Vibram Making A Focus On Outsoles A Growth Business

Vibram outsoles have enjoyed growth in the outdoor space thanks to a range of new companies partnering with the Italian maker.

Vibram

Companies no longer ask Vibram simply for outsoles, instead requesting problem solving. That’s let the privately held Italian rubber outsole maker triple its business since 2018 while new partnerships with the likes of Nike, Brooks, Arc’teryx and Altra allowed Vibram to grow its retail exposure nearly sixfold.

Performance footwear brands, especially the giants, once kept all their components in house. That’s no longer the case. “We don’t have the resources for the marketing, but we have the product,” Fabrizio Gamberini, global chief brand and consumer officer for Vibram, tells me. “With the product we’ve created a relationship with the consumer, so the consumer is asking companies for Vibram. If they want to provide a value-add, they need to have Vibram.”

The leader in rubber outsole technology, Vibram has carved more than a niche, becoming the industry standard, whether for work or safety, or now outdoor performance. “Everything starts with the product,” Gamberini says. “What we are able to do is really ignite the greatness of a product.”

The success of Vibram in the most extreme outdoor conditions—it’s become a mainstay at the UTMB and Vibram has rubber compounds that don’t freeze in below-zero temperatures for mountain runners and don’t dissolve in heat, used by wildland firefighters—has allowed the brand to build a following. The only reason consumers demand Vibram from their favorite companies, though, is trust. “If you see the yellow tag, you are really confident and then you can focus on other elements,” Gamberini says. “Does it have Vibram or not? Can I trust it or not?”

That trust is coming up on a 90^th anniversary. Started in 1937, the secret sauce of Vibram is a bit like Coca-Cola, with a formula anchored in time, but evolved along the way. Gamberini says it isn’t about creating new formulas, but about offering fresh designs and tweaks.

Every decision focuses on Vibram fixating on one thing only: outsoles. “We are an ingredients brand,” Gamberini says. “We don’t do anything else. We just do outsoles. At this point it is like those artists who are incredible at what they are doing, that is what they do. They don’t think about anything else.”

Vibram has a few main pillars of outdoor-focused outsoles, each fine-tuned to provide a specific solution. When Vibram launched its first product with Nike, the ACG Ultrafly on July 23, it started a cascade in adoption from the Oregon-based giant and helped Vibram gain more industry awareness. Nike isn’t the only new partner. Alongside legacy partners such as Merrell, Scarpa, The North Face and Danner, Arc’teryx has seen an uptick in popularity in Asia with Vibram, Saucony pushes needs on technical terrain, the Brooks agreement has opened a new wave with the Seattle brand and there’s an exclusive new Vibram outsole for Altra. “After Nike we started to get request from pretty much everybody,” Gamberini says.

New brands on board and longstanding partners expanding their use has fueled Vibram’s growth, with the United States the largest driver of that and China following.

Brooks, a leader in running, partnered with Vibram this summer for the first time on the brand’s pinnacle Cascadia lineup with Vibram Megagrip. A new exclusive outsole for Altra’s Torin 9, the EX Dura, offers a creation designed first for road. Norda has chosen the new Megagrip Elite version with even more grip, ideal for wet roots. “We changed the formula to provide that type of feature,” Gamberini says about what Norda selected.

With hike and trail the main platform for the performance athletic pillar, Vibram’s next big step is to continue to embrace the trail while welcoming the sports of golf, tennis (Italian tennis brand Lotto already uses Vibram), basketball and surfing. “We have good plans,” Gamberini teases about a forthcoming tennis collaboration, “we are working.”

Having that base formula, though, is key. From there, Vibram can tweak to solve problems, whether offering a lighter weight version mixed with fabric, a winter version mixed with fiberglass to ensure grip on wet ice or snow or a nearly completely natural version. No tweak hits the ground without extensive testing, both with machinery and with athletes scrutinizing everything from grip strength to rubber thickness. “I think all of this is helping get the quality of product to the point people are coming to us,” Gamberini says. “We are premium because they get something that is valuable.”

Whether looking for grip to run in an icy Central Park in February, a scorching Phoenix in August, across the French Alps in Chamonix, France, the wet terrain of the Pacific Northwest, the tricky terrain of Italy’s the Dolomites or the gravel of mountain roads across the world, “the outsole is the moment in which your body is touching the ground,” Gamberini says. “A lot of companies are working on the midsole, but what is really touching the ground? It is the outsole. If you are prepared with that, you can accomplish much more.”

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