Two years ago, Wolverine Worldwide was best known – if it was known at all – for its portfolio of footwear brands like Sperry and Hush Puppies that were well past their prime. Sales were falling fast, plunging 17 percent in the second quarter of 2023.
The one bright spot was a pair of small athletic shoe brands, Merrell and Saucony, beloved by hikers and runners that since the pandemic had started to catch on outside the world of elite athletes. In August 2023, Wolverine promoted Christopher Hufnagel, a company veteran who at the time headed the division overseeing those shoes, to chief executive.
Flash forward two years, and both Merrell and Saucony are making waves in the footwear world as part of a pack of rapidly growing brands that are challenging the longtime dominance of Nike and Adidas. Whereas On and Hoka have novelty on their side – both are less than 20 years old and incorporated unconventional designs into their shoes – Wolverine’s brands have had to find a different path to court non-athletes. Merrell turns 45 next year, while Saucony traces back to 1898.
Wolverine inserted Saucony and Merrell into the sneaker conversation with products that straddle the line between lifestyle and performance. The idea was to continue serving athletes who had bought its shoes for decades, while presenting a compelling new proposition to consumers who may not have come across either brand before.
While Merrell and Saucony are still far from becoming footwear brands that show up regularly on the feet of teens — Saucony barely cracked the top-ten male footwear brands for Spring 2024 in Piper Sandler’s “Taking Stock with Teens” survey — its performance-minded product is gaining traction. In August, Keanu Reeves donned Merrell Moab 3s on the red carpet — the latest update of Merrell’s most popular hiking boot that arrived in November 2024. In January, StockX flagged Saucony to be one of the fastest-growing sneaker brands on its resale platform — fuelled by lifestyle collaborations with creatives beloved within the streetwear space such as Jae Tips.
The two brands now make up about two thirds of Wolverine’s overall revenue, up from 52 percent in 2023. In October, Moody’s upgraded its rating for Wolverine’s debt to B2, citing growth at Merrell and Saucony as a factor in its decision, along with reduced debt levels. In September, the company’s stock hit a nearly four-year high.
There are challenges ahead. Wolverine’s shares have fallen sharply this month after the company warned that tariffs and economic uncertainty would likely weigh on future profits. It recently appointed Justin Cupps, a former EssilorLuxottica executive, to oversee work-boot makers Wolverine and Cat Footwear, which have continued to decline. Moody’s still rates Wolverine’s debt well below investment grade, and even in its upgrade notice warned that the company had a difficult road ahead as a small player in an extremely competitive market.
“At Wolverine Worldwide, our very simple brand-building model is to build awesome products, tell amazing stories, and drive the business,” said Hufnagel. “If you pull one of those things out of alignment, it’s really hard to grow.”
How Saucony and Merrell Picked Up the Pace
Hufnagel’s approach to brand-building has been most apparent at Saucony, which he anticipates will hit all-time record revenue and profits this year. In the past, Hufnagel believed the 127-year-old running brand was too focused on important, but niche, elite performance running customers.
Nowadays, the brand broadened its customer base like other sportswear labels by leveraging trendy retro running sneakers and product collaborations to lifestyle customers.
However, it also captured a larger share of the performance running market by incorporating its super shoe technology into everyday running footwear beyond race-day styles solely designed for the fastest elite runners. On an earnings call in August, the brand shared that its “core four” running sneaker franchises that include this tech and address regular runners—the Ride, Guide, Triumph, and Hurricane — grew double-digits in U.S. retail sales during that quarter.
“By bringing that innovation down, really democratizing that for the masses, we’ve seen great growth,” said Hufnagel.
As for Merrell, which Hufnagel previously steered through Covid as its brand president, he zeroed in on modernising an decades-old outdoor brand by refreshing staple products it sold for decades. That approach has led the brand to see five consecutive quarters of growth that’s fueled by products such as the Moab Speed 2, a lighter iteration of Merrell’s Moab boot that was introduced in May 2024 which according to an quarterly earnings call in August, saw revenue quadruple year on year at U.S. retail.
“Consumers’ preferences for what they want in outdoor performance footwear has evolved,” said Hufnagel, who adds that shoppers desire lighter, faster, and more athletic products.
To extend its successful run with Saucony and Merrell, Wolverine needs to control distribution carefully, said Williams Trading Analyst Sam Poser. Sportswear brands are prone to running hit sneakers into the ground, flooding the market with endless new versions until customers get bored and move on. Examples include Nike over-indexing on retro basketball sneakers and VF Corp. overestimating consumer interest in Vans skate shoes.
“It’s how you balance brand equity and sales growth,” said Poser. “If you put brand equity first, you need compelling products. But then you have to manage that distribution in the marketplace to enhance your brand.”
Saucony and Merrell have a long way to go before they need to worry about being overexposed. Merrell and Saucony logged $598.4 million and $406.4 million in revenue in 2024, respectively. Salomon, another athletes’ favourite that’s found broader appeal in recent years, generated over $1 billion last year off sneaker sales alone. If anything they have the opposite problem: Wolverine must build brand heat globally without the marketing firepower of larger sportswear giants such as Nike or Adidas.
It’s done so by zeroing in on a “key city” approach, which focuses marketing initiatives on cities that have an outsized halo effect on key regions such as Paris, London and Tokyo. For example, Hufnagel said a “lion’s share” of its marketing budget for Europe was dedicated to sponsoring significant running races like the London 10K and local run club scenes in London.
“Thankfully, the way brands communicate today, have a lot more advantages than those five to 15 years ago because of how consumers digest information or engage on social media with influencers and collaborations,” said Hufnagel. “The way that you can tell your own stories, it gives smaller brands a fighting chance.”
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