- In just two years M&S’ activewear offer Goodmove has grown to become its biggest in-house brand, with consumers continuing to embrace health & wellness and driving growth in the activewear market
- The colourful new campaign will promote the brand during the key month of January, as new M&S Family Matters data shows customers are planning important lifestyle changes in 2022
- The Spring Goodmove product features new innovations including front adjusting sports bras and will be supported by new complementary guest brand Speedo
This week M&S is launching its Spring Goodmove range supported by a bold new marketing campaign. The retailer first launched the Goodmove brand in January 2020 driven by “British consumers’ increasing focus on health and wellbeing, a switch towards more casual fashion and the rise of home working” – factors that have all accelerated during the pandemic and remain key to M&S offering a relevant range for customers. As M&S has pivoted to casualwear Goodmove has grown to be its biggest in-house brand, and today is a market-leading offer of 275 products across womenswear, menswear and kidswear run by a 12 strong team of experienced designers, buyers, merchandisers, and technologists. M&S sells 1.6m Goodmove items annually and is market leader for full price women’s activewear. Activewear is a key strategic focus for M&S, with the market now worth almost £900m after seeing 35% growth over the last two years (Kantar Worldpanel) *.
The new Goodmove campaign will run throughout January – the month where the customer mindset is firmly on health & wellness. Last year M&S.com had one million searches for ‘activewear’ in January: double the normal monthly average. Whilst the campaign is launching to coincide with the customer mindset being firmly on health & wellbeing, the focus on Goodmove as a key part of M&S’s clothing offer and wider transformation will be sustained throughout 2022. In September M&S’s Family Matters index** looked at the impact of the pandemic on lifestyle choices and found nearly 3 in 5 people across the UK (representing more than 30 million adults) said that living through Covid-19 had made them “reflect on where they are with their life” and as a result were “planning major changes as we come out of Covid-19”. Health and fitness emerged as the most dominant themes, with 64% of these people saying they would take their health more seriously than before and 63% saying they would do more exercise. The January Family Matters Index (which will be released fully in January) shows that 54% of people have already made a life change and 84% of these people will make more changes in 2022. The most relevant contributing factors to a healthy lifestyle are viewed to be good quality food (92%), regular exercise (91%) and spending time outdoors (90%) – making the Goodmove range an important purchase throughout the year ahead.
Richard Price, MD of Clothing & Home at M&S said:
“Shaping the future of M&S Clothing means continuing to maximise the strength of our own brand product: consistently focusing on everyday style & value, heroing product categories that matter most to our customers and developing our unique in-house brands. Launched just two years ago, today Goodmove is our biggest own brand, a credible competitor in the growing activewear market and a truly relevant offer for our customers. With health & wellness more important than ever for our customers, we’re starting 2022 with a bold campaign for Goodmove that highlights both the trusted value of the product and the important innovations within the range.”
Goodmove – activewear that performs
The colourful January campaign for ‘Goodmove – activewear that performs’ covers the full spectrum of marketing activity and is focused on growing brand awareness and highlighting the innovations within the range. The energetic and uplifting Spring collection offers the everyday style & value customers expect from M&S and spans everything from practical outerwear for those on the go, to matching ‘mini me’ leggings to performancewear. Highlights of the new range include:
- The best-selling (£25) ‘Go Move’ “squat-proof” legging (5,000 are sold in black every month) introduced in new prints including ever-popular leopard print (with a matching half zip running top and crop vest available).
- New reflective and bright items for dark January days including a womens padded reflective running jacket (£55) and orange mens anorak (£55).
- A brand new Extra High Impact sports bra (£28), with innovative cup technology and front adjusting velcro straps for maximum support and a custom fit. The product comes following customer feedback on the difficulty for some of perfecting adjusting straps from the back, particularly for sports bras.
The campaign will also celebrate the loyal customer following Goodmove has grown, and the incredible feedback customers have given on the product. Throughout M&S stores, signage will include comments lifted from five-star reviews on M&S.com (examples pictured).
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Introducing complementary ‘Brands at M&S’
Alongside Goodmove, now M&S’s biggest own brand, the retailer is adding selected third-party brands in complementary activewear categories to support the range, including fitness watches via WatchShop and from January, Speedo swimwear. The small curation of Speedo products will include bestsellers in their fitness range such as the Endurance+ Medallist swimming costume in womenswear and the Boom Logo Splice Jammer swim shorts in menswear. As part of ‘Brands at M&S’ the retailer is also now selling Dharma Bums – a popular yoga brand with feminine designs.
Goodmove is available now in all of M&S’s Clothing & Home stores and online for Click & Collect to over 700 locations.
