For years, New Balance took a backseat as shoe brands like Nike signed megastar athletes to multimillion-dollar deals. In fact, the company ran a campaign in the 1990s with the tagline: “Endorsed By No One.”
In 2025, things look quite a bit different for the company once known as the “Dad Shoe” brand. New Balance now boasts a formidable roster of sports stars, with two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff in tennis; three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani in baseball; NBA stars Kawhi Leonard, Jamal Murray and Tyrese Maxey; and WNBA standout Cameron Brink.
Their most recent big-name signee, Cooper Flagg, was just taken No. 1 overall by the Dallas Mavericks in Wednesday’s NBA Draft after earning a reputation as one of the best teenage basketball prospects this century.
“We knew that we could be so much more than we were, and we knew that the story, the values and the potential of our brand was under-realized,” the company’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Davis recently told Forbes’ Justin Birnbaum.
Read the full story about New Balance here, and check out Forbes’ latest list of the world’s most influential CMOs, where Davis ranked No. 2. And as always, keep scrolling below for more great articles from the Forbes newsroom. |
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