Robert Kendrick just sent a personal video message to my son welcoming him to the Athletic DNA team, even referencing some of my son's results and telling him to keep up the god work. We also heard that other ADNA Select kids got these messages too. How cool is that?
Big thanks to Robert Kendrick for taking the time to do that - impressive!
The program is referred to as "membership marketing". Very similar to book clubs, cd clubs, magazine clubs. You pay a small membership fee up front, with that you get a certain number of books (in this case it's clothes). Then you are obligated to pay for a shipment every X number of months and pay for it over the course of a year.
Here is where it gets real good. Get some key people to "buy" into the company, in this case I would guess Kendrick, and some others very likely high profile coaches (so the Jr.s can be convinced that it's legit). This all helps get more members.
The best way to see if the company is actually doing anything worthwhile is to see how many tennis teams are sponsored by them (D1, D2, D3, NAIA, any high school) I would suspect none.
Competing with Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Under Armor, Quiksilver, even Champion is a form of financial suicide and the company knows that.
Bottom line; It's a clothing version of a book club thats all. I will give them a lot of credit for creative marketing. But the competition in this arena is just too stiff and they have no brand. The others all have branding in their favor.