DARREN TUCKER SMILES coyly when I ask him if he’s ever worn a pair of New Balance’s cult shoe, the 1906L, commonly known as the ‘snoafer’ . A combination – a lovechild is perhaps a better description – of a sneaker and a luxury loafer, the shoe stunned the footwear and fashion industries upon its release last year, lighting up social feeds and turning heads on the street.
“I wear them poorly,” admits Tucker, the vice president of New Balance Australia, who’s speaking to MH today in the brand’s cavernous HQ in Melbourne’s Moorabbin. “We had a sales meeting in Dubai about a year-and-a- half ago and I wore them and got abused and then I decided I wouldn’t wear them again. I’ve got two pairs now, the silver ones and a black pair. The black leather pair, they’re actually wearable. They’re very good.”
It’s a great time to catch Tucker, who’s celebrating his 30th anniversary with the nascent sneaker brand the following day. He greets us in a classy blue NB branded ‘lab coat’, as we chat in an office that serves as something of a shrine to the brand’s successes; the walls are filled with memorabilia highlighting sporting partnerships and a portrait of a zombie-like pile of the signature ‘Greys’ line hangs on the wall behind his desk.
It’s safe to say nobody, including Tucker, could have foreseen the formerly heritage, if rather staid, running shoe brand coming up with a product like the snoafer back in the mid-nineties. Yet the truth is, in its elegant collision of form and function, the snoafer is as good a symbol as any for the way the brand has evolved in that time.
Formed way back in 1906 in Boston by Irish immigrant, William J Riley, for much of its existence the US brand’s focus was on making quality running shoes. Today New Balance is a multifaceted global powerhouse, its bold, even brash products setting tongues wagging in fashion circles, while strategic sporting partnerships help further embed the brand as a cultural yardstick among youthful consumers. And it’s done it all without losing sight of its running roots.
“A hundred per cent,” says Tucker, when I ask about the role of lifestyle footwear in changing his company’s perception with consumers. “You don’t sell ugly cars; you don’t sell ugly. If it’s ugly, it just doesn’t work. The connection with the consumer through lifestyle and fashion has definitely helped us. And it’s helped the performance side get traction.”
Interestingly, some of the brand’s retro performance lines are inspiring new leisure and lifestyle drops, like the ABZORB 2000, released earlier this month. Inspired by 2000s-era running design, the 2000 is one of the brand’s most progressive silhouettes to date, one you’re as likely to find on the feet of a club DJ as you are a committed runner.
Tucker believes the brand’s resurgence from dedicated, if daggy, running-focused footwear company to one that straddles lifestyle and performance, began in 2017 with the appointment of Chris Davis as Chief Marketing Officer. Davis, he says, was instrumental in helping the brand identify and establish a more intimate connection with its consumer.
“[Previously] we didn’t really connect with the consumers and that was where we identified this ‘global rising independent’ [consumer] and really focused on the female,” he says. “I don’t think you can disregard that.”
A better understanding of consumer needs, desires and perhaps most importantly, aspirations, enabled the brand to reposition from trailer to trailblazer, he adds. “We’ve tried to control what we want to look like and haven’t just followed what the competitors have done,” says Tucker.
As the brand sought to deepen its connection with its consumer base, an event that could have been disruptive to its fledgling ‘comeback’ – the Covid-19 pandemic – instead provided a catalyst for more efficient and streamlined innovation, Tucker says.
“COVID helped us,” he says plainly. “There’s no doubt. When I think back to March to July of 2020, it was a nightmare. We were liquidating stock. We didn’t know whether we were going to be around in 12 months’ time. And then by July everyone was in lockdown, everyone started exercising and all of a sudden, we went from liquidating stock to getting back to full price.”
The pandemic put the brand on a war footing, Tucker says, creating a legacy of nimble decision-making that’s persisted to this day. “The back half of that year [2020] course corrected and from an operating model that brought us, as senior leaders in the company, together,” he says. “We were meeting every Tuesday night, every Thursday night for three hours on a call in war-room type situations. The decision making was better. I’m not saying everything was perfect, but problems were addressed, decisions made, we moved on.”
These global leadership sessions continue today. “There’s about 17 on our global leadership group call,” says Tucker. “We still meet every Tuesday night at 11 o’clock Melbourne time and it’s a lot more about sprints to get decisions made. Now we’re about one or two projects at a time, but they’re done in 90 days and you move on. I think it’s really helped the whole business.”
The other area in which New Balance has expanded beyond its running origins is in sports. The brand has sponsorships with no less than eight AFL teams and is a big hitter in tennis, sponsoring the Australian Open the past two years while boasting brand ambassadors like French Open winner Coco Gauff. In the NBA, meanwhile, ambassadors Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray have been joined by the prized scalp of this year’s consensus no.1 draft pick Cooper Flagg.
“To have the best players authenticates us as a performance brand,” says Tucker. “It just does. The young consumer today sees through the sponsorships of my era. Cooper’s a great example of an authentic personality – good morals, strong family focus. It’s that 360-degree offering that I think the kids admire in athletes now.”
More broadly, sporting partnerships offer a credible channel back to the brand’s performance line, Tucker adds. “The data tells us that if you are an athlete and I’m talking rugby league, netball, AFL, whatever, you run for training. So, that connection back into running is really important.”
And by runner, Tucker means anyone, citing the brand’s highly successful ‘Run Your Way’ campaign, as an example of its inclusive ethos. “It’s not just the 2.10 marathoner that we want to talk to. If you run five kays, in our eyes, you’re a runner. Previously we wouldn’t include that person. But the health and wellness side of the community now is so important that everyone needs to be included.”
Of course, the brand continues to innovate in its original ‘bread and butter’ division – performance. The Rebel v5 was released earlier this month, with a number of anticipated drops scheduled through the second half of the year, including the next iterations of signature performance lines such as the 1080 15 and Super Comp Elite V5.
And let’s just say something is ‘afoot’ in 2027, with Tucker signally an innovation that may offer an alternative to the foam and cushioning focus of the past decade. “There’ll be a whole lot of new technology that’s being developed now that’s being tested that will go into [production in] 2027,” he says. “There’ll be some new models, there’ll be some old models that get revamped. It’s definitely going to be a New Balance way of bringing running back. We went out of air and devices into foams, which have driven running innovation for 15 years now. So, I think it will be a significant change and I think consumers are looking for something new.”
Daring innovation that finds expression in an arsenal of exciting product lines is a solid formula for success. New Balance’s global revenue reached US$7.8 billion in 2024, a 20 per cent increase year on year, with the aim to reach $10b in sales in coming years. But as Tucker is at pains to point out, there’s been multiple levers driving the brand’s impressive growth.
“There’s not one thing that changed that has got us to where we are,” he says.
The truth is, when it comes to the type of sustained success and game-changing impact New Balance has achieved these past few years, there never is.
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