwear and apparel for its world-class CrossFit program. We also partnered with Adidas to create co-branded football cleats and lifestyle footwear sold through retailers including Eastbay, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Footlocker.
Success in the Travel Space
We collaborated with Samsonite to launch a line of co-branded luggage and lifestyle bags with Kevlar, making it Samsonite’s first licensed partnership in 100+ years of business.
How We Did It
We created a go-to-market strategy around the development and launch of “Built with Kevlar”, which we used to secure co-brand deals with leading global brand houses.
Earthbound analyzed the marketplace to identify key categories for consumer products and the best approach to brand positioning.
Our dedicated product team worked closely with Kevlar engineers to develop consumer-friendly applications of the product. This work included enhancing existing product attributes while providing unique value and differentiation for consumers.
We built a dedicated sales team to pitch the program and negotiate deals between DuPont Kevlar and its brand partners.
Earthbound worked with DuPont’s ad agency to rebrand Kevlar by launching Dare Bigger™, a consumer-facing ad campaign.