Working with the Pros
Being a new product in a new industry, Airofit’s biggest pitfall thus far had been credibility.
“If this really works, why are all the pros not using it?”
We needed something to prove the naysayers wrong - we needed to make it official.
The premise
Cycling is an industry where casual cyclists take examples from the professional peloton; often quite religiously. We had no chance of convincing them if the pros didn’t use this supposedly performance-enhancing tool. Our problem was that we saw the names in order and user lists. We knew they were using Airofit, but couldn’t disclose it.
Lotto Soudal
Partnership with Lotto Soudal was essential to our success in 2022. While the timing wasn’t great as the season had already started, we managed to get the agreement finalized anyway!
During the week of the official announcement, we saw one of the biggest Belgian newspapers pick up the story and expose some of the other pro-riders who were trying to keep their gains under the wraps.
Financial
excellence
All Airofit had to put into this was 35 training devices and the expertise in athlete onboarding and training.
The return - cyclists now account for around 40% of total product users in a company where annual revenue is measured in tens of millions of dollars.
Working with a professional team allowed us access to their follower base. Co-posting on social platforms gave Airofit the largest exposure to date.
Similarly, on other platforms like Strava, we saw larger engagement rates than usual which proved our hypothesis that professional support was essential in this sport.
Engagement
excellence
Live TV exposure
Our new Belgian friendship was also picked up by one of the National TV channels in Denmark which granted us a 15-minute slot before the third and final Danish stage of Tour de France - one of the most viewed live sporting events of the year.
The hosts got to try the product live and question why the product of a Danish startup has been picked up by a Belgian team and not more of the Danes in the lineup.
Content
goldmine
Working with local photographers and following our riders during Tour de France as it stared in Denmark generated content for all platforms
