Good morning everybody and welcome to Kathmandu's 2021 Investor Day. Just a bit of housekeeping before we start, as there's a few more people joining us. We will have a Q&A session at the end after the series of presentations today. As we're going through, if you want to have any specific questions asked, please type them in the Q&A box. I will be moderating and combining questions where possible to ensure we cover as much ground as we can during the time allotted for the Q&A. Also, just as a reminder, today is not a financial results presentation. It is an opportunity to hear about the strategy of the business, the growth opportunities and hear from management. If you could keep the Q&A to questions on those topics, that would be appreciated. As I said, it's not a financial results presentation.
Thank you again for joining us. On that note, I'll hand across to Kathmandu Holdings Chairman, David Kirk, to start the Investor Day. Thanks, David.
Thanks Ben and good morning, everyone. It's great to have you. Thanks very much for joining for our Investor Day. We'll just go on to this slide, which I think sets out the agenda. The agenda is straightforward. You'll be hearing from the most senior executives of the company, led of course by Group CEO Michael Daly. In addition to the CEOs of the three brands, you'll also hear from Eva Barrett and Robert Fry, who are respectively the Chief Customer Officer and Chief Product Officer at Kathmandu, as we're doing a deeper dive into Kathmandu on this call. Moving on to the team.
I won't go through each of the team members, but as I say, you're hearing from the most senior executives in the organization, and the head of customer and product for Kathmandu. Finally for me, in a brief introduction, I just stepped back from the sort of formal process of introducing this and thought, well, if I was in your shoes, I was coming on this call and giving two hours of my time, what would I want to walk away at the end of it having learned? What I thought was, what would say to me was, I would like to know what's the competitive advantage of this group? What's the plan to take advantage of that competitive advantage to see that manifest in growth and profitability?
Finally, thirdly, what's the investment case? I'll quickly summarize what we believe those things are, and you can explore those further with the team as we go through the two hours. Firstly, what's the competitive advantage? Iconic technical brands. Products that deliver on the brand promise. Genuine and growing ESG credentials that hold ourselves up against pretty much any group of brands in the world. Diversification. Multi-channel capability and growing multi-channel capability. And for me, most importantly of all, a team of executives that lives and breathes in brands and knows how to execute. That's our competitive advantage. Collectively, that adds up to significant competitive advantage for this group. I'm not gonna say anything about the plans because that's what you're gonna hear about from management today, how we intend to utilize that competitive advantage in our execution.
Thirdly, what's the investment case? Well, I'd break this into three things. Firstly, there's the reopening, and we know that both Kathmandu and Rip Curl have been significantly disadvantaged by the lockdowns in Australia and New Zealand, and that's now unwinding. But we also know that Oboz and Rip Curl in different ways have suffered to a lesser extent, but still significantly from supply chain issues. Those are also unwinding. You can certainly discuss that a bit more today if it's of interest to you. Second part of the investment case, of course, is what every company has to do, it has to execute. It's growth in revenue and growth in profitability. Just to summarize quickly for the three different brands.
For Rip Curl it's about, Rip Curl's in a good place. Rip Curl's executing well and growing strongly. It's about relentless focus on being the best and iconic surf brand in the world, and executing globally, catching up a bit on some of the digital opportunities that are out there, catching up on loyalty programs with Club Rip Curl, all to continue what is a pretty strong, very strong roll that business is on. For Kathmandu, which has been the business that's been most flattened by COVID, because of its inability to travel to a large extent. The team has used that time extremely well.
If I was to summarize the growth and profitability purpose of Kathmandu, it begins with a reimagining of the brand for a latent customer segment. That's a young customer segment and Megan and Amy and Robert will all talk about that without stepping back from our core customer segment, which is the 40-pluses. Increasingly, that execution, which we'll obviously roll out first in Australasia, that execution will be taken globally. You know, larger market, larger opportunity for Kathmandu as they execute it. With Oboz, I would say again, a business that's performing extremely well. Challenged a bit by some supply chain issues, but performing extremely well and it's a core business.
It's about repositioning the business from a small business that was a kind of captive and that very reliant on REI in the U.S. to a much broader business with broader channel exposure, and a whole wave of new product development coming through and a building digital presence and a broadening and a broadened wholesale position. Really strong, really clear growth and profitability potential in those businesses to deliver on an investment case view. Thirdly and finally, this will take time, but you know, we all know that these things sort of sit still for a time and then suddenly boom, they change. Sometimes there's gonna be a re-rating of Kathmandu Group.
Re-rating of valuation multiples, because eventually people will understand that this group with its iconic brands and its diversification and its multi-channel capability is a genuine global house of brands, and needs to be thought of as such and to be valued as such, as opposed to a, you know, a retail heavy, Australasian heavy, software and outdoor wear company. We firmly believe that transition's gonna happen. As you all know from your own experience, when those transitions happen, they happen quickly. Thank you. I hope that's a useful start. A useful introduction for you. The board is highly motivated and focused and works very well with the management team. There's a very good relationship. We're looking forward to taking the business forward into this new era as we open up. Thank you.
Great. Thank you, David. Well, welcome everyone. Pity we couldn't do this in person, but this is the day and age that we live in. I wanna start with our journey. Our journey as a company and where we're headed and who we are, really kicking off with some of the points that David made. Now, Kathmandu really started life as a Australian/New Zealand retailer with stores and of course, more recently a strong online presence. With the acquisition of Oboz and then Rip Curl over the last couple of years, what we're seeing is a transition in the company. A real change from being an Australian/New Zealand retailer to a leading owner of global brands. A house of brands, if you like.
Importantly with that is diversification, which I really think is an important message. You know, diversified in terms of brands, diversified in terms of the products that we offer, the seasons that we really focus on, and diversified in not only geography, but also channels, which are much bigger wholesale business now. We really think that's important to for everyone to acknowledge, and certainly a key strength of ours as we move forward. In terms of the brands that we operate and own, there's some key attributes that we really think are critically important. Not only important, but points of difference. You know, we wanna inspire people to live an active outdoor life. So having brands that portray that message, live that life, are really important to us. We're also really interested in brands with global appeal.
Brands that can really appeal to all continents of the world is really important to us. We've got brands at various stages like, in that respect, and Grant and Theo will talk about that in the course of this morning. Brands with a technical makeup are also really important to us. We want brands that are designed for a purpose, designed for the outdoors, to be used in the outdoors, to stand up to the rigors of the outdoors. That's essential to who we are and what we're about. Finally, brands that really fit in with our ESG aspirations and our leadership credentials and our overall principles in that space. There's a couple of key attributes and points of difference we think are really important.
Now with that change in, from an Australian/New Zealand retailer to a leading owner of global brands, we certainly are well advanced in looking at a rename of the company to, I guess, mark that transition. We're well advanced on those plans, and we'll be looking to make an announcement on that in due course in the coming months. Moving on to the next slide there. In terms of the group strategy, nothing new on this page that wasn't already covered in terms of the full year results presentation. In terms of our strategy, we've got four key components of our strategy. They are building global brands, elevating our digital experience and capability, leading in ESG, and really driving and leveraging operational excellence across all of the brands that we own and operate.
Just a quick comment with respect to our balance sheet and where we're at. As you all know, we finished the year with a net cash position. With ongoing strong trade, we expect that to continue, of course. That does give us the flexibility of M&A and/or capital management. We think that with our existing brands we've got quite a lot of runway and growth potential. You know, certainly M&A is not necessarily an immediate priority. That said, if the right opportunity comes along, at the right price, we would certainly take a look at it. With that, there may be the opportunity for some capital management once we get the certainty of ownership across all of our operations.
Certainty of opening I should say, across all of our operations around the world, which is certainly becoming clearer by the day with the opening of Auckland in the coming days. Next slide, please. As part of the strategy, in terms of building global brands, we've mentioned that a couple of times already. Each of the brand CEOs are gonna talk in turn about the key product plans within the brands to really drive that global expansion goal. I'll let them talk within each of the brands in turn. What I wanna talk about specifically is just a summary of what those opportunities are. Just leading to the next slide, thanks. Really, with what you see there is just an overlay of where we see the key geographical expansion opportunities.
If I just quickly look to summarize them. In terms of North America, one of the biggest markets in the world. Now, both Rip Curl and Oboz have really strong momentum in that market across wholesale and online, and certainly also Rip Curl in terms of its own stores. We see no reason why we can't continue that momentum in that market for those brands, and certainly targeting to be top brands within their respective surf and outdoor footwear categories in the coming years. We're really excited by the launch of Kathmandu into the North American market. We're launching initially into Canada with a wholesale and online presence, and Reuben will talk about that, shortly. In terms of Europe, Rip Curl, again, has strong momentum in that market across all the channels it operates, wholesale, in-store, and online. Again, no reason why that can't continue to evolve.
Similarly, Kathmandu, similar to Canada, will launch into mainland Europe with wholesale and online in 2022, and Reuben will talk about that. Ongoing potential for Oboz distribution in Europe is also an opportunity. Closer to home, as David mentioned, there's a fantastic opportunity for Kathmandu as things reopen, both in terms of stores, border, interstate borders and, most importantly, international borders. Gives a great opportunity for Kathmandu to recover some lost ground, that was lost through COVID. Certainly there's a great opportunity there for the Kathmandu business to bounce back really strongly. Particularly with all the work that Robert and Eva are doing in product and brand, and they'll talk about that in due course. I think there's a great strong line, strong online potential for all of our brands to gain share of market.
Rip Curl continuing its momentum in terms of its own stores also, and the sale of wholesale. Oboz, potential to launch wholesale for Oboz in the Australian and New Zealand market in short term. Just quickly in terms of emerging markets, we're finding a lot of those markets recovering more slowly from COVID. We'll still continue to operate in those markets, but we'll be probably not as major focused on those markets as the three key markets. But we'll continue to look at opportunities. Finally, just with respect to our retail portfolio, which is a question we get quite a lot. If you think of our overall store number count over the next couple of years, we'll continue to expand and grow, not necessarily aggressively.
We think there's some logical store optimization opportunities, some closures, more likely locally. That's being offset or more than offset by some you know, well-timed and placed openings for not only Rip Curl, but also Kathmandu this time in offshore markets, particularly the USA and Europe. Thanks, Ru. Moving on to the next area of focus, elevating digital. What we do know is consumers' spending habits and the way they interact with brands continues to change. All brands are needing to evolve, to change, to invest in this space, and certainly our brands are no different. We have a short to medium term goal of achieving 25% of our direct to consumer sales being online. I think that's a very achievable goal and indeed many companies have already achieved it. We're working hard towards that goal.
We're really confident that with the initiatives that we're pursuing, those goals can be achieved. In terms of where we're focusing our energy, and I should say, a lot of work has already happened in this space and we're seeing some really good momentum. Certainly there's good runway for future growth in this space. We're enhancing our platforms, so bringing best in class technical platforms in place for all of our brands across all of our markets. That's enabling us to deliver the minimum expectations at least, if not, well, more than minimum expectations that our consumers want to expect from brands, whether that's click and collect, buy in store, deliver to home, buy online, pick up somewhere in store, and so forth. As David mentioned, loyalty we think is an important component of what brands do in today's market.
Rip Curl will be launching its first loyalty program in 2022. Kathmandu already has a fairly advanced loyalty program that we'll be looking to relaunch in 2022 as well, using some new technical platforms. Finally, with respect to some of the insights, the key area of focus for us is the area of making sure that we understand our consumer better, and really through that understanding, by analyzing the data, really targeting some more personalization at our consumer to ensure we can really leverage our relationship with those consumers as much as possible. A lot of time, investment, and money. There's a lot of upside in this space for all of our brands as we move forward. Next slide, thanks.
With respect to ESG, Tim mentioned a couple of times, Kathmandu has been really an early mover in this space, as one of the first and one of the largest B Corp accredited companies, particularly in the Australian and New Zealand market. We think that's a really important initiative. It's one that we're very well advanced in extending that accreditation across all of our brands, and we'll be looking to confirm that hopefully in the next 12-15 months, across both the Rip Curl and the Kathmandu, those brands. Going further than that, we wanna go further than just getting corporate accreditation.
We've actually done a lot of work in the recent months in doing a group materiality assessment, talking to all of our stakeholders as to how they think we can be better and where are areas that focus should sit. The three areas that come out of that were our people and our communities, which is about providing that safe, and strong environment, not only for our own staff, but also for our staff of our suppliers and right through to all of the communities that we operate in. Science-based climate action. We're setting some very clear targets, science-based around climate action and holding ourselves accountable to that. Finally, circular business model.
Really embracing the principles of circularity in everything that we do from the start, the way we design products, right through to development, to sourcing from across the supply chain and getting those products to consumers and, of course, returns. They'll be the key areas of focus. Underpinning all of that is transparency. We think it's important principle to apply is transparency, being clear and open about where we're headed and how we're performing. That's something we'll be looking to really ramp up into the new year, in 2022 as we announce some of our clearer targets and really start to hold ourselves accountable toward achieving those targets. Next slide, thanks. Just like to give a bit of an outline of some of the commitments we've made there as far as where we're headed.
You know, since announcing some of our targets, committing those science-based targets to B Corp accreditation, and moving to an integrated energy report for the FY 2022 financial year. Thanks, Sheree. Finally from me, in terms of leveraging operational excellence, now a lot of work has been done in this space in terms of bringing these brands together. In reality, we probably were distracted slightly by COVID, but there's still a lot of work to be done. That's really exciting for me because this has delivered some really good revenue opportunities. Not only revenue opportunities, but also margin and cost opportunities. That'll be something we'll be looking to aggressively pursue, particularly over the next 12-24 months.
A lot of work has already been done in advancing that work is underway and continuing, and also aligning our structures, our operating structures. We still have a lot of work to do in supply chain and property in particular. We think that those initiatives will be important in driving ourselves to achieving that 15% minimum EBITDA margin, as well as of course fueling good sales growth as we pursue those opportunities. We'll be looking to be more, you know, transparent with some of those initiatives in the new year and really identify where we're headed in that space and where we can deliver those revenue margins and cost opportunities. Next slide, please. With that, I'm gonna now pass you on to Chris Kinraid, our CFO. He's gonna give a bit of a trading update and outlook, and then we'll pass back to Sheree for final comments.
Thank you, Michael. Cheers to that. Yeah, moving to the trading update. Q1 was a quarter heavily impacted by COVID closures, which were longer and deeper than the same period last year. Same-store sales for Rip Curl were -9.4%, overall, and Kathmandu -17.6%. However, where stores have remained open, we're seeing positive growth. For Kathmandu a positive 16.3% and for Rip Curl, plus 1.6%, with a consolidated, 16% same store growth from Q1 last year. Recently, online channels have been strong, up 34%. For Rip Curl up 11.3% and Kathmandu up 68.4%. Due to these channels, the COVID impact in Q1 has had a significant impact, particularly in New South Wales and the Victorian markets.
The impact with our New Zealand government's decision to utilize lockdowns in the same quarterly period has led to a, you know, an impact of about NZD 35 million versus prior first quarter of last year. However, we are now seeing positive momentum in the short period since reopening in our key New South Wales and Victorian markets. We expect we'll see similar in the Auckland market as they open very shortly. In terms of outlook, Kathmandu and Rip Curl are well prepared for the key Black Friday and Christmas trading periods upcoming. Inventory remains sufficient to meet demand overall. Due to the uncertain COVID trading environment, we won't provide any specific forward guidance.
However, with market reopening, trading is expected to improve and there's significant growth opportunities against a difficult comparable period of opening. A key priority remains for our brands to maintain and increase investments in marketing, sustainability, and loyalty to support building our global brands strategy. Supply chain continues to be disrupted globally, particularly impacting the flow of products into our North American markets. Oboz's most deliveries have been impacted due to Vietnam slowly ramping up production following closures in Q1 due to COVID. Demand for Rip Curl wetsuits continues to exceed available supply. Finally, freight and shipping and raw material costs remain elevated as the outlook for supply chain remains challenging. This we manage through pricing and raw material substitution. That's all from me, Michael.
Yeah, thanks, Chris. Just to wrap up, I mean, we're really excited by the opportunity of getting all our stores, finally open in Australia and New Zealand. We've seen really good momentum when those stores open, and with that return to more normality. We're excited just at getting back to normal, to be honest. I think our brands are really well placed to realize their potential. With that, we're going to pass on to each of the brands in turn. We're gonna start with Rip Curl. When I was lucky enough to get the Group CEO role, we had a number of internal and external candidates that, you know, could have possibly taken the CEO role at Rip Curl. Certainly Brooke Farris was a standout in that process.
You know, Brooke and I have worked together here at Rip Curl for the last over 10 years now, and certainly I'm very comfortable that the Rip Curl business is in very good hands. With that, over to you, Brooke.
Thank you, Michael, or otherwise known as MD to all of us. Three months in the CEO role for me, but 20 years in the surfing industry, or 28 if you include being sponsored by Rip Curl during my competitive years and working in surf retail in Western Australia. In my 11 years at Rip Curl, I've worked across three of our major departments, being marketing, e-commerce and product. I joined our global executive team five years ago, when I dove into what was a new role being the general manager of digital. I was tasked with setting up digital and e-commerce as a focus area for future growth. I then moved into the general manager of women's role. Now, a common denominator through that time was our Group CEO, Michael Daly.
I bring to the role both my experience and together with a really strong partnership with MD. The personal vision that I'm bringing to the CEO position is to establish a conscious and engaged environment where purpose is the core motivation of everything we do every day. For me, that purpose is our crew, ESG, it's our customers through unified commerce and Club Rip Curl. It's making quality first products. All of these are key areas and activations that feature heavily in our three-year plan. Next slide. Thanks, Sheree. Now the Rip Curl brand itself has a very clear vision that was set by our founders, and that is to be regarded as the ultimate surfing company in all that we do. Now ultimate means the best.
The best product, the best events, the best athletes, the best service, the best brand message, and the best crew of people. In the words of our founders, "The ultimate surfing company should certainly be one of the biggest and operate all over the world wherever there are peoples who feel the spirit of surf-surfing." This is what we aspire to be still to this day. Ultimately, we aspire to be the world's number one surf brand. That's number one in brand recognition, and that's number one in both turnover and profit. Next slide. Thank you. Now that growth will come from a continued focus to execute our three-year plan. That includes remaining true and authentic to our surfing roots. On screen here, that little building on the left there, that's the old bakery where we started in Torquay. You know what?
We are still here, albeit in a much bigger building with a lot more staff. To be number one, we must remain true to who we are. We must maintain and grow our presence in all of the beaches and surf breaks around the world, both physically and in the minds of our customer. The second pillar of our three-year strategy is fanatical dedication to market leadership in core products. Now that's the best products, particularly across our core products of wetsuits, swimwear, board shorts, equipment, and vouchers. Here it's all about leading with innovation and technology. Finally, that intense focus on exceeding our customers' expectations through digital acceleration, as MD has already spoken to. Here it's a real investment in a truly world-class unified commerce experience.
Now all of these strategies are part of a position of being a technical, premium, full-service brand marketing company that's brought to life for our customers through multiple channels, that being wholesale, retail and e-commerce. Thanks, Sheree. Now looking at our first pillar of the strategic plan, being remaining true and authentic to our surfing roots. Now, COVID lockdowns have inspired a 30% increase in participation in surfing in Australia, and we've seen like updates, or uptakes in key regions around the world, particularly in Europe and the U.S. Through remaining true to who we are, being the first brand that people of all ages can turn to, particularly for a new wetsuit and to many of their beach needs. In bringing this strategic pillar to life, we do so through our team and events, through content creation, and ultimately through sustainability.
Our sustainability has always been inherent in our company and brand values, in particular community and environment. That for us is actively contributing to the local communities in which Rip Curl has major offices, especially with a focus on maintaining the local environment. Now, just a few weeks ago, as we came out of lockdown, we held our 21st Rip Curl Planet Day here in Australia, where our crew planted trees and removed weeds in our gorgeous coastal community. Throughout those 21 years, we've planted 100,000 trees at 80% survival rate. It's something that makes us feel connected to the community, but also to each other as a team. In looking at our brand value of respect, this is about respecting the environment in which we surf and respect for each other and all humanity.
This really talks to what we're doing in terms of B Corp. Now it's so fortunate to have Kathmandu Holdings holding our hand as we go hard for B Corp accreditation to finalize our 2020-2025 ESG strategy. We've also been moving pretty quickly in this space by launching our wetsuit recycling program with TerraCycle. We've completed a social carbon emission certificate to kickstart our carbon offset project. We've achieved a B in the Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Report, the highest in the surfing industry, and we continue to improve the sustainable fabrics in our product collection. Looking at content creation. Now here it's all about driving brand inspiration and traffic across both owned and paid channels. Our content is made up of campaigns, product innovations or our real life on the search, which is about putting the world's best surfers in the world's best waves.
Now, key content that we create, we disseminate through our social channels to over 5 million followers. Looking at our content views across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, not including mainstream, we've had in excess of 69 million views over the last 12 months. Our surf is our reason for being, so this again reaffirms our authenticity to our customer. In team and events, our SurfGroms is a program that onboards 8,000 beginner surfers around Australia each year. We're a proud sponsor of this. Then working all the way through to our world's best team with our three-time world champion, Mick Fanning, two-time world champion, Tyler Wright, Stephanie Gilmore, and then the recently crowned three-time world champion, Gabriel Medina, all riding with Rip Curl logo proudly on the nose of their surfboard.
We have an incredibly strong relationship with the World Surf League, the governing body of our sport. Next year, we really look forward to welcoming back the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, the longest-running surfing event in women's tour. Next slide, thanks, Sheree. Now, something new for us this year was taking on the naming rights of the Rip Curl WSL Finals, which were held in the USA. Now, this was a key strategic move for us to grow the business and brand in North America. Now, this day included the crowning of both male and female world surfing champions. A single day of surfing, and it drew 6.8 million video views across various live streams. The video on demand is still being watched to this day with 3.5 million views to date.
We think that people wanting to relive Gabriel's third world title. That's Gabriel who you can see on the screen here. Now, this is absolutely us making our name on surfing in the USA, a key component to us becoming number one in this region. Let's take a look at some of the video highlights. Thanks, Diana. That is a whole lot of Rip Curl in your face. Our on-the-ground presence was incredibly clear, and at 6.8 million live viewers, social media impressions of over 300 million, together with linear distribution and mainstream media, we absolutely owned the most watched ever event in surfing. We'll continue to own this event for the next couple of years. Next slide, thanks, Sheree. Looking at fanatical dedication through market leadership.
Here, it's about innovation, women's, kids, and 365-day relevance as key growth areas for us. Innovation is all about remaining as the industry leader in technical product and surf essentials. This is wetsuits, board shorts, swimwear, apparel, and everything you need for a day at the beach. Looking at women's, our objective here is to grow the women's brand to 50% of total sales. While we're 52 years young as a brand, women's at Rip Curl really only launched in the early 1990s and has been the fastest growing division over the past 10 years. In looking at growth here, we're driven by the evolution of our women's brand, creating product with purpose, and a real internal focus on engaging a unified mindset.
Our quality is frontline, and we are a brand for all regions, and we will reflect this with our behavior and our culture. Globally, our business combined is 65% men's and 35% women's. That highlights the incredible runway that's ahead for us. Looking at kids, it is something that we've always done, but we really see this as an opportunity for significant uplift. When you look at the total addressable market of beach parents in Australia of 3.7 million, that just shows you the incredible potential we have to own this division and category. Here we've really just sorted resource to kids. We're offering a gift card and equal offer across girls and boys, brought to life with our junior surf team riders, of course.
With our quality kids apparel and wetsuits, it really is an opportunity to recruit that next generation and have them grow up with Rip Curl. Finally, on 365-day relevance. We own the summer, and now it's all about owning the winter. We're doing this with the help of Kathmandu, particularly when it comes to fleece and jacket innovation. Our product offer is incredible, and right now in the northern hemisphere, demand is outstripping supply as our strong sell-through rates continue. Now, the ultimate surfing company is one that demonstrates market leadership in both hemispheres all year round, and achieving this remains our focus. Together with that momentum that we're seeing in surf, we are committed to capitalizing on this. Thanks, Sheree.
Looking at exceeding our expectations of customers with digital acceleration, something I'm incredibly passionate about and really excited about the progress we've made here in the last few years. Looking at unified commerce, that seamless and world-class experience of shopping in store and online is our omnichannel via click and collect and local and in-store fulfillment. As MD has spoken to in the second stage, we're definitely coming in hot here. Looking at e-commerce execution, this is a continuation of our platform upgrades, making sure we're active in all geographies and improvement in our marketplace solution in the U.S. and Europe, and ultimately launching here in Australia. Looking at customer experience in every week and day, continuing to identify where there might be shortfalls and fixing them with our customer-first mentality. Finally, Club Rip Curl.
This one is super exciting, launching our membership program in early 2022. Our vision here is to have the largest and most engaged surf and beach community on the planet. Our objective is being to know our consumers, to drive incremental frequency, and to build a connected community. It will be a program that offers ways to earn points in a way that's truly unique to Rip Curl, and I'm excited to share more about that in the new year. In summary, we're investing in the now, and we're investing in the future. It's to check our history, our vision, and our mission. It's knowing that we are a full price, premium, multichannel business. We're focused on being number one in Australia, U.S., and Europe, and of course, globally.
Now that I'm wrapping for Rip Curl, it is my pleasure to introduce Amy Beck, President of Oboz. Now, since joining, together with owning the hiking crowd, she likes going with her dog, Piper. Here to talk us through what's ahead for Oboz, Amy Beck.
Thank you, Brooke. Thank you to the investment community for the opportunity to speak to you all today about the Oboz brand, our momentum, and strategies to continue to fuel our growth. My name is Amy Beck, and I'm the President of Oboz. I've been with Oboz since April 2019 and had the great opportunity to meet many of you in person when we were still traveling the globe. I spent about 13 years with Smartwool and Lucy Activewear, both part of the VF Corporation. I currently live in Bozeman, Montana, where our company is headquartered and is part of our namesake, Outside plus Bozeman equals Oboz. I'm gonna spend a little time talking to you a little bit about Oboz. This is our compass.
It guides everything we do, from building great-fitting footwear to how we give back to our community and the way we treat each other and the planet. It's a mindset that grounds us in what's most important. Doing things the right way, having fun, and exploring our path in life. Because anything else wouldn't be true to the trail. Our compass points being true to our people, true to the experience that you actually get to experience when you wear our product. True to your foot, because we do make footwear, and true to our community are all key pillars in all the decisions that we make. As Michael and Chris spoke to, and Brooke spoke to, our ESG goals are paramount to our path to success. We've partnered and it has been part of our DNA since we were founded.
We've partnered with Trees for the Future, and over the last many years have planted well over 4 million trees and have been a part of our commitment to our community. Next slide, please. Our mission as a brand is to create transformative footwear for adventure seekers seeking true experience on any and every trail. This is very critical to our competitive promise around fit, driven by intentional design, dependable performance, and optimal versatility. It's ready for anything, comfort and confidence that fuels advance. Our purpose, why we do what we do, is to empower the people of the world to blaze their own trail. These are our guiding lights and our opportunities for continued growth and success. Next slide, please. This is a visual of our growth since acquisition in fiscal year 2018.
As you can see, we've had great growth over the past few years and are on a path to $100 million. Despite all the challenges we have seen over the last 18 months, the Oboz brand is stronger than ever as more people are going outdoors for their mental and physical health. The demand for our high-quality products to keep them outside is high. Here in the U.S., participation is climbing, with new consumers interested in the outdoors. Camping and hiking business has grown in all channels. Statistics from the 2021 Outdoor Participation Report shows new participants are more likely to be female, younger, living in an urban area, and slightly more ethnically diverse than existing participants. New participants primarily sought socially distanced outdoor activities in order to spend time with loved ones safely, to exercise, stay healthy, reduce stress, and screen time fatigue.
New participants are largely motivated by outdoor recreation opportunities with low barriers to entry that are available and accessible within 10 miles of their home, including walking, running, biking, and hiking. This places Oboz well for strong growth over the next few years as we have our sights on $100 million. This growth will come from growth in our core and new categories, building our one-on-one relationship by D2C within our D2C channel, expanding the brand internationally while growing our doors in the U.S. and Canada, and also growing within our current distribution. Our forward order book is strong and our demand is exceeding our supply at this time, given the challenges Chris spoke to. We are well poised to recover and drive this strong business forward. How are we gonna do this?
We're gonna do this through capitalizing on the brand strength and the strength of new participation in outdoors. We'll be elevating our brand voice to drive broader awareness through investment in digital, enhanced retail experiences, better and more timely consumer insights, and our continued commitment to service. We launched our D2C site in April 2020 and have yet to see full potential due to limited supply. But our early indications are we have an incredible runway. The consumer, now more than ever, wants to have a one-on-one relationship with the brands that they engage with, and Oboz is no different. Through engaging content, enhancements to other experience like pre-release, pre-sale, gift cards, enhanced video, and content, we are planning the strong growth within this channel.
In addition, since we are primarily a wholesale business, enhanced in-store experiences and partnerships with our retail partners are incredibly important to our runway, both from an awareness perspective as well as an engagement and, conversion perspective. Branded environments showcasing the full Oboz range with brand signage and storytelling, as well as new campaign activations through windows, signage, and staff engagement and fitting environments to push our priorities in fit will be critical as we continue to grow. Our investment in digital engagement to grow awareness is also working. Our impressions are up as well as our engagements, our total audience, and our video views. This is a path as we try and connect with younger, more diverse audiences to grow the Oboz brand awareness. We're also focused on our product evolution and expansion.
Building on the core and franchise optimization is critical to engaging our existing consumers and finding new consumers that love the passion of the outdoors. Growing closet share of existing consumers through new products and new categories, as well as gaining new consumers through these new products and new channels are critical to our growth. We're launching the next generation of our number one franchise this spring, the Sawtooth X, and the excitement and the demand for this product has exceeded all of our expectations. The teams for one season have outpaced the shipments for the entire fiscal year demand of last year by 15% and have grown our core year-over-year by 38%, showcasing reimagining core business drivers to improve on fit, function, and updated modern aesthetics is well worth it.
It's also critical that we grow new products and new channels and new consumers, and it's been working for the brand as well. As we talk about new participation, more likely to be female, younger, slightly ethnically diverse, as well as living in urban areas, expanding our product reach to be more relevant to those activities will be critical as well. Our new product category growth has grown 60% over last fiscal year and well over 100% to the previous fiscal year. In summary, Oboz brand is strong and our runway for growth is high. Oboz authenticity, quality, and commitment to service places well against our competitive set and will support our path to $100 million.
By investing in awareness, product expansion and innovation, our ESG commitments, and our focus on people and values, Oboz is well-placed to be the number one choice for trail-ready footwear, enhancing existing and new consumers' experiences in the outdoors. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce Reuben Casey, the CEO of Kathmandu, to share with you the transformation of the Kathmandu brand and the excitement surrounding it. Thank you.
Thanks, Amy. [Non-English content]. Hello everyone. It's so great to be able to spend some time with you all today and talk about the journey that we're on. I've been with the business for over 11 years in various roles, but lucky enough to be the CEO of the Kathmandu brand for just over two years now, starting with bushfires in Australia and then straight into the COVID pandemic. It's certainly been an eventful time. I'm really excited to share with you what we've been doing, how we've transformed the team, and share with you our aspirations and visions for the future. We talk often about the global opportunity that exists for Kathmandu outside of Australia and New Zealand, and it's large. The total addressable market globally dwarfs our market here of 30 million people, in ANZ.
However, one thing that was clear to me was that we needed a transformation, particularly in brand and product fit for purpose. We didn't really have a clearly enough defined point of difference in our brand, and our product didn't stand out enough on the global stage. If we were to make this metamorphosis from an ANZ direct-to-consumer brand to be successful in what is a hyper-competitive global market, we absolutely needed to stand out, and we needed to raise the bar. That began with our people. Next, Sheree. Here's our leadership team. Now, we've made a couple of key appointments in the last couple of years. Firstly, heading up customer, brand, and online, Eva Barrett joined our team in March 2020.
I think Eva had a week in Christchurch and a week in Melbourne and then straight into lockdown, and has been there pretty much ever since. We were so delighted to welcome Eva into the team, and Eva's been instrumental in resetting our brand and online offer, which she will take you through a little later. Eva brings global brand-building expertise and experience that we simply haven't had internally before. It's helped drive a fundamental shift in putting brand first. Shortly after Eva heading up product, we're so excited to welcome Robert Fry to the team. Robert joined in April 2020, and due to the outbreak and COVID, worked from his home in Utah for 10 months. As Robert would say, drinking from the Zoom firehose on a completely different time zone.
It was a tremendous effort, and we're so grateful for Robert making that commitment. Robert comes with global brand experience from The North Face, Mountain Hardwear, Black Diamond. Again, brings to the team a level of experience and expertise we hadn't had previously. Robert and Eva have also taken other talent into their teams. Step- by- step, we're continuously raising the talent quotient of these two critical areas of the business. Most recently, Alex joined us just three weeks ago to head up our international efforts. Alex also brings international brand experience with adidas and O'Neill in Europe, and most recently as part of the global leadership team for icebreaker.
We've got this strong team built up, diverse in nationalities, diverse in gender, diverse in ages, and with a good blend of brand and retail experience and critical expertise in functional areas where it's needed. As part of our transformation, we reset our brand purpose, our vision, our values. Here's a short video on where we got to.
At Kathmandu, we've always believed in the transformative power of the outdoors. We know our lives are best lived outside. That's why we made it our mission to improve the well-being of the world by getting more people out there. Because out there changes us. All the greenery, the water, the sky. It rewires our brains and our bodies and our psychology. It's not lovey-dovey wishful thinking. It's science. MRI scans and lab coats have proven it. Sun makes us happier. Trees reduce stress. Nature makes us feel good. How else could you explain what goes on out there? All the fun, the real kind, the stupid kind. The kind that can get a bit weird without getting all self-conscious. Out there doesn't just lower your guard, it drops it into a cave and unhooks the carabiner. It's why out there you tend to get a bit more out there.
Because out there is the only place in the world that changes the way you see the world. We'd know. We've been there for over 30 years. Kathmandu, we're out there.
Kathmandu exists to improve the well-being of the world through the outdoors. This is our kaupapa, our purpose. These are the deep roots that give life to our brand and culture and the glue that unites us and our North Star. They come to life first and foremost with our customers. Given that we know it's beneficial to spend time outdoors, to connect with nature. We know it's good for our mental well-being. We know it's good for our physical well-being. We want to encourage as many people as possible to get out there, our teams, our customers, all of you. We are a B Corp, which means we strive to use our business as a force for good and provide a beneficial impact at every touch point of our ecosystem.
We fulfill this kaupapa through standing against modern slavery and protecting the most vulnerable human beings in our ecosystem. Via the wonderful people that make our products. To improve the well-being of the world through an engaged people culture, positive employment, and development for our teams. Through embracing diversity. Through minimizing our environmental footprint. Through continuing to lead in terms of sustainable products, and through striving to have a positive impact on the communities we operate in. Of course, through generating positive returns for our shareholders. Next, Sheree. As we think wider than Australia and New Zealand, we dream of being the world's most loved outdoor brand. This speaks to our global ambitions. This speaks to creating an emotional connection with our customers and consumers.
It speaks to our brand ethos, which is about focusing on how the outdoors makes you feel, not what we achieve while we're out there. The benefits to our well-being, the deep joy and sense of connection that we get from being out there, and of course, the simple pleasure of being outside. We also reset our values from what was potentially a quite staid, corporate generic value set historically. This is the essence of who we are as Kathmanduers. It guides how we treat each other. It defines the spirit in which we approach things, how we interact with customers, and more authentically reflects our culture. As Kathmanduers, we are courageous, we are joyful, and we are open, and we firmly believe that we are stronger together. That's really the essence of the Kathmandu brand. What next?
As we think ahead to coming out of this current phase of COVID, we see tremendous opportunities for growth ahead of us, starting with Australia and New Zealand. As society recovers from COVID with a staged return to international travel, we are a clear destination of choice for customers to gear up to enable this. We have to grow our year-round relevance as a brand while continuing to build on our strength in winter to unlock growth in summer and transitional seasons. We'll start this process this very summer. Also, we continue to invest in long-term brand equity. This is historically a focus on sales and promotion periods, and we need to build that long-term growth runway, not just rely on performance marketing. We'll continue to optimize our store network in Australia and New Zealand.
There will be opportunities for incremental growth where population has grown and also relocating stores to optimize the network, as Michael referenced earlier. We also see strong growth coming through digital, a $100 million business, which will be about 20% of sales at this point in time and likely beyond over time. We've also made great progress recently in transforming how we show up online, and we'll continue to develop our seamless cross-channel capabilities to best serve our customer. Every experience our customer has forms an impression of the brand, so we strive to ensure it's a world-class experience at each and every step of their journey, whether it's online, in store or between the two. We build that emotional connection with customers and build trust as we provide that world-class experience that exceeds customer expectations.
I see this regularly, customers giving gifts to our store teams to say thank you for helping them so well. Turning to international. We've set ourselves a target to grow by $100 million over the next five years. Europe and Canada are our immediate priorities, followed closely by the U.S. and then South Korea and Japan. Our long-term aim is to maintain a strategic balance between Australia and New Zealand and our international markets. As I said earlier, as we go about building the world's most loved outdoor brand in the international markets, we need to show up with a brand that's meaningful and differentiated. The work we've done that Eva will take you through to find our customer voice, our target millennial outdoor enthusiast consumer, and how we activate in market will be aligned with this point of view.
An example of this is the zip line activation we held in Sydney as we launched winter this year. We show up with a joyful, carefree outdoor attitude and build that emotional connection with our target consumer. Product alone, that's not enough. We also must-have products of desire that are relevant to our consumer and yet exceed performance expectations. Robert will talk more about how we are doing this. There's some absolutely amazing products coming down the pipeline, and we'll keep pushing on leading the industry with innovations centered on sustainability. We know that our millennial outdoor enthusiasts regard sustainability as extremely important, and we will match up to that expectation. That comes to target markets.
We held our global sales meeting just 2two weeks ago, and the teams in Europe and Canada are off meeting with customers, selling them autumn/winter 2022, which means taking orders for delivery in August to December 2022. In France, Germany, U.K., Ireland, and Canada are markets where we have dedicated salespeople or sales agents or a combination of. We can leverage the Rip Curl infrastructure in terms of legal entity, customer service, warehousing, back-office functions, which is a tremendous step-up for us and benefit for customers. We have a team that's really hungry for success and genuinely excited by the opportunity to grow the brand in those markets. In terms of our assortment, it's a focused assortment based around our key apparel collections, which is our spearhead, supplemented with a limited range of equipment.
Outdoor apparel really is the biggest opportunity long term and is our natural strength, so that's what we lead with. To this, we'll quickly follow up with the U.S. and then Japan, South Korea are next on the list in terms of Asian markets. In terms of channels, we will have a D2C digital offer in-market to support our brand positioning, and this will be a full-price model to support the wholesale business push. In terms of distribution, we are aiming to build up long-term brand equity in these markets, which means selective distribution initially to make sure we're in the right retail partners to complement the brand. Over time, we'll look to go wider and accelerate growth as brand awareness grows. It's critical to get the right product assortment and the right retailers to reach the right consumers.
Careful product and distribution segmentation is absolutely key. Just to finish up, our brand vision, values, purpose has been reset completely. This is part of the focus of building this meaningful differentiated brand. There's absolutely a long-term growth runway through international. ANZ provides short to medium-term growth opportunities as we come out of this COVID period. Our digital business has grown very strongly, and we have a strong team in place with international brand building experience to make it all a reality. Thank you. That's enough from me, and I'm very delighted to hand over to Eva, who will take us deeper into our brand transformation journey. Thanks, Eva.
Thank you, Reuben. Hello, everyone. My name is Eva Barrett. I'm the Chief Customer Officer here at Kathmandu, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be part of the leadership team here. Just over two years ago, I met with Reuben in Germany, where I was based. I've spent the last 15 years leading marketing and brand teams around the globe. In the U.K., in the U.S., and across Europe. When Reuben outlined his plans for the brand, I was truly excited. I thought, "What an amazing opportunity we have here to build a global powerhouse." I had such great nostalgia for the brand growing up in Australia. I remember the first store in the 1980s, and also my mother is from New Zealand, so half of my family is from New Zealand.
I felt so fondly about this brand, which is a B Corp, which has great values. Kathmandu invented the first eco-sleeve back in 1991, and that's before eco was even a thing. It was a very exciting opportunity to think about, and that's very much why I joined. Today, what I'm going to talk you through is the brand transformation journey that we're on. Firstly, as Reuben touched upon, what we're looking to do is build a meaningful, differentiated global brand that is set up for global and local success. A brand that is consumer-driven but is also part of culture. The culture part is important, and I'll talk through shortly why that is. Secondly, the digital transformation journey that we're on. The journey through is truly omnichannel.
To provide great experience and to focus on building our loyalty club and also personalization. All of this correlates to profitable growth, driving profitable growth. We'll be doing this through building brand love, creating products of desire that Robert will talk you through, and creating incredible experiences for the brand. What I'd like to do first is start with the category. Of course, the size of the category is what represents the opportunity for growth. I'm pleased to talk about that the outdoor category is no longer niche. It is no longer just top of the mountain. We have a wonderful opportunity here because of some of the trends that are happening within society right now. The category itself is worth $170 billion global. That's been driven by a couple of factors. Firstly, consumers' obsession with health and wellness.
More and more, we all realize the benefits of getting into the outdoors, the mental, spiritual, and physical benefits of just getting out there and how good it makes you feel when you're out there in nature. Secondly, consumers are no longer linear in how they shop. They no longer just shop in outdoor or, you know, just shop in stores as what's talked about. What we're seeing is a complete blurring of lines. Consumers now mix up vintage and street and outdoor and fashion. What that is creating is a much, much bigger opportunity for us. Another trend that's driving it as well is the increasing casualization of the workforce. I'm sure many years ago, you would not have even thought of wearing sneakers to the office and then a puffer vest, you know, at lunchtime. That's exactly what's happening. Increasing casualization.
Next to that, consumers' relationship with the outdoors has evolved. As part of our brand strategy work, we looked at 35 global brands across the world. What's clear is that in the outdoor category, the dichotomy is you're either hyper-masculine, top of the mountain, all about pain and suffering or very pretty and worthy. We have found an incredible white space for us. All of this links back to these insights here. The insights is that the outdoors used to be about conquering.
Yeah.
Get to the top of the mountain. It's about that pain and that suffering. As consumers the relationship with the outdoors has very much evolved to a much more restorative point of view. It's about having a reciprocal, respectful relationship with the outdoors. It's about getting into the outdoors to belong and feel part of that nature, not to conquer nature. Slide please, Sheree. If anything, the pandemic has only accelerated this further. More and more people have discovered the power of mental and physical well-being from exploring outdoors. The biggest demographic? Gen Z and millennials. 65% of millennials and Gen Z now think it is essential to get into the outdoors for their well-being. We're also seeing behavior. In the U.K., the Ramblers indicating a 30% increase in hikers.
In the U.S., American national parks have seen a 90% increase in visitation rates. Now, that's 6-8 million people that were not hiking in the previous year. Of course, all of this means is that this will change the future of where they spend their money. Booking.com has found that the highest search terms that they are seeing are about hiking and nature. Next slide please, Sheree. All of this places us in very good stead for growth. Reuben talked about why our brand exists, our North Star, our higher purpose, and that is to improve the well-being of the world through the outdoors. How we want people to feel is we want people to feel the joy and the fun and the benefits of the outdoors.
We want everyone to realize what they're missing out on if they're not already there. That is the fact that nature changes your brain for the better. Next slide, please, Sheree. When we think about our consumer and our consumer growth strategy, is that we know from research, and we conducted comprehensive research, qualitative and quantitative, across six markets across the globe. Is that the biggest opportunity in the outdoor category by spend, size, and participation is this millennial to sub 30 cohort. Yet historically, we have had mixed success with them. Therefore, to grow the brand, what we need to do is to be continuously bringing new people into the brand whilst retaining relevance to our core audience. This is how we will grow. Next slide, please, Sheree. As part of that qualitative and quantitative work, we started with attitudinal study.
Not by activity, but very much taking this from a psychographic point of view. Because what we're trying to understand is what are consumers' motivations to go outdoors? I've just walked through quite a few of those. What are their attitudes to the outdoors? Then what does that mean for us as a business? What does that mean for us as a business in terms of the role that we play in consumers' lives? Then what are their attitudes to outdoor clothing, and how is that evolving as well? Because all of these insights provide great insights across the business to our product teams as well in terms of how they're going to design. All of this enabled us to identify and build out the profile of our millennial outdoor enthusiast, and this is our core consumer.
What we know about them is that the outdoors is a huge part of their life. They have a deep desire to connect with nature, and also they very much care about brands that share the same values as them. They care about sustainability. The fact that we are a B Corp, the fact that we are fulfilling this purpose of desire and that we have an authentic history in the outdoors since the 1980s, places us in really excellent position to be relevant to this consumer. Next slide please, Sheree. The good news is that we have an amazing starting point. This is our brand health data. The key message I want you to take out of this is that we are the number one outdoor brand in Australia and New Zealand.
We are the most dominant brand over our competitors. What that means is that we also dominate consumers' predisposition to purchase. We lead in total awareness, consideration, currently purchase, and also in preference. What's important as we build the brand of the future is that we reduce our reliance on building our brand through performance marketing, through promotions. We are focusing on building brand love and of course, therefore, higher price points, higher margins, higher growth. Next slide, please, Sheree. We relaunched our brand back in May. This was really exciting. We spent a lot of time. Since I joined, it's almost a year ensuring that we had our brand strategy spot on. We relaunched our brand positioning, our values, our purpose, as Reuben touched upon. We launched our brand platform, We're out there.
We went to market with an integrated campaign across multiple touchpoints. What we can see from this is that firstly, the message has been really well received. We are on the right path as a brand. We've really communicated our new positioning and our new strategy, and it has driven brand affinity and consideration amongst our target audience of 25 - 34-year-olds that we historically under-indexed with. Of course though, with our wider 18 - 54-year-old audience, too. We drove over 80 million social impressions and over 30 million views of our content. Next slide, please, Sheree. The slide that you are viewing here, this is post-campaign analysis. In blue, what you're viewing is those who have not seen the campaign, and in gray is those who have seen the campaign.
You can clearly see across both markets is that we are increasing our brand metrics for those that have seen the campaign. The message I want you to take out from this is those that have seen the campaign, they feel much better about the brand. They feel inspired to get outside more, and they see how we as a brand can improve their wellbeing. Also, when you think about those purchase metrics, those that have seen the campaign drive into consideration and also are more likely to purchase from us as well. Really we are on the right track here. Next slide, please. We're just at the start of this journey of building a global meaningful and differentiated brand. Right now, we're live in all of our stores this summer.
Because historically, what we've been known for as a brand is a more winter brand, and we've been known for our puffer jackets. If we're going to grow, we need to be known for a brand that is relevant for all year round. We've just launched summer working with musician G Flip. Really being targeted to the younger audience. We've also just launched our first collab with an artist, and his name is Mulga, and he creates great work. I encourage all of you to get online and have a look at this amazing collab that we've just brought to life with Mulga. Now here, if you could please share the first bit of television commercial that is live nationally across Australia now and across all of New Zealand.
Next up is winter. Winter for next year. This is a really exciting one because this is completely in line with our values as a B Corp, our BioDown Jacket. I'm not going to steal Robert's thunder here because he has so much to talk about with this jacket. We have a really exciting story to bring to life globally. We're working with a lot of partners to really drive brand heat about this amazing eco-innovation story. Next slide, please, Sheree. Now I'm going to take a slightly different shift and talk about our unified commerce journey. How do consumers like to shop now? I like it. I want it. I got it.
That's from Ariana Grande, but that is exactly how consumers expect to shop. Consumer expectations have never been higher when it comes to a great omnichannel experience. They no longer want just a great experience online, easy checkout, getting great shipping. They expect it. The bar is much higher for all of us, and especially when it comes to younger consumers who are not just shopping online, but we see the growth of social shopping, and consumers no longer see channels. What they see is experience. Next slide please, Sheree. Chris talked about our incredible online growth. This is not by accident. We did a best-in-class review of websites when I first joined the brand, and we took a critical view of ourselves, and we looked at what our customer pain points were and where we had to improve.
What's important about this message is that this is a continuous improvement story. We should never stop when it comes to creating a great experience for our consumers. We completely relaunched our website, and we built it mobile-first because that's how we all shop nowadays, isn't it? Mobile-first and making the checkout experience and making the purchasing experience and the conversion experience much more seamless, much more engaging, and a much better overall experience. Next slide, please. We've refreshed the design. We've brought in a lot of features that we've been missing, such as 360 product videos. Because, you know, ultimately, you want to just be able to go online and see a 360 of a tent and see how easy it is to pitch that tent.
An improved checkout experience and also through rating NPS as well, so we can hear directly from our customers, hear directly what their pain points are, and work on improving that. This also involved a complete overhaul of all our photography. On the left is how we looked previously. On the right is how we look now. Much more engaging, much warmer. Ultimately what this does, it increases our sales, and it reduces our returns. Next slide, please. This is just the start of our journey to build customer lifetime value. We have an incredible opportunity with our loyalty club. We have 2.1 million Summit Club members. So this year, what we're seeing is the death of the third-party cookie.
What that means is that you will start to see more and more retailers and businesses in general, not just retailers, total businesses, starting loyalty clubs because they are all looking for your data, because they cannot rely on third-party data like they used to. First-party data has become king. We are in the fortunate position that we already are much further ahead than a lot of our competitors, and that we have 2.1 million loyalty members. That means that we can't stand still, and we need to create an even better experience for them.
I am so excited to come back to you next year when we relaunch our Summit Club, bringing it in line with our brand positioning and our brand experience and making it more than just a discount club, but having a value exchange with our consumers and creating experiences for them in the outdoors, which is very, very exciting. Because we know that consumers are happy to hand over their data if there is a particular value exchange. That's exactly what we're building here. Next, we are building out a MarTech stack. Sorry, Sheree, would you mind going back one? Next, we are building out our MarTech stack. What our MarTech stack looks like is this is all about personalization.
Building out a customer data platform and personalization, so we have one single view of the customer and that we are able to be in the right place at the right time with the right offer in order to drive customer lifetime value. This is how we will continue to grow as a brand, which is very exciting. Thank you for your time today. If we move to the next slide, there are three key takeouts that I would like to leave with you. Firstly, we are driving brand heat and driving brand love. We're doing that by driving relevance and consideration with a younger consumer. We're doing that through attitude and emotion, continuously bringing new people into the brand while not losing the focus on our core.
Secondly, I am building a modern marketing organization to really drive digital transformation in marketing through building out the experience of our loyalty club and through personalization. Thirdly, driving a growth culture. Because ultimately that's what it's all about. All of the initiatives that we are taking are to build growth for Kathmandu and increase brand love and our customer lifetime value. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much, Eva. You know, what I lack in Ariana Grande quotes, I hope to make up for in pretty pictures in the rest of this presentation. Forgive me for not having a fantastic Ariana Grande quote. Hi, everyone. My name is Robert Fry, and I'm GM of product at Kathmandu, and I've been here about 18 months. As Reuben intimated, I was 10 months in the U.S., and then I've been here in Christchurch for seven and half months now. You know, I, like Eva, about a little over two years ago, was engaged with the senior team here in talking about coming aboard.
I too saw the tremendous opportunity that was in front of Kathmandu, partly because of you know, the tremendous respect I've had competing against Kathmandu in the industry over the past 20 years, and understanding Kathmandu's incredible ESG and sustainability cred, as well as you know, the sort of product and functional cred behind the brand. Also thinking about taking all of that to the world and that sort of creative tension that exists between being the big dog in the home market and then being the underdog in international markets. I think that there's something dynamic and interesting to be learned through doing all of that, and both sides tend to share with one another. I'm absolutely delighted.
I feel like I've just begun my role here, even though it's been 18 months now. I'm delighted to share with you what's next. Next slide, please Sheree. One thing is, you know, if we're gonna really make good on those goals that Michael, Reuben, and Eva outlined for the brand, we can't do it doing things how we have done in the past. We've got some imperatives in front of us that we're activating right now. The first and foremost, and you know, of course I'm gonna say this, but is to design beautiful, desirable, differentiated products that has intrinsic value to our customer above and beyond the retail price that was paid for it. Intrinsic value is a key component in that conversation.
The second part, because we're an outdoor brand, we've been an outdoor brand for over 30 years, and we've equipped people for all kinds of conditions, we need to continue to exceed our customers' performance expectations around our product. It's not merely good enough to just show up with adequate products. We have to exceed people's expectations. That's a non-negotiable for myself and my team. We also wanna lead the industry in groundbreaking sustainability innovations. There's a lot in that phrase, leading the industry. We can't simply just check the box and presume that that's gonna be good enough. It certainly won't be good enough for our millennial-focused consumer because they understand what groundbreaking and leading the industry really mean. They require that we innovate in this manner.
We have to do all of the above while maintaining competitive price points. Frequently when you talk about these kind of transformation, fear is struck in the investment community and senior management around losing our competitive edge at the pricing level. It's possible to have your cake and eat it too, and I'll talk about that in a moment. We have to do all four of these to be able to support those aspirations that are set in front of us. Next slide. Okay. I like to show this slide a lot, because I think it illustrates adequately or better than adequately what we're trying to achieve here.
Not long ago, this is literally seven months ago, you know, we showed up in market like this, like you probably see in front of you. They're not bad products. They're fantastic products. That one there on the left keeps the lights on here at Kathmandu. I'm never here to disparage a classic franchise product like the Epiq jacket that Ben's wearing on the left. This is how we showed up in the world not long ago and, you know, approachable, the right price, the right level of performance, but ultimately, aesthetically deficient. Certainly when we're talking about courting an urban, cosmopolitan, millennial consumer, and certainly when we're talking about going into a global marketplace that, as Reuben intimated, hyper-competitive. You can't just show up with pedestrian products.
You need to somehow cut through the noise and show up with something better and different than the next competitor over. Next slide, please. This is a transformation that is afoot right now. This is autumn winter product that you're looking at. Now, granted, I'm stealing a little bit of the wonder and the creativity from Eva's fantastic marketing team because they've shot these in a fantastic way, but this is transformative products. These are products that are evolutions. They're fronts in the line of our Heli franchise. We've got a tremendous franchise in the business called the Heli jacket, and these are evolutions of that Heli jacket. They're fronts in the line.
They don't replace the classic silhouette that we depend so heavily on, but they come into the line, sit alongside those classic silhouettes, and invite in a new consumer to help us acquire new customers. We've got, you know, 2.1 million Summit Club members and customers in our 2 million-person marketplace here in North America. Even amid that 30 million-person marketplace, we may not be acquiring those urban millennial cause and policy consumers to the degree that we'd like. We've got growth opportunities here in our home market, and we need this kind of product to cut through the noise in international markets. Again, this doesn't replace the stalwart classic franchise platforms that we have. You know, two of them, the Heli and the Epiq, account for a tremendous piece of our business, particularly in winter.
They come in and invite a new consumer into the mix. Those two consumers and those different products can coexist in the same space if we're smart about how we present, how we tell stories, and do it in a graceful manner. Next slide, please, Sheree. You know, the sort of transformation, we wanna be careful, obviously, about SKU proliferation and business efficiency. When we identify areas in our line that you know, aren't performing or aren't optimized to the point that we believe they could be, we'll pick off those elements of the line and redesign them going forward. Again, not touching that classic stuff that our core consumer has come to depend upon us for.
We'll take those adjacent styles that we don't think are performing to the maximum potential and certainly aren't helping us acquire new consumers and redesign those slots with a nod to a slightly more open aperture around the space. Next slide, please, Sheree. Those two products that you just saw on the previous slide have been redesigned for next May's launch to these two slides, these two styles you see in front of you. Prism is a different vibe than where we've been in the past. You know, we do a lot of product testing and a lot of market testing with core consumers, new consumers, millennial consumers through a number of platforms that we have available to us.
These have been among the most well-received new designs that we have coming to market next year. We're quite excited to take these opportunities of sort of dead weight in the line and bring them to life. Next slide, please, Sheree. The same would go for something like fleece, right? You know, heavyweight fleece, high pile fleece is having a moment in our marketplace right now. It's been going on for a couple of years. It shows no signs of slowing down. In the past, this is all we had to offer a consumer. Essentially one silhouette with a relatively conservative, enduring and tried styling. There's nothing wrong with this product, but how do we go and acquire those new consumers who are really keyed into this high pile moment in the marketplace?
Most of the people who are buying these kinds of products in our marketplace right now are under 35, and they have an awareness around fleece heritage and an old school nineties look that they're keying into. If we move to the next slide, you'll see trends of this high pile element in our line coming in next year on the right and left. They're fantastic. They're fun. They're playful. They're just as legitimately outdoor as the products they sit alongside. They invite in a new consumer who's never shopped with us before for that kind of product. You know, these are our most sort of colorful versions of this silhouette.
We also offer the same silhouette in more conservative colorways to sort of bridge that consumer and bring the slightly less adventurous new consumer along for the ride. These kinds of opportunities can exist alongside those classic franchises and open the aperture for many more customers to come in the door and buy more from us than they might have bought in the past. Next slide, please, Sheree. The same would go. I feel like I'm taking a kind of potshot at some of our classic imagery here. The same would go for you know a classic silhouette like the suit that you see here on the screen where historically we could have relied on the performance conversation around these jackets to sell the proposition of the jacket. It would have been that and potentially price point.
We have performance and price without any other reason to buy the product, no reason about style, color, vibe, you know, youthful mentality or any other attributes we assign to these products. Up until recently, we would have only relied on a performance conversation, and that would have been that. You know, that makes it really hard to acquire new consumers, particularly those consumers who aren't just looking at performance metrics when they're making their purchases. It potentially limits the conversation and limits the number of new consumers we can pull into the equation. If we go to the next slide, Sheree, you'll see what if you could. Again, alongside what I just showed you, but what if you could have that class-leading performance around rainwear that also looks fantastic?
That opens the door to a whole new set of consumers to come into Patagonia and find what they're looking for and for us to make good on the promise around performance with them. They would have never found this from us in the past. We see this as tremendous opportunity. It doesn't disregard where we've been, and it doesn't say anything to our classic consumer other than, "Hey, you might like this as well." Next slide, please. Typically, when we think of performance promises, we tend to think of warmth, and we tend to think of rainwear protection, and we tend to sort of silo our conversation around those winter elements. Performance products can be summer oriented as well. You know, we've been challenging ourselves as a brand to become more relevant in summer to our customer.
How do you become relevant to your customer in Australasia in summertime and still make a performance promise? Well, you come to market with fast leading swimwear protection. The SUN-Stopper shirts that you see on the slide in front of you right now were just launched in the past two months, and they've immediately jumped into our top 10 and top 20 best selling products in the mix for this summer. Because we know that everybody cares about sun protection, particularly the younger consumer. This allows us to have a performance discussion with that customer in a summertime setting, yet offer something that looks fantastic as well. We can kinda tick all the boxes. Certainly it's priced right and it's fit right and it looks great. Eva Barrett had mentioned it.
She didn't steal my thunder because I think there's a lot of thunder here. In winter, the coming winter in front of us, we're offering to the market for the first time in our history, a 100% biodegradable down jacket. Right? No one's ever seen anything like this before. We're the first to, we believe, to bring this sort of thing to market. What's the point of bringing groundbreaking sustainability innovation like this to market if it doesn't look fantastic, if it doesn't look desirable, if it doesn't look differentiated? We could have toned it down and brought something that looks aesthetically deficient and then relied only on the sustainability conversation to drive interest.
We could do it differently and differentiate ourselves by making gorgeous looking product that also has the performance promise around warmth and fit and comfort and the sustainability promise around groundbreaking sustainability innovation. I think we have a cool video next. Groundbreaking, right? BioDown jacket is made to 100% biodegrade inside of about four years, when disposed of properly at end of life. It doesn't mean we're supporting the idea of casting off an expensive, beautifully crafted garment when you're done with it. We built it to last a lifetime. We built it to pass on from generation to generation. But when it reaches the end of its useful life, it can be disposed of, and if properly disposed of, it will biodegrade in a normal modern landfill and become.
Not become a problem the way, you know, certain materials can be. Is it the end of the road for us? No, not at all. It's a step in the right direction, and it's a way of getting us out of the petrochemical waste stream and into more groundbreaking, world-changing, life-leading solutions that keep it ahead of the competition. It wouldn't make sense to lead the industry in groundbreaking sustainability innovations unless we were responsible world citizens up and down the supply chain. You know, we're famous for this. We're absolutely cutting edge in this case. We're a key collaborator with really every industry-leading ESG organization. Because all this activity generally starts with product is the prow of the ship, as it were.
We begin every you know business cycle with product. Product needs to be at the forefront of this kind of activity as well, meaning we have to choose the right suppliers. We have to partner with the right finished goods factories to ensure that if we're making this beautifully sustainable garment, that we're also fair to the workers and fair to everybody up and down the supply chain. This is one of the most important parts of the work that we're doing, and it's one of the reasons why I joined the brand. Next slide, please, Sheree. When I talk about. This is that fourth point from that list that I shared at the beginning.
When I talk about maintaining competitive price points, that doesn't mean that we're always gonna be the cheapest brand on the rack. What it means is that we will be extremely conscious around the price buckets that we inhabit, both in our core home market as well as broad. We can be better than the competition around us. We can improve the customer's experience through the touch points, the details, the manifestation of the products, and how we handle on-product branding, how we handle trims, how we handle fit and features, and the execution of the product. Those kinds of considerations, those kinds of details don't add nominal costs to the execution of the product or the final product. So they don't raise our price points.
They enhance the customer's experience, and they enhance the value that the customer imbues into the product and into the brand. These are often overlooked. These kinds of details are often overlooked in the outdoor market. We at Kathmandu are striving every day to not overlook that stuff. Those special details mean a lot to the consumer. The details matter. We can do them skillfully and with precision to not impact our price structure and our margin structure. In fact, if you add value to the product, you treat it value, it gives you greater elbow room around your pricing structure. You're not always at the bottom of the pricing scrum. We're quite excited about these details.
It's a funny thing to talk about in a conversation like this, but it really matters at the transactional level for the customer. Final slide, please. I looked at sort of core activities that we're engaged in. They're top priorities. They're imperative to the product. And if we execute on those like we are, and we build this beautiful product, we sort of go from an important and well-known and very successful regional retailer into a relevant, sought-after global brand without losing that specialness of retail locally. I'm quite pleased about where we are in the process. I'm even more pleased for everybody here on the call to see the product as it hits the market, because I think that's the proof in the pudding. I think that's it for me. I hand it back to Michael Daly. Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you, Robert. Look, that's it for the formal presentations. Just a quick summary or wrap from me. The pandemic has definitely turbocharged the desire for people and the consumer to get outside. Our brands are very well placed to participate in that as the consumer are able to get back outside, which they clearly have been in more recent times. We're excited by Auckland opening up in the next couple of days. Certainly our teams is very motivated to have what we're hoping and planning will be a bumper holiday period this coming couple of months. With that done, we're gonna throw now to some Q&A, which Ben from Market Eye is going to drop some questions in the chat.
If you haven't put your questions in the chat yet, please do. We'll allow another 15, 20, 30 minutes if needed. The question is starting now.
Thanks, Michael. Thank you everybody for listening in. Just to remind you again, as Michael said, if you have any questions, please type them into the Q&A facility. I will endeavor to cover as many as we can in about the next half hour. First of all, I will also identify people so that the presenters know who is asking the questions. First of all, maybe this first question to you, Brooke. The question is from Alex Milton from NovaPort Capital. On Rip Curl, can you provide us with a bit of detail on the strategy to double sales in the U.S.?
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Alex. Certainly U.S. is a place I'm really looking forward to getting back to with our borders now opening. I guess what makes the U.S. unique is that we've really only been promoting and selling the brand there for 20 years or so. We don't have that long heritage and history that we have here in Australia. As a considered brand, I think that started to happen about 10 years ago. Now we're sitting at around five, six. As I mentioned earlier, the goal is to get to number one. We've seen some change of ownership amongst the majority of our competitors, and we've really seen this as an opportunity to lean in, and lean into making the volume on what makes us unique.
Being our vision, our mission, our values, and certainly our quality surf products rooted in that technology and innovation. There's also a real authenticity coming through for Americans, that trust and respect that comes along with being an Australian brand. That's something that we will continue to talk about in this region. In terms of the progress we've made, it is doing what we're doing in the world of products. We've really found our feet in the last few years, understanding where our volume and apparel opportunities are in North America. In terms of accessories, previously we haven't really offered our own third or our own Rip Curl made product for accessories. If you were to explain third-party brands in more Rip Curl products there. Kids is relatively new for us and also women.
It's that 50/50 goal where U.S. is actually leading, in terms of that balance happening, quickly for us. There's strong momentum in all of our funnels. That high-power market expansion in North America, being the number one region for new business in FY 2021. That's super exciting. We've opened 61 new doors just in FY 2021. That is something that's showing that we've got that runway, that opportunity to break down and break through some doors. That direct-to-consumer and digital experience and acceleration. We've got a bit of catching up, yet to do in marketplace and certainly launch in Canada online, and the omnichannel ambitions that you heard me talk about earlier. E-commerce in the U.S. is the fastest growing region for this channel.
That figure will be the spotlight on the income there will really be high. The retail store openings, there's several coastal opportunities for us in the U.S. and to increase our presence there. That too will bring along some brand growth and of course, our brand presence through the Rip Curl WSL Finals, particularly that one day a year where we crown a world champion. We will leverage that involvement across 365 days a year. Probably to round out on the U.S., we have an incredible leader in our President, Dylan Slater. He's on a similar trajectory to myself through the business, and he has a really strong outlook on innovation and our premium positioning and certainly on full price and showcasing the brand and product. Dylan was also a former competitive surfer. Between he and I, we're pretty focused on podium finish and aiming for number one. Thanks, Ben.
Thanks, Brooke. Maybe I'll direct a question to you, Chris, if possible. So we've had a couple of questions in from Cindy Yeans at Forsyth Barr, Julia Weng at Paradice, just around the supply chain disruptions. Just wanting to understand, please, where are those bottlenecks, and how is Kathmandu addressing those bottlenecks? Kathmandu being the group entity, sorry. Addressing the bottlenecks across the various businesses. Also, you know, to what extent are you able to offset higher supply chain costs in the product pricing?
Thanks, Ben. Yeah. The primary ones are in terms of the supply for Oboz with the factory closures in Vietnam, reopening now progressively. That's not an immediate reopening at this stage. They are addressing capacity. That primarily is gonna impact Oboz in Q2. We are seeing that to be played out across the industry generally and especially in the U.S. It's not a problem unique to us. You know, the priority for the Oboz brand is very important to the Q3 - Q4 period to secure supply for that. Amy's working you know, very tirelessly with suppliers at the moment to make that a reality. The other key area is primarily in some shipping delays.
However, we have built in timings for our supply chain to deliver earlier where possible than we normally would to mitigate where those delays in shipping occur. The other aspect is in with Rip Curl, and it's a primarily good problem to have. You know, we're at capacity since we are manufacturing for winter. There's been some impact in securing neoprene for raw materials. However, you know, we're at full stretch with our own factory and increasing hours to meet that demand. That's a good problem to have. In terms of cost shifting, you know, the cost impact, freight itself is not a large cost in terms of our cost of product.
It's costing more in terms of raw materials. Primarily, most of the raw materials have been secured or the FOBs have been locked in for this financial year. We do have the benefit of tailwinds for Q3, so that'll support margin for the rest of FY 2022. Going forward, as we have the benefit of being a vertical, and for all our brands being vertical, we have the benefit of managing end price actions, and looking at raw material substitution to manage those costs. Long term, we'll manage the impacts. In the short term, the effects will be less challenging for FY 2023.
Thanks, Chris. We've got a number of questions on Kathmandu, so what I might do is move them to be the last set of questions that we have. Get prepared Reuben, Eva, and Robert. I might go back, if I could, to Brooke at Rip Curl. We have a couple of questions from Dianne Casleris from UBS. It's around your strategy to increase women's product sales. Her questions are: increasing women's to 50% of sales, what is it at the moment? What's your global market share in women's at the moment? And as you grow that in women's, will you be taking share from peers like Roxy, or will it be the new sales growing the pie?
Hey, Dianne. Thanks for your question. The balance globally is 55% men to 35% women. Though there's quite differentiation as we move around our key regions, and we're closest in the U.S. being 55%-45%. In terms of the growth, I would like to see us all grow together. I think that when the surfing industry is growing, that we can all be successful together. Certainly there's that limited space in stores, and yeah, we'll be pushing in to ensure that our good trend continues to grow in wholesale. Looking at optimizing our floor space in our retail owned stores and ensuring that we have a really balanced offer online. Just having this focus on women's is really helping us to find areas of opportunities that we haven't previously seen in order to find that growth.
Thanks, Brooke. There aren't any other questions from Rip Curl at the moment, so I might just go across to Amy at Oboz. One question. What gives you the confidence that you can achieve the aspiration for the medium-term growth in sales that you've set out today? You're on mute, Amy.
Thank you. Sorry about that. The confidence in the demand that we're seeing in our forward order book, as well as the opportunities for us to grow within our current distribution gives us the strong confidence. The fact that we absolutely have not realized any of our D2C potential due to our past supply gives us strong confidence that our aspirations are very achievable based on what we're seeing with, I guess, our forward order book and our B2C channel expansion.
Thanks, Amy. I'm just conscious of time, and I wanna allow a bit of time for the Kathmandu questions 'cause there are a few. There's no others on Oboz and we've come on Cindy Yin from Forsyth Barr, just sneaking a question just then on Chris mentioning about wetsuit manufacturing. With that capacity, what are the plans to expand that capacity?
The plans are underway. We are expanding. We've hired a considerable number of new employees in our own factory on site in Thailand. Yeah, we're ramping that up as we sit here today. That is in full swing, and we should be hitting that new capacity level in March, April next year.
Great. Thanks, folks. Well, I think we might use the last 16, 17 minutes or so to just focus on Kathmandu. Michael, maybe first question to you. This question comes from Andrew Steele of Jarden. From the Kathmandu brand, you've been talking about growing the business. We've been talking about growth outside of Australia and New Zealand for a number of years now. What's in store for the business going forward, and what gives you confidence in the success of Kathmandu globally? I think you're on mute too, Michael. Sorry.
Sorry. Well, I can say, right, in terms of the Kathmandu brand, I certainly think it's well-positioned for international expansion given the strength that it has in niche market share. The market share it's been able to achieve in the Australian-New Zealand market compared to all of the other key competitors is quite remarkable. It's well known around the world because of its strong dominant market share in Australia and New Zealand. As far as past efforts to expand overseas, certainly myself and many of the other team on this panel weren't involved in those past attempts. From what I understand, they were very focused on particular geographies, you know, particular countries, and very much a retail-driven approach.
The approach that we are taking as we move forward is really a wholesale and online approach to start with. We think we've got the in-house capability not only within the Kathmandu team, but within the other group and other branded roles that we have across the organization, which sets us up for much greater success. I say that because with Rip Curl acquisition, what the group now has is presence in a lot of these markets. We don't need to go about identifying warehouse space and people to collect money or to make payments for our employees. We have all that. We have that presence already. Importantly, what we also have is authenticity in each of those markets, not only with the Kathmandu brand, but with the other brands that we operate with.
In the USA, North America, we have obviously Rip Curl and Oboz with an existing presence. Obviously in Europe we have Rip Curl. If we look at the Rip Curl thing, the fact that Rip Curl is a 50-year-old brand who's been selling in those markets for some 20-25 years, the fact that Kathmandu has purchased Rip Curl gives an automatic authenticity, particularly to the wholesale account base with which we work, that the company has never had before. Certainly with the new team that we've got on board, the new internal experience across all of our brands, the existing infrastructure and that authenticity that we automatically bring to the table in terms of wholesale, even though while the end consumer for the different brands is not necessarily the same, a lot of the distribution, particularly in wholesale, is.
That's one of the reasons that gives me full confidence that as we move forward, the Kathmandu expansion will certainly be successful.
Thanks, Michael. Ruben, maybe I'll direct a few questions now to you and, you know, if needed, you can then direct them to Eva or Robert. We've got a few questions now from Cindy Yin at Forsyth Barr. In terms of Kathmandu's plans to establish itself in offshore markets against the large existing brands, do you see more competitive pricing compared to the premiums commanded in Australia and New Zealand?
I think, if I understand the question correctly, more competitive pricing versus other brands. Is that what the question's getting at?
Is there going to be more competitive pricing in the offshore markets relative to what you've seen in the Australian and New Zealand markets generally?
Yeah. I mean, yeah, they're completely different markets and different competitive forces at play. We will be pricing our products to be competitive in those markets. Not necessarily tagged to what we have in New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand and Australia is a little bit unique in that we have a lot of direct to consumer brands ourselves. For example, Macpac. The global brands tend to come in at a premium because they go through distributors, so they end up being priced at a higher level here than what they are in other markets. Robert Fry may wanna pitch in and talk about his experience as well. Take The North Face, for example. It's at a premium in this market, but not so much in North America. When we compare ourselves and when we pitch ourselves, we're actually quite competitive in terms of price points as well.
Robert, do you want to add?
Can I add to your reply, Reuben, a little bit? You know, we just got through setting retail prices for the rest of the world over the past couple weeks as we go to market to engage with the wholesale community for autumn/winter 2022. This is the sell-in season for pre-booking right now. You know, we sort of benchmarked and took a deep dive into the key competitors across all the global markets when setting our retail prices to ensure that one, we got the gross margin that we desired, but also that we were competitive across every single key category in the marketplace to ensure that we didn't go out of the blocks with the wrong pricing, which I think actually we did when we engaged with global markets historically.
We didn't have our price bucket set, and so we weren't as competitive as we could have been. This time around, we've spent the past eight weeks ensuring that our price structure is absolutely market competitive in the rest of the world.
Thanks for that. Maybe just turning to brand. This is a couple of people have asked a similar question, Bianca Fledderus from UBS and Cindy Yin from Forsyth Barr. In terms of brand recognition in the new offshore markets in Europe and Canada, how do you intend to increase brand recognition, and what will be the impact on marketing costs over the next few years?
Sure. I'll start and I'll pass over to Eva. Certainly we will have to invest in some marketing as we enter these markets. Typically a wholesale brand would look to be around 10% of sales, as we're establishing ourselves, if not more initially. There will be an increase in marketing costs as we enter and grow those markets. I'll let Eva speak to how we grow awareness. Eva.
Hi, Bianca and Cindy. Thank you for your question. Absolutely what we need to do in those markets is focus around building awareness. As you're no doubt aware, that's, you know, often the most expensive part of the funnel. We feel confident, as Reuben mentioned, that certainly there will be an investment that's required, and that's exactly what we're looking at. We also believe that through our positioning is that we can look to run events with local influencers, local celebrities, guiding PR. In terms of that, pop-up stores or interesting, innovative, out there ways to start to gain attention, which will also enable us to bring in wholesale retailers into the fold and get them engaged about the brand. We have a big job to do globally, but we're very excited by the opportunity.
Thanks for that. Just maybe one for you, Reuben. This is from Cindy Yin at Forsyth Barr. Kathmandu's revenue growth ambitions to NZD 600 million over the next sort of fivr years translates to an ambitious target. Is most of this driven by the rebrand/brand positioning?
No. As I outlined in my slide, on that, there's the NZD 120 million comes back from getting back to pre-COVID levels as travel, international travel resumes. We used to do a lot of business, particularly in the first half, equipping customers heading to the northern hemisphere for cold climate from a warm climate, particularly in Australia. We see that as that international travel comes back, we see that business coming back to us. Then on top of that, we are growing our offer in our all year round relevance. This season for example, we've launched thongs, we've launched Wind Chaser jackets. These are out-of-the-box styles that are adding incremental business to our current summer offer.
We will do more of this as we go through the next few years to really build out that year-round relevance. That's really the key thing. Obviously it's all supported by the brand relaunch and the approach to marketing that we've taken. Everything kind of works together to really support those ambitions. The total ambition of $100 million over five years is relatively ambitious, but we absolutely believe it's possible. That adds on top of the Australia, New Zealand business that we already have.
Thanks, Reuben. Question from Richard Sharp from Kinetic. Within Kathmandu, are you looking to reduce your dependence on high-low and three key sales periods a year? If so, how will you achieve this?
The high-low promotion has been with us, part of our DNA for a long time, so any reduction in reliance on that has to be managed very carefully. We are looking to not just be reliant on selling on price and promotions. As I've mentioned, you know, historically we have focused pretty much all of our marketing efforts on those promotional periods, which does just drive a consumer perception that we're always on sale. Over time we are looking to reduce that perception and reduce that reliance on price. As the brand positioning improves and the marketing gets stepped up, our online offer is stepped up and the product improves, that will become a natural evolution that happens. We don't have to rely on price, but we can sell on much more desirable products, up front at more full price.
Just maybe clicking on the topic of desirable products. Manny Lifthart from Coredy Capital. I'm sorry. I mean, the question is on desirable products. Can we please have some more detail on that Kathmandu's Canadian and European launch? Is there specific interest in given products and colors? And will you need to manage fashion or product risks to a greater extent?
Robert, do you wanna pick that one up?
Sure thing. You know, we've just launched the autumn/winter wholesale activity. We're only a week in, so we don't have a lot of data yet back from the market. I can't wait actually until we start to hear back. We did do some soft launch activity, heading into those markets with spring/summer. Quite honestly, the new styles, the new aesthetic in the line is that which is most resonating with those wholesale customers in the Northern Hemisphere out of the block. I anticipate the same for autumn/winter 2022.
You know, as we look to differentiate in those markets and retailers in those markets look to differentiate their offering to their customer, they're looking for brands that stand out, that have, you know, breakthrough coloration, breakthrough styling and details, you know, features and sort of product execution that's different than the next brand over on the rack. They're actually responding most positively to our most sort of assertive style direction changes. That should be expected, right? In a crowded international market where a lot of the competition tends to look similar to one another. You don't really stand a chance unless you look different and sort of appear differently, show up differently with different stories and sort of a different take on the consumer.
That's exactly what those retailers want. They need to reach the same consumers that we're trying to reach here at home. You know, urban, cosmopolitan millennials who have the world at their fingertips and have infinite choice in their shopping and their behaviors and are extremely sophisticated. You know, everybody in the world, every shopper in the world these days is an athlete and is aesthetically deficient. Everybody's got their own brand. We have to show up and be relevant to those customers if we're gonna compete internationally. So far, the word back is all around that newness and a little bit less around the annuity styles that we have in our line here that sort of keep the lights on. They're really important in our local market.
They may not be as important in our global market, and we'll just have to navigate through that. I think it's possible that we can find a better way of ever taking these two.
Thanks, Robert. Question from Mark Wade at CLSA. What challenges do you envisage as you grow Kathmandu's international sales to $100 million? And relatedly, can you expand on cross-sell opportunities for the Kathmandu brand within the Rip Curl network?
I think the challenge is always I mean, we're gonna be a challenger brand in what is a very competitive market. Really getting that cut through is a challenge in itself. We believe that we are firmly positioned very well. We've got a clear brand positioning, a great product offer, and a great team on the ground in those markets to help us achieve that. It's not we don't just show up and everyone's gonna listen. There's always gonna be challenges along the way to really entice those retailers to take a risk on a new brand. In terms of cross-sell opportunities, we have explored and started some discussions. I mean, there's two aspects to that.
One is potentially we can style certain shops within some of the Rip Curl stores in Europe. For example, they've got a store in Germany, which would be a great place for Kathmandu to have a presence. And then in other areas, I think we wanna keep the brands separate as much as possible in terms of speaking to the right consumer. There are some multi-branded retail opportunities, potentially in Rip Curl's outlet chain that we are exploring, but we don't want to necessarily dilute the brand offer for consumers. I don't know if Brooke, you wanna comment on that as well.
Yeah, no, completely aligned there. Where we do have great potential is just unlocking what we know about our customers. You know, we've got shared synergies in a lot of platforms that we're implementing, you heard Eva talking about earlier. When the time's right, we'll use that as an opportunity to better understand our consumer and how to create better products and to personalize our communications to them in the right way. Definitely looking at the data from surfers. 43% of our surfers are likely to go hiking or bushwalking. There's just a natural synergy there that in time we'll be able to tap into.
Thanks for that, Reuben and Brooke. We're gonna close shortly, so maybe just a couple of final questions. I know there's a whole lot more that still needs to be answered. A couple of questions from Paige Hennessy, sorry, at the Accident Compensation Corporation. Following the Kathmandu brand relaunch in May, do you have any data to show the customer demographic has started to shift towards the younger age group? And also, how are you thinking about market share in Australia and New Zealand? How has your market share gone, and what's your confidence on, you know, regaining any lost market share that might have happened once the stores reopen?
I'll let Eva talk to the customer demographic as well. In terms of market share, we are really confident that we're gonna have a good return to retail trade as stores open. We're seeing that already in Sydney and Melbourne, and looking forward to getting our Auckland stores open.
Growth. It's coming into obviously a summer where people are likely to be vacationing or holidaying at home. Certainly demand for summer products like camp and fitness and tents is strong and also demand for some of the new ranges we've introduced this summer, like I mentioned, has also been very strong. We're confident that we will be well placed to take advantage of the return to retail as we are already. In terms of the data on age demographics, Eva.
Thank you, Paige Hennessy. Yes, absolutely. We measure a few ways. We work with Kantar, which is a world-leading research agency. We work with Kantar on our overall brand health tracking measures. We also do pre and post-campaign analysis as well. What we can see since the relaunch is that we're measuring a few ways. Firstly, we're measuring on our core audience, 25-34, and we're measuring total market as well. 18-54. We want to see what shifts we're making across total. Also our core that we want to grow with. What we can clearly see from that is that we have driven brand affinity and consideration with that 25- 34-year-old audience. Also we've driven all of our key brand attributes as well.
Certainly, what we could see historically is that we weren't so much in their consideration set, but we certainly are now. They are paying attention and the shift that we're making, the transformation that we're making, not only in brand, but importantly in product, is starting to resonate with this consumer, which is really exciting.
Thanks, Reuben. Thanks, Eva. We're now well and truly over time. I know we could keep going for at least another hour and a half, if not longer, given all the questions that are still needing to be asked. I'm just conscious we've all got diaries and days ahead, so I might just hand back to Michael Daly just to wrap up and close our investor day. Thanks, Michael.
Yeah. Thanks, Ron. Thank you everyone for participating today. Hopefully, what you got out of it was that you got to meet a broad set of executives across the group. Hopefully you can see that all of the brands are in really strong hands, and we're really well placed to realize the potential of all the brands in the future. Hopefully through the deep dive in Kathmandu, any concerns anyone has had on recent trades have been, I guess, overcome. If anyone has any follow-up queries or questions, please direct them through to Ron at Market Eye, and we can see how we can navigate that. Other than that, thank you very much for your time, and hopefully next time we can do it in person. Cheers. Thank you.