New Balance
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| New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; padding:16px 0 16px 0;">Image:NewBalance.gif</td></tr> | |
| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1906 as New Balance Arch Support Company |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts
<tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Key people</th><td>William J. Riley, founder |
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. (NBAS) is a footwear manufacturer based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1906 as the New Balance Arch Support Company. Despite eschewing expensive advertising campaigns, it has grown to become the fourth-ranked maker of sports footwear in the world.
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[edit] History
In 1906, William J. Riley, a 33 year old English immigrant, founded the New Balance Arch Support Company, which manufactured arch supports and other accessories designed to improve shoe fit, in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1934, Riley took on as a partner his top salesman, Arthur Hall, who had found his niche by marketing his products to policemen and other people whose jobs required them to spend a lot of time standing. In 1956, Hall sold the business to his daughter Eleanor and her husband Paul Kidd.
Eleanor and Paul continued to sell mainly arch supports until 1961, when they designed and manufactured the "Trackster," the world's first running shoe made with a ripple sole. It was also the first running shoe to come in varying widths. The Trackster became the shoe of choice for running coaches and fitness directors, and led to New Balance's growing reputation for manufacturing innovative and specialized footwear in multiple widths.
Marketing was mostly by word-of-mouth or local sports fairs, and sales languished, until 1972, when current CEO Jim Davis bought the company on the day of the Boston Marathon. At the time, the company consisted of just six people making thirty pairs of shoes a day. Jim's wife Anne joined the company in 1978, and the two pledged to uphold the company's traditional commitment to individual preferences, customer service, and quality products. Their timing was perfect, as the Boston area soon became a hotbed of the running boom which struck the U.S. in the 1970s. Their product line expanded and sales skyrocketed. The homegrown company prospered, and the Davises looked to expand New Balance into a global company. Today, thirty percent of the shoes sold in the European market are manufactured at the New Balance facility in England.
[edit] Current company profile
Today, New Balance employs almost 3,000 people worldwide, including 1,200 manufacturing associates in five U.S. plants, located in Boston, Massachusetts, Lawrence, Massachusetts, Miami, Florida, Norridgewock, Maine, Skowhegan, Maine, and Norway, Maine. Annual revenue for the company hit the $1 billion mark in 2000, and has continued to rise ever since.
New Balance is still a privately held company and it has remained committed to its original strengths, including width-sizing, U.S. manufacturing and grassroots promotions. A large part of New Balance's marketing strategy is based on their support of athletics, particularly running. The company sponsors the LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon, the New Balance Maine Distance Festival, the Lilac Bloomsday Run, the New Balance Games, and the Great Cow Harbor 10K as well as many smaller races throughout New England. New Balance has become a national sponsor of the Susan G. Komen Foundation's Race for the Cure for breast cancer research. It is also a generous contributor to various charities in Boston and other cities in which New Balance facilities are located.
New Balance has also acquired the Dunham brand, which provides the same technology as New Balance's shoes, but in a more casual line, and an outdoors line including hiking shoes for both men and women. They have also developed a line called Aravon that excels in producing work shoes, also for men and women. In 2005, New Balance acquired Innovative Hockey, but renamed it using the Warrior brand, as Warrior Hockey. <ref name="fact sheet"/> New Balance has also shown an interest in lacrosse, acquiring Warrior Lacrosse in February 2004 and Brine, Inc. in August 2006.
[edit] Made in America?
Aside from "Endorsed by no one", one of New Balance's marketing points is that it is "Made in America". However, New Balance, like virtually all athletic shoe manufacturers, is supplied (at least partly) by Chinese factories. <ref>National Labour Committee (November 15, 2002). Report on labour practices of New Balance supplier in China.</ref>
The company underwent sustained scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission on this issue in the 1990s. The F.T.C. insisted that 90% of a product must be American-made to justify a "Made in U.S.A." claim, while New Balance acknowledged that their soles, which the F.T.C. estimated as 75% of the product, were made in China. The percentages, which many companies joined New Balance in criticising as arbitrary, have subsuquently been made less stringent, and New Balance still describes its high end shoes as primarily American-made. Lower-end New Balance shoes are generally made in China, and are described as such on the labeling and boxes.
[edit] References
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