Sondra Sneed
How did a niche company making oceanic gear go on to thrive with equal success in a completely different arena?
Body Glove begins its tale with a set of twin farm boys who taught themselves how to swim and ‘deep-sea dive’ in a pond on their family’s land in Boonville, Missouri. As the story goes, it was a love of water that eventually lured them to the west coast to settle in Southern California’s Manhattan Beach when they were still just teenagers in the 1940s.
Seduced by the ocean and the lifestyle it created, they eventually joined California’s surfing pioneers to form the Manhattan Beach Surf Club and ultimately became among the first in the world who were “certified” scuba instructors. By 1953 they purchased a surf shop called Surf N’ Dive.
Surf N’ Dive became a premier retail store, which was and still is dedicated to the quintessential California dream - you guessed it - surfing and diving.
For what seemed like a slacker’s ideal profession, the move actually led to a critical invention, which changed everything for water sport enthusiasts around the world.
Bob and Bill were said to be like “modern-day Einsteins for the ocean.” When they discovered a new insulating material called Neoprene, the brothers used it to invent the first practical wet-suit. Having a wet-suit meant surfers and divers could enjoy California waters year ‘round. When the neoprene wet-suit that “fit like a glove” was born in 1953, it launched a name now recognizable by multiple generations.
But how did mobile phone cases enter the picture? Body Glove’s “lifestyle” brand makes a perfect fit for mobile-based suiting: young surfers, older generations, and everything in-between now recognize that it stands for quality and innovation. So as Body Glove wet-suits “protect the core” of the human body, its brand has evolved to manufacture product that protects electronic gear as well.
But how did the connection happen? And how did a niche company making oceanic gear go on to thrive with equal success in a completely different arena? Here’s the secret sauce:
Body Glove leveraged its brand in a licensing deal with another innovative company who had already established a huge footprint in retail stores.
If you were to look under your desk or in the copy room, you might find the name Fellowes on a shredder or binding machine. Fellowes is a global manufacturer and marketer of business machines, records storage solutions, and technology accessories with a sizable presence in mass merchant sales. Since its original Bankers Box, produced in 1917, Fellowes has concentrated on helping people manage information.
‘Protecting information’ is how Fellowes puts its umbrella over the Body Glove brand for mobile products. Director, Eugene Lee says that Body Glove’s mobile accessory business is a company within a company. Body Glove has been around since 1953, but Fellowes has been licensing the mobile division for nearly nine years and doing it very well. So well in fact, a distributor like Aries Manufacturing, located in Libertyville, Illinois, is able to promote a popular brand and supply the indirect mobile channel with cases that are always in demand and timely. “When a customer uses a Body Glove case, they will look for another one when it’s time to upgrade their phone,” Lee says.
Aries Manufacturing is highlighting the Body Glove line to meet customer demand. “Body Glove continues to innovate and create cutting edge products for wireless devices. We have plans to expand our relationship with them over the next 12 months with a commitment to have more products in stock and available to our retailers,” says Tom, Aries CEO.
The products that will be made available by October 2009 should prove interesting as the mobile market awaits new phones being launched by the carriers. “We have strong relationships with our carrier partners,” says Lee, “so we are able to develop phone-specific cases at launch of the actual phones, which helps our distributors like Aries have early access to carrying solutions for retailers.” And though he wouldn’t divulge what phones are going to be released, Lee did say that Body Glove has at least 12 new models to fit cases to for launch this fall.
The young and young at heart are forever consumers of new technology. Since Body Glove’s brand has been capitalizing on the young since 1953, they have a full range of dedicated fans that span generations. Lee points out that their cases maintain a strict adherence to quality. This means they’ll never be the cheapest but as the value of mobile product continues to rise, good protection will always be in fashion. It’s not hard to imagine then, the familiar yellow hand on a black background to be an iconic symbol for mobile generations to come.
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