Vooray Case Competition Kickoff

By Derek Saraiva

Vooray was started in 2009 by Todd Nyman in his parent's basement. Todd had a passion for sports and wanted to create clothing that matched the energy of the outdoors.

One of Todd's first brand launches was "SUP", short for Superb Under Pressure. In order to get the brand launched, Todd was faced with the challenge of accumulating the capital needed to establish some sort of storefront. Unfortunately opening retail stores can be very expensive, so Todd chose to start out with a small pure play online storefront instead of a brick-and-mortar shop. He started out online with an amazingly small inventory of only 12 t-shirts.

Todd Nyman presenting to the HMA club

To cut down on marketing costs, but still get the name out there, Todd partnered up with YouTube channels featuring extreme sports such as barefoot skiing. YouTube featured 15-30 second ads that

Todd attributes part of this success to the Vooray demographic, which consists of 12-28-year-old males. Most of them are active and into at least one of the three major outdoor sports: skiing, surfing, and/or skating.

Another key to Vooray's success came from sponsoring athletes involved in extreme yet less-known sports. In the past barefoot skiers had been forgotten as far as sponsorships goes. By partnering with these athletes, Vooray created a win-win situation - the athletes get a sponsor, and Vooray gets a major brand ambassador.

Vooray wants to focus on what Todd calls "The Vooray Project", a social mission launch aimed at the demographic to help facilitate community service. Todd thinks that if done right it could become the next cool new thing.

The case competition objective is to accomplish one of the these three key objectives:
would run prior to the video; this strategy helped spread his brand's message at a relatively low cost.

1. Create uniqueness in a very competitive retail market

2. Gain increased exposure by using low cost methods

3. Generate a creative way to launch the social mission (the Vooray project).

Good Luck to all the competitors!