Inside Hummel: Insights into the sports brand’s offensive strategy

Hummel aims to move out of the red. The Danish sportswear company – originally from Germany – has adjusted its structure to go on the offensive. While the group isn't a major player like Adidas, Nike and the like, it still plays in a higher league than local team sports specialists, explains CEO Lars Stentebjerg. That's why Hummel also wants to grow in large markets like the US and China. FashionUnited took a look around the brand’s headquarters in Aarhus and peeked behind the scenes.

In the harbour of Denmark's second-largest city, on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula, you'll find not only the fashion group Bestseller, with brands like Vero Moda and Something New, but also the team sports specialist. On the other side, at the end of a dock, sits the rather unassuming Hummel headquarters, which has been there since 2011, occasionally passed by a cruise ship.

The exterior of the silver, grey building doesn't really suggest that this is the home of a sporting goods company, where creative minds work on the latest kits and lifestyle products.

Stepping through the glass main entrance, which with its large-scale branding does reveal something about the company, it quickly becomes clear that everything here revolves around football. Rows of Danish national team kits behind the reception desk, a kit 'Hall of Fame' and a giant footballer Buddha statue take up just the entrance area of a complex that is filled to the rafters with sport and memories of the company's history. The Buddha embodies the company mentality – "Company Karma" – under which Hummel wants to promote sustainability goals and social projects through the company and sport.

Around every corner is another kit, a pennant or a historic football boot. Not to mention the extensive archive, which offers many a treasure for any football fan. It's almost surprising that there isn't a football pitch hidden somewhere.

Admittedly, that would be a bit difficult with a total area of 4,000 square metres, which the headquarters encompasses for its approximately 220 employees. After all, the various showrooms for Hummel lines such as team sports, kidswear, footwear, lifestyle and performance, as well as the additional brands Halo and Newline, already take up almost the entire ground floor. Only the staff canteen, a cloakroom, two massage rooms, the kit archive and the museum can also be found there.

One floor up are the various departments, from the design team to IT and digital specialists to accounting. The marketing team is housed in a separate building. Group CEO Lars Stentebjerg's office is also located on the upper floor and is aptly filled with the shared passion for football. Apart from a double row of 16 kits, there is also the kit of his favourite club - Everton FC. The white, life-sized billy goat "Hennes", the mascot of 1. FC Köln, decorated with autographs and Hummel trainers, has also found a place there.

New line-up

Since Stentebjerg joined Hummel as chief operating officer in November 2021, a lot has changed, including within the team. "We have over-invested in specific areas of the company where we've gone back to focus on our core business as part of a strategy going forward," explains Stentebjerg, who was appointed CEO in April.

The company positions itself midway between the large corporations in the sports industry and local team sports specialists: "We are a global player, but we also have a strong local presence in the market where we are represented, because we need to be on site and close to our customers."

Therefore, the decision was made to retain the regional sales teams, but to centralise other areas such as marketing, finance and logistics, some of which were represented in the respective markets, at the headquarters. In addition to Aarhus, Hummel continues to maintain local offices in core markets such as in Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, India and the US.

Targeted revenue increase of more than 500 million euros

Now, after two years of losses amounting to around 100 million Danish kroner (approximately 11.1 million pounds), his work at the company seems to have paid off. Hummel expects to be out of the red in 2024. "We will deliver positive results this year," the CEO is pleased to say. While these are not impressive, they are "acceptable" after the process of recent years. He expects significantly better figures for the coming years.

"It's been some difficult years where I've also been part of the company, but I was brought in to also ensure that we dealt with some of the challenges we had at that point in time. We are in a different place now and things are continuously looking better."

Hummel has set itself long-term goals until 2028. By then, the group wants to achieve an annual revenue of four billion Danish kroner (approximately 444 million pounds) and profit before tax of 330 million Danish kroner. In addition to the financial outlook, the number of amateur teams is to be increased from 3,000 to 10,000 and customer club memberships to two million.

With its established core business of team sports, which is considered a revenue driver, Hummel now wants to invest in other areas again. To this end, the company is stepping up its advertising efforts and investing a "very substantial" share in marketing and digitalisation.

Back to its roots with lifestyle

Overall, the sports heritage is now to be further strengthened by a lifestyle component. However, the brand DNA with the motto "One Brand, One Voice" and the Hummel logo will be retained. Hummel is therefore all about team sports, both on and off the pitch. Away from the grass, this is implemented through streetwear-oriented collaborations such as with the US football club El Paso Locomotive FC, or trainers inspired by handball shoes from the company's own archive.

"Our history shows products full of heritage, character and unique style. The challenge is to make these qualities something consumers truly want. If our products are as innovative as we believe and our brand is as strong as we hope, we need to make sure consumers see that too."

However, one product – the adult football boot – is missing from the company's range, even though it is the cornerstone of the company. In 1923, Hamburg entrepreneur Max Albrecht Ludwig Messmer and his father Michael Messmer launched a football boot called "Hummel" (German for bumblebee), which became a brand some 40 years later. Today, Hummel only offers football boots for children. However, this could change in the future, at least if you ask Stentebjerg what he thinks is missing from the product range.

Hummel on course for expansion

In addition to the main brand, the lifestyle and outerwear-oriented brand Halo is also set to move forward. Halo has largely been the responsibility of the Hummel teams up to now and has now been strengthened by specialists who are dealing with the design, product development, sales and marketing of the outerwear supplier.

This is intended to help the brand, which was acquired in 2020 together with running specialist Newline, to expand outside its domestic market. Halo is already well established in Denmark and has two flagship stores in Copenhagen and Aarhus. There are also three shop-in-shops within Hummel stores, of which there are a total of 14 in the domestic market.

For international growth, Halo is focusing on the wholesale business and aims to have a greater presence in the core markets of Germany, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland and, from AW25, Italy. The brand currently works with around 50 retailers abroad.

Collaborations such as a capsule collection with the car manufacturer Jeep and the temporary co-sponsorship of the Danish national football team with Hummel at the international match against Spain in November are intended to support these plans.

New markets are also important for the main Hummel brand, which is trying to grow in the team sports sector in the US, supported by collaborations with select professional teams such as El Paso. In the Chinese market, meanwhile, Hummel is focusing more on its lifestyle products and is expanding there with a licensing partner.

While Hummel wants to continue to grow in China via a distribution licence, the company has reduced the majority of its partnerships over the past 10 years and taken them in-house.

When it comes to licensing, the company focuses on partnerships in markets that require significant adaptation, including Japan and Korea. However, Hummel retains control over aspects such as brand and product development in order to ensure a consistent overall image here as well. In addition to Japan, Korea and China, there are currently partnerships for Argentina and Great Britain for team sports.

FashionUnited was invited by Hummel to its headquarters.

This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.DE. It was translated to English using an AI tool called Genesis.

FashionUnited uses AI language tools to speed up translating (news) articles and proofread the translations to improve the end result. This saves our human journalists time they can spend doing research and writing original articles. Articles translated with the help of AI are checked and edited by a human desk editor prior to going online. If you have questions or comments about this process email us at info@fashionunited.com