5 Ways to Take the Ivy Park Approach to Marketing

Sell out like Beyonce

Ivy Park release day is like a holiday in the athleisure/wellness world. With over 15,000 social media mentions on #adidasxIVYPARK globally (resulting in a social reach of 146 million people), it’s a big deal. We stop what we’re doing, head to Adidas and frantically add-to-cart everything we can get our hands on. 

It’s coveted. It’s fresh. It feels like it’s made for us. And, most importantly of all, it’s co-signed by Queen B and her entire kingdom. Any marketer looking to sell out of a product in Q2 should look at Beyonce’s hit list to ensure success. Think about how you can create share-worthy content that sparkles on the gram, galvanize a community poised to purchase and celebrate their wins when they purchase.

Follow these five steps:

Prime your audience early

Plan your moment carefully. Beyonce first teased her upcoming Icy Park collections in an Elle interview about a month before launch. By answering questions in a national fashion outlet, she’s piquing her community’s curiosity and getting them prepared for a surprise drop that could come at any moment. Find a publication whose audience overlaps with your products, and pitch them for a feature or write an op-ed piece. Get your product on consumers’ minds as a first touch point.

Share a high-level vision of what launch will entail

Folks are aware that there’s a launch coming up—but they need to get excited about it. They need to actually see what the collection is. For her second launch, Beyonce dropped a gorgeous sizzle video highlighting the collection, plus lookbook images of herself, Gucci Mane and Hailey Bieber in key looks. The launch of that imagery was widely reported in outlets, and by including music stars in the lookbook imagery, the collection opens itself up to another element of PR: music. The audience is doubled, and everyone’s excitement continues to build.


Create a surround-sound social effect

Millennials are spending about two hours and 38 minutes on social media each day. Meet your audience where they’re at. Two to three weeks before launch, start your seeding plan. Create compelling packaging that’ll pop online and send your product to people that best align with the product and your audience. For Beyonce, that’s A-listers. When the packaging is compelling enough, you can guarantee that each of the recipients like Zendaya and Cardi B will showcase it on their social media channels, once again broadening the collection’s overall reach.

Drop detailed pricing and purchase information

A week before launch, pitch all of your local trade publications to share the practical purchasing information with them. Tell them what retailers are carrying the collection or product, how much it costs, which sizes are available and any other pertinent information. This should also be the time that a full lookbook is released so customers can see the full contents and start picking out their purchases. 

Celebrate the day of the launch

The way streetwear works now, sellouts are so common and consumers are so used to not winning that when you do manage to nab that pair of kicks, you have to let the internet know. How many Clubhouse rooms will be set up the day of for people to gush over their wins? At least three. Twitter will be it all damn day.