Dr. Martens is doubling down on its efforts to turn around its U.S. business in fiscal 2025 with a new marketing-centric plan.
On the company’s fiscal 2024 earnings call on Thursday, outgoing chief executive officer Kenny Wilson told analysts that the American market remains the company’s “top priority” across the business. As such, the boot maker is implementing a detailed action plan to return this business to growth, targeting a return to positive direct-to-consumer growth in the second half of fiscal 2025.
In line with the new plan, Dr. Martens is increasing marketing investment as a percentage of revenue in the U.S. in the year ahead, while ensuring that it maximizes the return and efficiency of this spend.
“The major area of focus in the next 12 months will be with those people who know our brand in the United States, but they haven’t purchased yet,” Wilson said. “If you look at net consideration of our brand, it’s up 5 percent amongst those who have purchased before. So that says we’re retaining consumers. However, consideration amongst non-buyers is down 8 percent, and therefore, we need to change that approach.”
The new plan has three main pillars. The first features an “always on” marketing approach to iconic Dr. Martens styles, a re-energization of boots in autumn/winter 2024 and four key seasonal boot stories to drive newness. Marketing spend will be increased on mid to lower funnel activity, the company said.
“All of our marketing in the United States will support boots with soft leathers in July, with the rigger boot in August, with square toe in September and then obviously winterized in November,” Wilson said. “Throughout the second half of this year, USA consumers will hear a clear boots message from the Dr. Martens brand.”
The second pillar involves an updated digital strategy in the region. This includes improving the quality of the brand’s product pages and optimizing its checkout process in order to maximize e-commerce conversion. The company also plans to implement order in store, which it already has launched in its EMEA business.
The third and final pillar addresses the struggling wholesale market in the U.S. The focus is to drive sell-through with key retail partners so that the company can stimulate reorders for fiscal 2026.
Given the nature of wholesale order books, the company expects there to be a lag between when its U.S. direct-to-consumer performance improves and when its wholesale business will return to growth.
The expectation is that the company won’t see an in-market restock driving a recovery in U.S. wholesale revenues until autumn/winter 2025 at the earliest, which equates to the second half of fiscal 2026. Therefore, the company anticipates its U.S. wholesale revenue to decline double-digit percentage in fiscal 2025.
This comes as the UK-based footwear company reported that total revenues declined 12.3 percent in fiscal 2024 to 877.1 million pounds, down from 1.0 billion pounds in fiscal 2023. Net debt for the year increased to 357.5 million pounds, up from 288.3 million pounds last year, due to returns to shareholders, lower profits and increased lease liabilities.
Looking ahead, Dr. Martens said it expects group revenue to decline around 20 percent in fiscal 2025, driven by wholesale revenues down around a third.