On to unveil its spray-on shoe on eve of the Olympics
“[On’s] luxury brand premium comes from the materials, the design and the innovation. Our consumers, our fans expect innovation from us,” says On co-founder and co-chairman Caspar Coppetti. “And in fact, whenever we do bold innovation, the product resonates the most. Now, with LightSpray, it’s a one-of-a-kind innovation we have never done before, and actually most brands have never done in their whole lifespan.”
Winning athletes first
Keen running fans may already have spotted the Cloudboom Strike LS. After trying the shoes in training, On athlete and champion distance runner Hellen Obiri insisted on wearing the first pair at the Boston Marathon in April, ahead of the planned Olympics launch. “There were some nerves for sure,” Griffin says, “but it was worth the risk.”
It took a little while to get On athletes like Obiri on board, Griffin and Coppetti agree, because the shoe looks and feels so different to previous models, and hadn’t been tested in a race. “But after the first two or three training sessions, the athletes we gave the shoes to were like, ‘I’m not giving this back,’” Griffin says.
Other athletes who have already raced in LightSpray shoes include track athletes Olli Hoare, Mario García, Robert Farken, Dominic Lobalu, Luke McCann and triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt. At a Diamond League running event in Oslo, Lobalu broke a swiss record in the 3,000 metres and then passed his race-winning shoes onto Farken in the changing room, who went on to place fourth in his own race. “That was amazing to hear,” Coppetti says.
Like the CloudTec, the Cloudboom Strike LS is an aesthetic leap for consumers to make. But Coppetti is confident in the shoe’s performance credentials. As well as being light, the Cloudboom is thin for aerodynamics (“which is often ignored in footwear”) and also fast to put on, which has already benefited triathletes in testing, as they can get the shoe on in just three seconds, Coppetti adds. “If it works, if it makes you fast, people will want it, right?”
Responding to a lack of footwear innovation
On has been quietly working on the LightSpray innovation since 2019, when a member of its innovation team saw someone creating a halloween decoration with a glue gun in a video online. It’s ambitious and likely costly (the LightSpray team consists of 50 people, expected to reach 100 by the end of the year). But Coppetti and his team are cognisant that there’s a lack of innovation in footwear, which analysts believe has contributed to sales declines at incumbents such as Nike and Adidas, and a general slowdown in sneaker market growth since 2022.
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