Canada Goose – Strategic Update & D2C Growth in China
– 10 May 2021
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Specialist:
Title:
Moderator: Nyree Hinton (NH), Third Bridge Sector Analyst
James Fisher (JF)
Former Global Senior Brand Director at Canada Goose Holdings Inc
Agenda:
1. Canada Goose (TSE: GOOS) business update, including its brand strength
2. E-commerce growth and D2C playbook, focusing on China
3. Outerwear innovation and category expansion
4. Margin and profitability outlook
Contents
Q: Could you give us an overview of the luxury outerwear industry? What are some of the main drivers and
who would you classify as the top competitors in the market?
3
Q: What were 2-3 trends in the luxury outerwear industry you were noticing pre-coronavirus and how would
4
you say those trends have been impacted or altered due to the pandemic?
Q: Could you give us an overview of Canada Goose’s different categories and if there’s any geographical
differentiation? Are certain styles more successful in different geographies?
Q: How is Canada Goose keeping up with the mature consumer? What do younger consumers want in a
brand?
4
5
Q: You mentioned that maintaining brand leadership comes down to intentional scarcity. How do you drive
that scarcity while maintaining growth for the company?
6
Q: Could you speak to innovations across Canada Goose and some of the things you observed at the
company that were successful or not so successful and why?
7
Q: I’m unsure if this applies to other markets because of how large the US mall presence and the bricks-and-
mortar retail presence is, but had Canada Goose assessed the downfall of mini department stores? Has the
company strategically prepared for that or was Canada Goose of the perception that if it is at high-end places
8
it will survive some of these difficulties?
Q: Could you expand on where you think Canada Goose has an opportunity to do something exceptional,
and not just focus on just the parkas?
Q: Could you discuss some of the fragmentation of the industry across some of the core categories that
Canada Goose operates in, such as parkas?
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9
Q: How would you say barriers to entry have changed for new brands and some of the core categories that
Canada Goose operates in?
10
Q: Could you elaborate on the concerns around material sourcing for Canada Goose and how Canada Goose
addressed them? Do you think the company did an adequate job in addressing those concerns?
10
Q: What do you think of some of Canada Goose’s most pressing challenges?
11
Q: Is there anything you think the investor community should know regarding Canada Goose’s management
11
team and ability to execute on priorities?
Canada Goose – Strategic Update & D2C Growth in
China
Transcription begins at 00:00:00 of the recorded material
NH: Welcome to Third Bridge Forum’s Interview entitled Canada Goose, Strategic Update & D2C Growth. I’m
Nyree Hinton and I will be facilitating today’s Interview with Mr James Fisher, former Global Senior Brand
Director at Canada Goose Holdings Inc.
James, before we get started with today’s Interview, please state I agree or I disagree to the following
statement: You understand the definition of material non-public information and agree not to disclose any
such information, or any other information which is confidential during this Interview.
JF: I agree.
NH: Could you start by giving the audience an overview of your background and various roles that you’ve held
in the industry?
JF: First of all, good morning everyone. My background, I’m 15 plus year Brand Strategist and Integrated
Marketer. I’ve worked in, as we talk about the client side of the business, so, in-house at brand, and, or big
organisations, I’ve worked agency side in various integrated creative strategic and activation agencies and I’ve
worked as a consultant to brands and to agencies.
I actually started at Canada Goose as a consultant. I met them through a network contact in the fall of 2016.
This was about six, seven months before they went public. At the time, there was a need and an internal
interest in getting the house in order for the IPO, but specifically elevating their marketing discipline. The
brand was, I would say, positioned differently around the world, really held a true traditional luxury position
in places like Europe and the parts of Asia where they were seeing growth, relative to the Canadian market or
the US market where they had been for a longer period of time and were very much, still a luxury brand, but
much more of a mass luxury brand if you will. We met, and when I was brought in house, effectively it was a
singular piece of brand strategy that very quickly led to me becoming full-time as the Global Brand Director, to
lead and establish in a lot of cases, the brand and product marketing discipline globally for the brand. That
was all aspects of global campaigns, product marketing including the early stage strategy and education and IP
developed around launching new products and collections each year, as well as how those collections are
actually brought to market and expressed commercially to consumer audiences. The third focus area for me
was in parallel was supporting the business, which was moving quite rapidly. It was also building and back-
filling the strategic foundations for the brands, things that would enable, eventually come to enable the global
consistency and the global positioning that we were moving towards at the time, such as digital identity
standards, brand voice, brand purpose and a number of strategic work-streams that really allowed us to unify
the brand’s story and the brand language globally.
[00:03:56]
Q: Could you give us an overview of the luxury outerwear industry? What are some of the main drivers and
who would you classify as the top competitors in the market?
JF: Luxury, in a simple word, is all around aspiration. The outerwear industry is no different than handbags
or automobiles. The main drivers in addition to aspiration, I would say, are, to some extent, scarcity. There is
definitely badge value to having the things that others don’t have. Then, I would say, frankly, there’s a little bit
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of, I’ll say, luck. What I mean by that is timing, where trends kick in, and all of a sudden things like parkas that
were once a purely functional utilitarian category become the latest news of a luxury audience. I think that was
partly the good fortune of what had happened to Canada Goose. In the years before I arrived, and then frankly
it was very much still one of the cultural forces that is driving that business today. The players that we really
kept on our watchlist, I would say first and foremost, Moncler. They’re positioned even further upstream as a
truly traditional luxury or super luxury brand that would say Canada Goose didn’t necessarily see themselves
quite in that light. As a competitor we were very aware of the moves they were making, the things they were
doing, the new strategy that was employed around the Genius collaboration model, the way in which they were
continually integrating their own business model and brand presence. They were number one, hands down.
Then, I would say, we played on a spectrum of traditional luxury and traditional performance, that meant our
watchlist was pretty varied. On the luxury side of things, just to continue that train of thought, we keep our
eyes on brands like Mackage, brands like, frankly even like Prada, to some extent, brands that weren’t
necessarily prominent in outerwear but were icons in luxury, Burberry, brands of that nature. Then, on the
performance side of things, you’ve got all of your explorer, traditional outerwear brands like The North Face,
Patagonia, Columbia, major powerhouses as brands as players in the outerwear category go, not necessarily a
luxury offering but certainly a competitive set that we were very aware of as well.
[00:07:15]
Q: What were 2-3 trends in the luxury outerwear industry you were noticing pre-coronavirus and how would
you say those trends have been impacted or altered due to the pandemic?
JF: I think there are two major cultural forces that have been accelerated through COVID, but there were
forces in the world and in the business while I was at Canada Gooses and even years prior, which are, in really
simple terms I would say, the environmental crisis and I would say social justice, or human rights. Those are
big umbrellas for lots of things that sit within them, but I would say specifically on the environmental side of
things, that was a major pendulum swing for us in the time that I was there. From 2016 to 2019, we went from
frankly not even really talking about sustainability, to having an in-house sustainability team working towards
some of the initiatives and the first sustainability report that was released I think it was about this time last
year, and then they’ve just come up with further climate commitments that they’ve made about, three or four
weeks ago. I would say sustainability, continuing from there, I would say animal rights was a huge cultural
force that I would also just put in that bucket.
I think it was driven a lot by frankly the fake news around our sourcing and ethical treatment of animals. It
didn’t take away from the fact that there were a detractors, there was a lot of negative PR, there was a lot of
negative PR. There was a lot of concern around the OPEX of that conversation. Frankly, as well as the
sustainability in terms of, could we continue to source fur and down at the volumes that were needed in a
practical sense for the pace of growth. Animal rights would be the next major trend. I would say veganism to
some extent too, as we’re seeing more and more people connect the dots between industrial farming and
environmental degradation, there was a lot of discussion around younger audiences, changing preferences,
values, behaviours, and veganism was one of those cultural trends or forces that were dragging the overall
environmental conversation. Those would be the three, really, that come to mind.
[00:10:14]
Q: Could you give us an overview of Canada Goose’s different categories and if there’s any geographical
differentiation? Are certain styles more successful in different geographies?
JF: For sure. I think of them as a parka brand. I know that they have a number of other categories including
accessories, knitwear, most recently fleece. (audio distorts 10.51) call it, which includes Sherpa fleece.
Lightweight product, rain-wear, wind-wear. They have shoulder categories, and, or they serve shoulder
seasons, but it is a deep-cold brand. I very much think of it as a parka business. To answer your question, they
absolutely have an iconic range of parka styles that are the foundation of the business. Things like the
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Expeditions, the Snow Mantra, the Chilliwack, the Resolute. I’m forgetting here a couple here because it has
been a little while. There’s probably about 8-10 quote, unquote product icons that really are the foundation of
the business. I compare them to a Levis 501, a Chuck All Star, a Puma Suede, an Adidas Shell Toe. They really
cemented their leadership I the category through a lot of these product icons. That’s two-fold. (1) The product
is excellent, but (2), there is story embedded with those products. In a lot of cases, these were products made
for authentic use in places like the arctic or Antarctica. There is a long history of authentic endorsement,
testimonial from people who, explorers, scientists, people working and living and achieving incredible feats in
these extreme environments and crediting the garments themselves. There’s a really great story as well as
much longer history, in a lot of cases, behind those styles, then there are behind the full product range.
NH: When you think about Canada Goose and that intangible brand asset success, is that what you would
attribute to its ability to command a premium over the last few decades? How does Canada Goose continue to
maintain its brand leadership in something like a parka?
JF: Good question. The way that I’ve always thought about their competitive advantage is, it’s a couple of
things. I’d say, intentional scarcity. How intentional, it remains to be seem, but the truth of it is, up until only a
few years ago, there was so much pent-up demand that the product was hard to obtain, that would drive sell-
out behaviour early in the season, and also help to establish eh luxury idea of the brand. I would say demand.
Second, I wound say price control. They’ve continued to be able to command a premium in markets like
Canada that were maybe not as truly positioned as a global brand. They’ve been able to further increase
pricing so that it is respectively line-priced around the world which plays to the advantage of global exchange.
Also, it’s just not a discount brand. You will not find it on sale. Avoiding that discount cycle and just
maintaining price control, I think was a huge advantage. The third I would say is owned manufacturing,
domestic manufacturing. The made-in-Canada story is also part of the luxury idea as you think about global
audiences, and domestic audiences, because what country doesn’t like its home-grown products and success
stories. I would say investing in the footprint that didn’t actually exist before they made that commitment they
made in Canada, was strategic foresight that has continued to reinforce the idea that people really buy into
with the product itself.
They’re still sacred to the strategy today. I think in terms of where they’re at, it’s a very different business. It’s a
public business. I think their competitive advantage today is coming more and more from their ability to, I
would say, export most things, and the story of the brand, faster, to new audiences. The way it grew in a
market like Canada or in some of the more mature cities in the US was, over time, from a grass-roots place to a
place of cultural relevance, well, they don’t have 20 years or even 10 years for things to succeed anymore. What
I have seen is that from the work that was done in the time frame that was there, there’s now what I’ll call
somewhat of a formula, and definitely a very clear DNA that the brand has established, which is allowing them
to move faster. I would also say, they’ve gone from looking back to looking forward and that was also part of
the strategy that I was involved with, which is to say that for years and years, it was a brand that only talked
about history. Now, what you’re starting to see is a much more modern, forward-facing thought leadership
from the brand, where subjects like indigenous rights and representation, subjects like sustainability, that’s
starting to now reintroduce the brand to audiences that maybe lost track of them, and, or just to connect with
new audiences who frankly don’t care about your last 60 years. They want to know who you are in 2021.
[00:17:44]
Q: How is Canada Goose keeping up with the mature consumer? What do younger consumers want in a
brand?
JF: Look, the original audience for the brand was a hard-core outdoor audience, an audience that was looking
for functional use, looking to have their functional needs met, in simple terms, “Keep me warm,” if we’re
talking about parkas. If we’re talking about other categories, what is the functional need of a rain jacket or of a
lightweight down jacket? That was very much their core audience, and then as the business grew and as
cultures started to change, and as parkas started to become a luxury category, I would say there’s definitely
still a need for functional excellence. I think the needs are much more emotional these days for a younger
consumer. I think the need for a younger consumer is about, it’s about belonging. The disk on the sleeve of the
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jacket, on the chest of a jacket is a literal badge that says I’m part of something. It’s no different than your
sneakers or your backpack, whatever sort of trendy item you might also pair with the parka.
I would say there’s a values equation of a lot of young consumers, too. That’s where, frankly, I think they’re
still finding their way. The truth of it is when I started working with the brand and we were looking at
consumer sentiment towards to the brand. There wasn’t a clear values alignment. Beyond the functional
excellence of the product, there wasn’t an emotional connection. People rally couldn’t say what we stood for.
Frankly, that was also true for most of the other players in the category. We started to identify the kinds of
things, the attributes and ideas that we wanted the brand to stand for and we would measure against those
things. I would say, values for a young consumer, whether it’s around environmentalism, sustainability, or
ethical treatment of animals, whether it’s about diversity and inclusion, which is where the brand has started
to cast differently, and supporting various indigenous conversation, and, or traditions of Inuit people in the
North. Those, to me, are the types of things that align the values and beliefs of a younger audience with the
brand today.
[00:21:05]
Q: You mentioned that maintaining brand leadership comes down to intentional scarcity. How do you drive
that scarcity while maintaining growth for the company?
JF: I just want to be clear in that thought because my comments were not that brand leadership depends on
intentional scarcity, it was that competitive advantage for the brands was born of intentional scarcity in the
early days. I don’t know that you can be scarce and grow at the rate that they’re growing. Frankly, I think it
works for some brands like, I’ll give you an example, like Supreme. Their entire model is built around limited
drops that happen every Thursday, and the entire thing is around hype and scarcity. For Canada Goose, I
would say that is part of the model. They play in that world of scarcity and street-wear and trend and limited
edition. I would say more so these days it’s not so much about scarcity, but it’s very much still about price
control. It is about functional authority in the categories that they’re in, and then I would say it’s becoming
more about thought leadership. That’s where you’re starting to see a more modern, forward-facing view of the
brand. They’ve got this new platform, human nature. They’re talking about keeping the planet cold and the
people on it warm. They’re launching collections with deeper purpose, supporting northern communities or
social enterprise, any of the newer initiatives start to signal the thought leadership of the brand. I think that is
becoming, I won’t say a competitive advantage, but it’s becoming a competitive distinction for them. In the
same way that any great brand stands for a clear set of ideas and or generally leads not follows, that the error
that they are in right now, is continuing to define their own thought leadership.
NH: How does marketing spend relate to that in the sense of promoting the brand’s identity? How do you
increase the identity and make sure your story is known without diluting the brand?
JF: Marketing is both the storytelling engine, and the commercial engine, at least one of them, a major
commercial engine for the business. There was a lot of balancing, and, or development in both of those areas.
For me, the single objective I had on the brand side of things was establishing emotional connection with
consumers. That came to light in lots of different ways. Then, of course, on the commercial side of things, it
was sell more product. That wasn’t at the expense of the brand. There was always a relationship between what
you believe in and what you’re crafting as your identity and how you’re expressing in the world and therefore
connecting with people, and the people that you’re selling to. That’s not to suggest we were alienating anyone,
but we came to define our target audiences in the way that any business should, to understand, who are we
talking to, and what are their expectations, and or unmet needs from us. In some cases, it was still an outdoor
audience that wanted to know about product innovation and functional authority. In other cases it was a
traditional luxury consumer who was more interested in the idea of luxury, and or the limited nature of a given
collection. I would say the conversation needs to change depending on your audience, and product was just a
vessel for storytelling, as well as the obvious commercial objective that we had at the time.
Then, your question is about, so how do you not sell-out. I would say in simple terms, by being really
intentional in the things that you do, by having the discipline, to stay the course, by having a long-term
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strategy as well as short-term one. I would say, the answer is frankly bigger than marketing, a lot of the
positioning of brands, especially luxury brands, comes in their adjacency to other brands. When we’re talking
about wholesale, for example, or even in a digital environment where you’re buying media, the environment
creates the brand perception. If I’m on the floor, if I’m in a department store and I’m on the floor next to a
Moncler, I am luxury by association. Whereas, if I’m on YouTube and I’m popping up with all of these junky
pop-ups at the beginning of a piece of influencer content, or whatever. All of a sudden I feel mad. There was a
lot of time and energy spent talking about and then effectively cleaning up the distribution network, the
adjacencies, and then through coming to understand our audiences, putting ourselves in the right
environment.
[00:27:38]
Q: Could you speak to innovations across Canada Goose and some of the things you observed at the company
that were successful or not so successful and why?
JF: Yes, success is subjective, so, I would definitely speak to the things that were most innovative and forward
facing. I don’t know that I can speak to the success directly, but I’ll try. From a product standpoint, there was a
desire to connect with a more aspirational, modern consumer, as we used to talk about, the modern luxury
consumer. There were a number of initiatives and collections that were designed to appeal to them, one of
which was actually, I’ll call it a sub-brand, called Branta. It’s still live on the website. You can go and have a
look, but you’ll appreciate that it’s a very different aesthetic than the rest of the collection. It is the, as we used
to say, the epitome of the brand and product expression. Was it successful? I’m not sure, to be honest, but it
was different and so, I imagine it might have been received with mixed reviews, because it was just such a new
concept for us. I would say, possibly, a bridge too far in the way that it was executed, but that’s my personal
opinion. Possibly a bit too conceptual, a bit too abstract, a bit too luxurious in a way that maybe alienate those
core audiences and, or that core functional product story. I wasn’t there for the recent version of that, the
recent example of that, but I observed something really similar in the Angela Chen, is it Angela or Angel Chen,
collaboration that they did. I believe she’s a designer out of China, and there was an entire collection collected
with her that, while it was beautiful, to me it felt extremely delicate. It didn’t feel like it had that sort of hard-
core, functional under-pinning, mixed with that luxury overlay. It felt like it was all luxury in a way that I
imagine consumers might have raised an eyebrow as well.
NH: I think that was a great way to put it when it comes to functional underpinning. You touched on
controlling the price point, controlling where the product is sold. Throughout your time at Canada Goose,
could you speak to us about how Canada Goose’s distribution footprint has changed over the years?
JF: For one, they own a very healthy direct-to-consumer pipeline now. As of 2016, they had e-commerce. I’m
not remembering how many markets they were in at the time, but they opened the first bricks-and-mortar
owned retail in the fall of 2016. That, to me, was one of the pivotal moments in their distribution strategy that
really opened the floodgates to having a more direct relationship with consumers. That has continued. You can
see that in the growth of their retail network. I’m not sure what the store count is now. Similarly, e-comm
continues to grow. They have opened, I believe they have cross-border in almost all over the world now. Don’t
quote me on that specifically, but they have regional hubs in almost all of their major markets that serve a local
consumer in their language and with localised messaging and nuance and what have you. That was the single
biggest play for them.
I would say, on the wholesale side of things, it’s easy to dismiss wholesale as you start to get excited around the
prospect of direct to consumer. Wholesale serves a very important need for a lot of businesses, Canada Goose
included which is the tip of the spear as you enter new markets. If you can enter a market like the UK, as an
example, you can be on the floor in a Harvey Nichols or, I’m trying to think, like a Selfridges, next to the
Mackages, and the Monclers of the world. That’s going to give you a taste and practical access to a local
audience in a much more efficient way than trying to enter on your own ever will. That was really the sort of
shifting view of wholesale, was to, in some cases, enter new markets, and in other cases to extent reach to a
local audience that might be look for us in places where we didn’t have owned distribution. There was a store
in Toronto. A customer in Vancouver might still want to walk into the local Nordstrom and pick up their
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jacket. It was always a balancing act, but it was never an either, or. It was always a more holistic view of how
the three channels worked together.
[00:33:42]
Q: I’m unsure if this applies to other markets because of how large the US mall presence and the bricks-and-
mortar retail presence is, but had Canada Goose assessed the downfall of mini department stores? Has the
company strategically prepared for that or was Canada Goose of the perception that if it is at high-end places it
will survive some of these difficulties?
JF: I think it was both. I left pre-COVID, so I’m not sure what the conversation is these days. I would say in
some cases, the job to be done was actually cleaning up the wholesale distribution because we were in too
many doors. We were in doors that were no longer consistent with the brand’s idea and the positioning, doors
who were frankly becoming discount retailers in some cases. I’m referring more so to Canada where you’ve got
awareness at plus 90%. The brand is like firmly firmly established within the fabric of Canadian society. In
places like the US, I can’t speak as specifically to issues like changing retail landscape and what have you, but
they ere very aware that retail was changing. You can see in some of their more innovative retail experiences
that they were in some cases ahead of their time in terms of reimagining the retail experience. We think, like,
the Cold Room, that allows you actually try on a parka in a refrigerated environment, or one of the pilot
projects that we did here towards the end of my time at Canada Goose, which is a completely immersive multi-
media store with no physical product. The entire store was built around the idea of immersive storytelling.
They’re aware. I’m sure what you can do in the wholesale channel other than hold on with the strongest
partners. I can’t speak to that in great detail but, like I say, there was never a sense that wholesale was dying,
there was just always a sense that wholesale was changing and we wanted to be at the forefront of change.
[00:36:26]
Q: Could you expand on where you think Canada Goose has an opportunity to do something exceptional, and
not just focus on just the parkas?
JF: I’ll be honest. I don’t know that I do. Where they go next is a question mark of time, because they have
such authority in parkas that, naturally, I think they’re in the places that you go next. I don’t know that the
need for a rain jacket, the emotional need, frankly, even the functional need is as great for a rain jacket as it is
for a parka. Deep cold or cold, is the kind of thing that creates an immediate urgency. Whereas, rain is
optional. Knitwear is a lifestyle proposition, accessories to some extent are a lifestyle proposition. Some people
will find them inconvenient, right? For me, they’re in the category that they helped create, frankly. Where you
go from here, I’m not sure. I think it naturally becomes a lifestyle proposition, whether it’s footwear,
homeware, but truthfully I don’t see the same sort of need state, and or opportunity beyond parkas. That’s just
my personal view. I haven’t sized these opportunities. I’m not saying that from any place other than personal
opinion. To me, it becomes a bit of a dotted line as you start getting into things like sleeping bags of duvets,
blankets and what have you. There’s a warmth idea to all of those things but if you’re using it in the comfort of
your own home and, or just in outdoor environments that don’t create the same level of need, I can’t imagine
that you’re therefore creating the same emotional connection either.
NH: You mentioned getting the story out there to these consumers, could you speak to the digital avenues that
Canada Goose is partaking in to get its story out? Nike and Patagonia have some of these editorial landscapes
to really tell a story. Could you tell me where Canada Goose stands on that front, and is it a strength, could it
improve, and do you think there’s a return in value in this digital, editorial investment?
JF: It’s definitely a storytelling brand. That’s what makes it so exciting for the people who care anyway. There
was a lot and energy spent during my tenure, crafting the storytelling strategy for the brand. Whether that’s
through their ambassador network who they call Goose people, whether that was through some of the
campaign or film projects that were created, whether that was through some of the social enterprise or CSR
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initiatives that we launched in the North, all of those create a really rich idea behind the brand, which is the
storytelling brand. Quite literally, there are roots in the film and entertainment industries. You an see that in
their sponsorship strategy, in some of their events experiences, in some of their extended brand ambassador
relationships with film directors and photographers and actors and actresses. That’s very sacred to them too
because that is the ultimate endorsement that you can get, is when an industrial or a community, I’ll say,
adopts you. That’s what happened with Canada Goose on film sets in cold environments or harsh
environments, is we became the quote, unofficial jacket of the film industry.
So supporting crews, behind the scenes, all of that that I’ve just described, all of that is really the storytelling
DNA of the brand. What has started to happen now is they’ve continued, we started, and as I look at the brand
today, they’ve continued to really lean into that. So, that story is not just behind the scenes anymore, they’re
starting to put it out front on camera. They’re starting to actually work with directors as characters and, or as
model ambassadors. They’re starting to always tell the making-of story in concert with the story itself of the
collection or of the project. There’s a naming strategy. There’s a capsule collection strategy around working
with different types of creators. All of that is part of the new DNA of the brand, taking the old but refreshing it
as part of the new. In terms of how that comes to life across digital channels. That’s a long answer potentially. I
would say there is an earned-first mentality at the brand, which is to say they don’t necessarily buy all of their
impressions. They earn them, and, or they use people as media. I’ll give you an example. We did an initiative
called Project Atigi a few years ago.
I believe it’s still going, but we created a collection of limited edition parkas made by a Inuit seamstresses in
the north. We launched it at an event in New York City. There was a sister event in Paris, and invited media tot
he event. We didn’t really spend any paid media on that story or launching that collection, but because of the
story behind it, because it was so new and different than anything the fashion world had seen at the team, it
actually travelled further through earned media and PR than anything else that we did that year. Any of the
other commercial initiatives that would have had a traditional media budget behind them, it they were still
eclipsed by that initiative. That shows you the power of story. Lightning only strikes once in a while. I would
say their overall digital strategy is full-surround sound, frankly, on all of the places that you can otherwise find
consumers these days, both in brand awareness, cinematic environments, top of funnel ,as we used to say,
driving broad reach and awareness, right down to very transactional hard-working banner ads and things just
about every digital environment you can think of.
[00:44:18]
Q: Could you discuss some of the fragmentation of the industry across some of the core categories that Canada
Goose operates in, such as parkas?
JF: Their percentage of share in the overall outwear category?
NH: Outerwear jackets, outerwear parkas.
JF: I don’t know. I’ll be honest, I don’t know that I have a number for you and frankly that if I did that that
would be, that feels to me like potentially material non-public information.
NH: Got it. Happy to jump to another question.
JF: I’ll try to put a little context on it which is to say that they are a category leader for sure in the markets
where they have firmly established themselves. We used to talk about being the category reference. If brings us
back to the conversation around product icons. I would say share of wallet vs share of mind are two different
things. I would say their advantage is very much share of mind. That they have created the silhouette that has
become the icon of the parka category, the big luxurious fur ruff. The oversized, utilitarian body with pockets
and military style functionality. That whole design aesthetic, that’s very much the Canada Goose reference, as
you’ve now seen applied across the category. I would say their advantage is whether it’s translated leadership
or not in any given market, I would their advantage is share of mind, first and foremost.
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[00:46:49]
Q: How would you say barriers to entry have changed for new brands and some of the core categories that
Canada Goose operates in?
JF: For the up-and-comers?
NH: Yes. So, how easy is it for some of these new brands to come in with a great story and start to make their
presence known, or do you think that the barriers to entry are still incredibly high to build that type of
awareness?
JF: I think they’re low, it depends on how you’re measuring success. They’re low in the sense that you can
build a, you can design a product and have it produced off-shore, quite easily these days. To do it domestically
is a little bit more challenging. You can write a story, and, or develop a brand concept, also, relatively quickly,
and you can launch a direct-to-consumer business online, anyway, virtually overnight. In that sense, I would
say that the barriers are low. I would say, as consumers are becoming more and more educated, more and
more discerning, the barriers become quite high as you look at the quality requirements and, or just the pure
play function that needs to be achieved in the product itself. The fact that there has to be a lot of diligence done
in your supply chain these days, such that you’re not signalling one thing and practising the opposite in terms
of ethical sourcing and human, animal or environmental well being. I would say, it’s a crowded market place
now too. Good luck to you if you’re a craft brand trying to carve out your lane these days.
I would say, less and less is there room for distinctive ideas and more and more do the brands all start to look
like versions of each other. The ones that seem to be making waves are the ones that have distinctive brand
ideas like, there’s one called Wuxly Movement here in Canada. I don’t necessarily consider them a direct
competitor, but their whole premise is around an animal-free product DNA. They’ve taken a directly
oppositional stance to, not just Canada Goose, but anyone else in a category who even uses down, let alone real
fur. In simple terms, barriers are lower, but I would say it would be to underestimate what you’re actually up
against these days. I think you would need a pretty significant investment, and a lot of luck, frankly, to
succeed.
[00:49:59]
Q: Could you elaborate on the concerns around material sourcing for Canada Goose and how Canada Goose
addressed them? Do you think the company did an adequate job in addressing those concerns?
JF: If I’m remembering the comment that you’re asking about, it was regarding their fur ruffs. More
specifically, the ruffs, historically, have been coyote fur, at least in the time that I’ve known about the brand,
and they were sourced basically in the north-east of North America. I’m not an expert here, so just bear with
me while I try to remember the story here. They were sourced basically from local government and, or
conservation groups who were culling local populations in fur, to manage the local environment. As the
business continued to grow, there is that tipping point where you’re now producing potentially more jackets
than you’re able to source in fur. As well, there was all of the conversation around animal rights and al of the
backlash against that and changing preference. You’ve got a hard-core audience who wants nothing to do with
you but you’ve got a mass audience in the middle who just wants to know that you’re not an evil corporation,
and, or, they might just like the option of no fur. That was really the audience that we were most concerned
about, is just the people who sat on the fence. The way that the fur strategy evolved in the time that I was
there, there are lots of different conversations about the solution, that solution. As I’ve seen it just recently
announced through their latest sustainability report, it’s two-fold. There’s a commitment to only using
recycled furs by, don’t quote me on this, I think it’s 2025. The other new innovation that they’ve just
announced is, it’s either a trade-in or a buy-back programme for old fur ruffs. They’re starting to now play on
the upcycling opportunity and bringing things back through the supply chain, such that they can be
repurposed. Then, I would say that there’s an interesting initiative. It was getting off the ground just as I was
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transitioning out of the business, which was around the hood trim programme. So not fur specifically, but in
the absence of fur, it was basically like a value exchange with the consumer, where you could have down, an
additional detachable down trim that attaches to the inside of your hood. It was various options being offered
with certain styles. Some of them had different print or reflectivity or colour options. They’re tackling it from a
few different angles. I think they’re doing a pretty smart job of it
[00:53:21]
Q: What do you think of some of Canada Goose’s most pressing challenges?
JF: Interesting. I think being the leader, number one, maintaining and growing leadership, there’s a real slog
there in terms of all of the cultural forces driving change in the category and consumer preference, all of the
new entrants nipping at your heels, macro economic, socio-political forces, obviously COVID, some of the
specific Canada, China political relations or discourse that definitely have affected the business regionally in
its time. I would say, right now, they’re playing on a global stage, so they are, to some extent, exposed to
cultural forces, global forces, that weren’t always a direct hit to the business, or a direct impact. That would be
the short answer.
[00:54:44]
Q: Is there anything you think the investor community should know regarding Canada Goose’s management
team and ability to execute on priorities?
JF: Their ability to execute, I would say, their track record of success shows an ability to execute. If I could
answer the question differently, I would say, personally, I think every investor needs to ask themselves a
question, which is, how important is the human side of leadership, or the leadership function, in any business.
Whether or not the business makes things happen is almost secondary to the cost of how those things come to
be. Without getting too much into my personal experience, there’s a reason that I’m no longer there. There’s a
reason that a lot of the great talent and the people that I was surrounded with during that time frame, which is
very much, as I’m still told, as recently as last week, a referential time frame for the business where work and
change was realised to such that’s it’s still revisited on a regular basis today. There’s a reason why a lot of those
people are no longer there, and I would say, in a word, leadership. There’s definitely a, I would say, a
leadership gap, personally. Of course, that’s, as of my departure, I have no idea what the leadership and, or
what the culture is like there today.
[00:56:25]
NH: Great commentary. We will now end the Interview there. Let me close by saying, thank you, James, for
your input, really interesting Interview. Thank you, clients for joining Third Bridge Forum’s Interview today. If
you wish to speak with our specialist, James, in a private call or meeting, then please let your relationship
manager know. Thanks, goodbye.
JF: Thanks so much, appreciate it everyone. Goodbye.
Transcription ends at 00:56:39 of the recorded material
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