GoPro focuses on travel & family to gain wider audience

GoPro started life in the US appealing to adventure seekers. While a great starting point, it’s left the rest of us who do not fancy sky diving, surfing or even a roller coaster ride, feeling a little left out. GoPro COO Prober holds forth on how he plans to ward off the threats of extinction and make the brand ubiquitous even in new markets like India.

Is the traditional route that GoPro was built in the US – via adventure sports – as relevant in India?
As per a Google study, GoPro in the US is amongst the Top 6 of all teen brands and a natural fit for the 13-17-year-olds. However, we have moved well beyond action sports even in our core business and markets. Travel and family have emerged as some of the strong verticals. While action sports will always be a part of our DNA. we now have a much larger audience. In India festivals and weddings are some of the big growth opportunities. Wedding photographers have started offering various packages and charging a premium when they are using GoPro.

What about affordability and pricing?
Trust me, that’s the biggest question mark for us, coming here. However, through discussions with our retail partners, distributors and influencers, we realised everyone sees it as a big opportunity. If we can enable EMIs and financing options, that can broaden the market opportunity. In a lot of other markets, retailers take the burden of doing that but here it is the job of the brand, which came as a surprise.

What gave you the confidence to go the whole hog with GoPro for India?
It came from the country’s emerging demographics aided by the mobile penetration, overseas travel and a high degree of engagement around social media. All these factors fit very well with the brand. Our whole strategy is to make GoPro, the untethered lens to the phone.

How have the non-US markets taken to GoPro?
60% of our business is coming from outside of the US. In APAC which is our fastest growing market, we saw 153 % y-o-y growth in Q3 on revenue. Japan and China are in our Top 10 markets and we became serious about those markets just about 2-3 years back. Japan is a great example. Like India, it doesn’t’ have a large adventure sports market. Surprisingly, what is driving our growth there is female millennials who love self-capture. A whole organic movement has been ongoing on Instagram where they are creating their own hashtags related to GoPro and sharing. China is a diverse market with a mix of sports and travel categories.

Though India is not even in our Top 25, we have big aspirations. It could be in the Top 10, even Top 5 in the long run.

What are the key elements of GoPro brand-building play-book?
We don’t really have a super deep vertical strategy. The content we create and help our users create, inspires consumers and potential consumers. We are very organic in how we build the brand. We rarely do mainstream advertising. In some of our mature markets we have done a little bit of that; but mostly it is about working with advocates and influencers. That is how we create awareness and demand. We see Bollywood and cricket as two big areas and opportunities to explore here. Just as it was a big opportunity in the US where filmmakers have seen GoPro to be of quality that matches some of their big cameras as well as lets them be creative with their shots.

What about going in for the most often used marketing tools: celebrity brand ambassadors?
We do not pay for athletes and celebrities. We align with those who are passionate about our brands and are using it. We do not buy passion. It is the youth who are passionate about living life and sharing content. They are travelling and trekking, and usually our early customers. We would not want to rule out TV, even though YouTube has got a huge reach with 400 mn users, and then there is social. It is more authentic. Mostly our ads don’t look like ads.

After a tumultuous run on the US stock-exchange some analysts feel that GoPro is finally on a recovery mode. Would you care to comment?
2017 has been a turnaround year. Our focus on 5 key priorities for the year and doing fewer things better has enabled better execution and stronger financial results. We achieved profitability in Q3 of 2017, which was earlier than expected. We have never stopped delivering for consumers, however, there is a renewed focus on meeting expectations of investors as well.