Strategy March 09, 2022
Chapter 1: Next Level Apparel’s Brand Elevation - A Recalibrated Brand Story
There’s been a recent noteworthy elevation in Next Level Apparel’s (asi/73867) brand presence online that's hard to miss. Just take a look at their recent 2022 Digital Catalog, as well as their Instagram account. We couldn’t wait to learn more about the driving force behind this brand transformation, so we reached out to Peggy Schulz, NLA’s new VP of Marketing to get the inside scoop. What we found was a refreshing approach to branding and the underlying foundation for NLA’s new tagline: READY TO INSPIRE™.
The key concept behind NLA’s new look? “Customer first. Always”. It’s no secret that NLA is obsessed with designing and producing premium-quality blank apparel for their customers. However, what may not be as evident is how passionate their product design and marketing teams are about inspiring creativity through NLA’s apparel design, fabric choices, on-trend color selection and branding assets.
“READY TO INSPIRE™ isn’t just another clever marketing tagline, it’s our pledge and commitment to customers that we are ready to help them promote their brands, support their cause, ignite team spirit and inspire decorators to unleash their creativity without limitation,” Schulz explains. “We want others to be inspired by our marketing efforts. It’s important to us that we’re able to ‘walk the talk’, meaning that all of our marketing campaign elements represent NLA authentically, whether it be our messaging or our branding and images.”
“We are relentless in finding new ways to partner with our customers to grow their business and our own branding is one way that we can help them create that vision for the decorator or end-user,” Schulz continues. “When we started to write our new brand story in early 2022, we realized it wasn’t as much about us as it was about helping our customers and making it easier to do business with NLA. Because of that, we took our marketing strategy down to the studs, so that we could rebuild a new, strong brand foundation that’s built around our customers’ needs. We call this our Recalibrated Brand Story.”
Today, NLA’s new brand presence boasts a clean, fresh, modern look that is relatable yet spiced with just enough edge to provoke the creative process that their premium blank apparel originated from. What do we mean by that? NLA embraces their Los Angeles roots; a community steeped in creativity that thrives on music, sports, and entertainment. NLA wants to share that creative energy with their customers.
“We want to show our support and passion for our customers and the promotional products industry in our own unique way through brand campaigns, social media, digital assets and website enhancements,” Schulz states.
As for what’s next for NLA? Their Recalibrated Brand Story has just begun, so be sure to check back for Chapter 2 in April!