Women’s Sports Branding in the Perspective of Her Economy:

Taking Lululemon as an Example

Ying Liu

College of Economics and Management, Communication University of China, Beijing, 100024, China

Keywords: Her Economy, Women's Sports Branding, Brand Symbolisation, Community Marketing.

Abstract: Against the background of the booming "she economy" and the growing demand for female sports

consumption, this paper takes Lululemon as an example and explores the strategy of female sports brand. The

key to Lululemon's success in building brand symbols is to accurately position the image of "super girl",

satisfy functional and spiritual needs through product differentiation, and strengthen consumers' emotional

connection through community marketing strategies such as experience centres, opinion leader cultivation,

and online community interactions, so as to enhance brand loyalty and market influence. The study shows

that women's sports brands need to adapt to the positioning of "she economy", combine experience marketing

with women's consumption psychology, realise the precise connection between product innovation and

women's needs, promote the interaction between community marketing and women's social attributes, and

integrate online and offline strategies to adapt to women's consumption habits, which provides practical

inspiration for the industry's innovation.

1 INTRODUCTION

In today's society, the "she-economy" has

become an important force driving the

development of the consumer market. The "she-

economy" refers to the rise in the economic and

social status of modern women, which has given

women better employment opportunities, more

disposable income and the right to make their

own choices about consumption. This

phenomenon signifies the improvement of

women's financial situation, economic status,

and consumer power, which has given rise to

stronger consumer demand and formed a new

economic growth point exclusively for women.

In China, the population of fashionable women

between the ages of 25 and 40 has reached 290

million, leading more than 70% of household

consumption decisions, and the market size will

exceed RMB 10 trillion in 2023, which is large

enough to constitute the world's seventh-largest

consumer market, fully proving the arrival of the

era of "Her Economy"(HUATAI SECURITIES,

2024).

In the context of the "she-economy", women's

demand for health is becoming more and more

pronounced, and exercise has not only become a

means of pursuing health, but has also evolved into a

fashion symbol. Women's consumption concepts

have changed, placing emphasis on personal comfort

and health.Sports fit this need, making sports

consumption popular with women(Wang,

2022).Especially after the epidemic, sports brand

companies in the male market "comfort zone" has

been broken, pay more attention to the female market

growth potential to explore.

With the rise of the "she economy" and the

prevalence of the concept of equipment first, women's

sports brands have also seen rapid development.

Personalised women's sports boutiques have sprung

up, effectively stimulating significant growth in

women's sports consumption. In recent years, many

sports brands have actively launched professional

sports products and services for women to win more

market share. These brands not only focus on

women's sports needs, but also incorporate female

elements into their designs and marketing to enhance

the attractiveness and competitiveness of their

products (Brown & Butler, 2019). Whether they are

domestic or overseas sports brands, all want to

occupy a place in the women's sports market.

According to the financial report, Lululemon

2023 full-year net revenue reached $9.6 billion, with

total global business revenue up 19 per cent year-on-

Liu, Y.

Women’s Sports Branding in the Perspective of Her Economy: Taking Lululemon as an Example.

DOI: 10.5220/0013986900004916

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2025), pages 113-118

ISBN: 978-989-758-778-8

113

year and net revenue from its mainland China

business up 78 per cent year-on-year. Full-year net

profit was $1.55 billion, up 81.35 per cent year-on-

year. By the end of fiscal 2023, Lululemon's shop

count in mainland China had reached 127. Compared

with 99 shops at the end of fiscal 2022, the brand

opened a net 28 new shops in mainland China over

the past year. Among them, the expansion was

accelerated in the fourth quarter with the opening of

13 new shops, which shows its notable performance

achievements (The Beijing News, 2024).

Lululemon's success is not by chance, behind it is

the accurate grasp of women's consumer demand and

brand symbols cleverly created as well as a series of

brand marketing settings around women. By

combining theory and practice, this paper explores

how Lululemon accurately grasps women's

consumption demand to create brand symbols, and at

the same time realises the rapid development of the

brand through its unique community marketing

model. It tries to find a branding path that can be

learnt from the wave of "she economy", which can

enrich the research content of women's consumption

and sports consumption, in order to provide

theoretical support and practical guidance for the

continuous growth of women's sports brand market.

2 LULULEMON'S BRANDING

STRATEGY AND PRACTICE

2.1 Shaping "Her Personality": A

Successful Practice of Brand

Symbolisation

Brand symbolisation refers to the combination of the

brand's own characteristics, logo, name and other

elements, as well as the specific substance (product)

represented by the brand, with the interpretation of

value, culture and identity that the brand conveys to

the consumer, to form a complete and unique symbol

system. This symbol system not only represents the

physical properties of the product, but also carries the

emotional needs of consumers, identity and social

status and other symbolic meaning.

Brand symbolisation helps to enhance brand

recognition and memory, so that consumers can

quickly associate the brand and the value it represents

when purchasing. At the same time, brand

symbolisation can also enhance consumers' brand

loyalty and sense of belonging, so that consumers feel

a unique identity and value pursuit when buying and

using products.

In the perspective of "her economy", female

consumers pay more attention to the personalisation

and symbolic value of brands. According to the

concept of social identity, individuals will actively or

passively learn from others' behaviours in the process

of growing up, and seek to identify and agree with

others. In sports consumption, female consumers not

only pay attention to the use value of sports consumer

goods themselves, but also to their symbolic value,

i.e. the social identity they bring. The body, as a social

symbol, represents a person's social class, personal

habits and qualities, and for women, sports

consumption becomes an important means of shaping

the body, catering to social aesthetics and obtaining

social identity (Sun, 2022).

2.2 Lululemon's Brand Symbolisation

Strategy

2.2.1 User Label

Lululemon positions its users as the "Super Girl" in

the new era, i.e. women between 24 and 35 years old

who are highly educated, have a decent job, are good

at self-media operation, and love to share their life

and sports. This precise positioning makes

Lululemon stand out in the women's sports market

and successfully attracts the attention of the target

consumer group. By setting a high price and unique

product design, Lululemon highlights the style of

"Functional Sports Fashion Trendy Brand", and

satisfies female consumers' pursuit of identity and

fashion taste.

2.2.2 Product Differentiation

Unlike NIKE, Adidas, Puma and other brands,

Lululemon has given up the big and comprehensive

brand route and specialised in the field of yoga,

making it small but exquisite. As the "Hermes of the

yoga industry", Lululemon is known for its

comfortable and skinny yoga equipment. At the

beginning of the brand, achieved sweat-absorbent and

easy-to-wash fabrics, and solved the transparency and

camel toe problems brought by sports stretching.

Through the sewing technology, the lines of the

seams are exposed, realising the harmony between

the body and the clothes during long-time exercise.

Through tailoring, the clothing style fills the gap

between urban leisure and professional

sports/outdoor, and becomes the creator and leader of

"sports and leisure style", which expands the dressing

scene and makes the wearer highlight his/her good

figure (Jaworek, Karaszewski & Kuczmarska, 2021).

These humanised product designs have solved the

pain points of sportswear and made Lululemon both

functional and fashionable, achieving category

innovation, technological innovation and demand

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innovation in one go. So far, Lululemon has formed

advantages in fabric, technology, design, and others.It

is no longer just a pair of yoga trousers, but a healthy,

confident, optimistic and pleasing attitude towards

life, a positive, sunny and comfortable lifestyle,

realising the two-way satisfaction of consumers'

functional and spiritual-emotional needs (Zhou,

2023). At the same time, Lululemon's high pricing, a

pair of yoga trousers can be sold for 300-900, which

not only reflects its excellent product quality, but also

fits the target user group's attitude of pursuing a high-

end and exquisite life. These women have a stable

source of income and are willing to pay for a high-

quality lifestyle. Lululemon's high-pricing strategy

coincides with their values, further shaping the

brand's uniqueness and sense of belonging.

3 DELIVERING "HER

EMOTIONS": LULULEMON'S

IN-DEPTH PRACTICE OF

COMMUNITY MARKETING

3.1 Community Marketing

Model Community marketing is a business model in

which enterprises take advantage of the community

economy to establish close ties with consumers

through social media and other platforms. It

emphasises the "short, flat and fast" model of

interaction as communication, service as marketing

and community as channel, which enables consumers

to take the lead in the design and production of

products and satisfy their personalised needs. In

community marketing, community operators (e.g.

enterprises and merchants) continuously output

quality content or products to retain members and

satisfy their needs, so as to strengthen the stickiness

of the community (He, 2022). At the same time,

community members also actively participate in

consumption, exchange feedback, and even

participate in the design and production of products,

creating value together with the brand. In addition,

community marketing also relies on social

communication platforms and service support

platforms, which are usually set up by community

operators to provide a platform for brand value

output. Through the interaction and communication

between community members and community

operators and community members, the emotional

relationship of the community can be deepened and

emotional identity formed, thus improving the

cohesion and loyalty of the community.

3.2 Group Emotional Links in Her

Economy

The concept of group emotional linkage is rooted in

the theory of "emotional contagion" in social

psychology. This theory suggests that humans have a

psychological mechanism that allows them to observe

and simulate the emotional expressions of others,

thereby generating corresponding emotional

experiences (Zhang, Chen, Yang, Ma, Cheng & Hu,

2023). In a group, the spread of such emotions is like

a chain reaction, which can rapidly and profoundly

affect the emotional state of group members. In her

economy, female consumers often gather due to

common aesthetic preferences, lifestyles or values,

forming communities with strong emotional

resonance. By sharing their shopping experiences and

exchanging their feelings about life, members of

these communities further strengthen their emotional

ties with each other and form a close emotional link.

Under the support of this feature, the community

marketing model is a fish out of water in the female

consumer market. On the one hand, community

marketing can accurately locate the target consumer

groups, i.e. those female consumers with common

needs and emotional resonance. Through in-depth

analysis of the emotional needs and consumption

habits of community members, companies can

develop more targeted marketing strategies to

improve marketing effectiveness. On the other hand,

community marketing emphasises interaction and

participation, which is highly compatible with the

psychological needs of female consumers in the

pursuit of emotional resonance and social sense of

belonging in her economy. Through the interaction,

sharing and feedback within the community,

enterprises can not only understand the needs and

feedback of consumers in real time, but also stimulate

the enthusiasm of consumers to participate and

enhance brand loyalty.

In addition, community marketing can also

leverage the power of group emotional links to

achieve rapid dissemination and diffusion of

marketing messages. In the community, a positive

consumer experience or product evaluation can often

quickly trigger the resonance and attention of other

members, and then form a viral effect. This type of

communication is not only inexpensive, but also

effective, and can bring a large number of potential

customers and sales growth for the enterprise.

Women’s Sports Branding in the Perspective of Her Economy: Taking Lululemon as an Example

115

3.3 Practical Path of Lululemon's

Social Media Marketing

3.3.1 Build Experience Centres to Gather

the Sports Community

The Lululemon brand takes experience centres as the

core link of its marketing strategy. Before entering a

new market, it sets up experience centres in advance

to warm up the market and convenes a KOL team to

carry out teaching activities. These experience centres

do not undertake sales tasks, but focus on providing

customers with course experiences, attracting and

gathering local yoga enthusiasts through regular yoga

courses, promoting exchanges and strengthening the

cohesion of the yoga community, and also covering a

variety of sports courses, such as cycling, dancing,

running, and others, with the aim of establishing

sports communities with their own characteristics.

Consumers' participation in these courses and

community activities creates brand awareness and

value, and through mutual communication and

sharing, word-of-mouth spreads, which leads to the

continuous expansion of the community and lays the

foundation for new marketing promotions. This

experience centre marketing model brings significant

benefits: on the one hand, the combination of

products and free experience courses allows

consumers to understand the brand's philosophy,

influence their lifestyles, and form brand attachments

in community activities, and enhances brand loyalty

with the help of product demonstrations; on the other

hand, through in-depth contact with potential

consumers, the author can observe their living and

consumption habits, and collect feedback to optimize

the applicability of the products. In terms of

community operation, Lululemon understands that

community creation is the foundation and operation

is the key, and since the establishment of the

community, Lululemon has regularly and

innovatively organised activities to closely integrate

the brand concept with the connotations of healthy

life and deliver them to consumers. Nowadays, the

communication mode within the community has

changed from "information production - information

dissemination", which is traditionally led by brand

enterprises and media organisations, to "content

production - content sharing", which is widely

participated by community members, who can

express their views and create content within the

group, and communicate with community opinion

leaders, other members and brand marketing leaders.

Members can express their views and create content

in the group, and engage in dialogues and exchanges

with community opinion leaders, other members and

brand marketing managers to satisfy the needs for

emotional communication and self-realization, so that

consumers can feel that they are part of the

community, form psychological dependence,

promote social interaction and strengthen the

emotional connection with the brand. This interactive

mode full of "participation" keeps consumers highly

enthusiastic, forming consumer stickiness and brand

attachment (Zhang & Loo, 2023).

3.3.2 Cultivate Opinion Leaders to Lead

Community Development

Lululemon's marketing strategy is unique in that it

does not rely on traditional mass media such as

advertisements and celebrity endorsements, but

instead focuses on cultivating a team of opinion

leaders through the community to build stronger

relationships with consumers. These opinion leaders

usually consist of professional yoga, swimming and

fitness instructors, as well as professionally trained

shop staff. Under the guidance of the brand culture,

they further expand the brand's private traffic through

daily teaching and fitness activities, and promote the

brand through the word-of-mouth effect of

professionals, gradually forming a fan circle centred

on opinion leaders to continuously expand the brand's

influence.

According to statistics, Lululemon has more than

2,000 brand ambassadors around the world, including

three categories: global yoga ambassadors, elite

ambassadors and shop ambassadors. Whenever the

brand enters a new market, it will find well-known

local fitness trainers and yoga teachers and invite

them to become brand ambassadors. These

ambassadors wear Lululemon's newest and classic

styles, and build a community-based marketing

strategy through social networks, grassroots

communities and shop events (Li, 2023). In the era of

new media, opinion leaders pay more attention to

online brand communication, and have set up

accounts on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and

Weibo, posting exercise instructional videos to attract

community members, thus promoting both brand

awareness and sales.

3.3.3 Brand Business Expansion: Online

Community Attraction Strategy

When Lululemon entered the Chinese market at a

time when the mobile Internet was booming, the

company adopted an online and offline marketing

strategy. Through the WeChat platform, which is

widely used by the country's people, Lululemon built

an online community and comprehensively covered

its online business in its WeChat public number.

Consumers can not only directly link to the online

store to shop for products, but also book offline

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classes in their cities. The online community provides

consumers with a more convenient channel to learn

about Lululemon, facilitates online interaction

between consumers and the brand, which in turn

enhances user familiarity and activity, and also

positively impacts offline community interaction.

In the process of continuous interaction between

online and offline communities, the cultural and

health concepts advocated by the brand are closely

integrated with consumers' health, sports and life, and

penetrate into their daily lives. When the brand's

cultural and health concepts inspire consumers'

personal lives, the community's participation and

activity naturally increase, and purchasing the brand's

products becomes a natural choice for consumers.

Through the Internet, online and offline communities

can be closely integrated, thus more effectively

integrating brands into consumers' lives (Zhang & Lu,

2023). Currently, media platforms have become an

important stage for brands to display their products,

and Lululemon also uses these popular platforms

(e.g., Shake, Xiaohongshu, Weibo) to display its

products and promote its marketing, inviting opinion

leaders to release professional and practical courses,

and attracting consumers by means of product

reviews and wearing suggestions, as well as

establishing instant social interactions with

consumers.

All in all, Lululemon pays special attention to the

emotional link with consumers in the process of brand

building. Through the way of community marketing,

Lululemon has successfully transformed consumers

into loyal fans of the brand. Whether it is offline

experience showroom or online opinion leader

guidance, Lululemon is committed to creating a

vibrant and sense of belonging community

environment for consumers. This emotional

marketing strategy not only strengthens consumer

loyalty to the brand, but also brings the brand a

sustainable market growth momentum.

4 IMPLICATIONS FOR

WOMEN'S SPORTS BRANDS

Based on the above theories and Lululemon case

study, the proposed development path for women's

sports brands can be expanded in the following

aspects.

First of all, women's sports brands need to achieve

accurate brand positioning in line with the trend of

"her economy". Lululemon's success lies in the fact

that its brand positioning coincides with women's

self-expression and pursuit of individuality in her

economy. Based on the core concept of 'her economy'

theory, women's sports brands need to deeply analyse

the multi-level needs of female consumers for quality

life and personal growth, so as to create a brand image

that matches women's values and has emotional

resonance, and then achieve long-term brand

development.

Secondly, it is also crucial for experiential

marketing to be closely aligned with female consumer

psychology. Female consumers are more inclined to

establish a connection with a brand through

experience, and Lululemon's experiential showrooms

and courses capitalise on the importance female

consumers place on experience and meet their needs

for social interaction and self-improvement. Women's

sports brands should design experiential activities

that are in line with women's consumer psychology

and strengthen the emotional bond between the brand

and female consumers.

Moreover, the precise connection between

product innovation and women's needs should not be

neglected. In her economy, female consumers have

higher requirements for the functionality, comfort and

aesthetics of products, and Lululemon's product

innovation is precisely centred on these needs, so

women's sports brands should pay attention to the

specific needs of female consumers and meet their

expectations through product innovation.

Finally, the mutual promotion of community

marketing and women's social characteristics is also

key. Female consumers tend to be more willing to

share and communicate in the community, Lululemon

through community marketing, not only established

the brand community, but also took advantage of the

social characteristics of female consumers, so that the

brand message spread rapidly in the female group.

Female sports brands should build a community

environment that is conducive to female

communication and sharing.

5 CONCLUSION

This paper discusses the strategy of female sports

brand building in the perspective of "her economy",

taking Lululemon as an example, and reveals how the

brand has successfully captured and led the new trend

of female sports market through precise positioning,

innovative design, high-end experience and

community marketing. The study points out that

Lululemon's success lies not only in its deep insight

into women's consumption needs, but also in its close

integration of brand symbolisation with women's

individuality, creating unique brand values and

emotional links. Social marketing, as one of its core

strategies, has effectively enhanced brand loyalty and

market influence by building experience centres,

Women’s Sports Branding in the Perspective of Her Economy: Taking Lululemon as an Example

117

cultivating opinion leaders and online community

interaction.

The contribution of this paper is that,

theoretically, it enriches the theoretical framework of

emotional marketing and women's brand

management, emphasising the key role of symbolic

brand image in enhancing consumers' emotional

identity; practically, it provides practical examples

for the development of women's sports brands. It

inspires other female sports brands to further optimise

consumer interaction by digging deeper into the

potential of community operation and using digital

tools. The limitation of this paper is that it takes a

single brand Lululemon as an example, and its

generalisability needs to be improved. In the future,

researchers can expand the number of cases, study the

differences between different markets, and analyse

women's sports consumption behaviours with the

help of digital technology, so as to improve the theory

and practice.

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