Lululemon launches a beer in Canada to break into male market

ATTENTION yogis: it’s time to ditch the green tea. A nice cold tinnie is all you need to get your chakras pumping, according to the absurdly popular activewear brand Lululemon.

Do we really need a Lululemon beer?

THE absurdly popular activewear brand Lululemon is expanding its product line beyond $119 yoga pants and launching a craft beer. Strange, but true.

“Beer, it’s the new yoga pant,” proclaimed the new Lululemon Men Twitter account last week, in an attempt to get male yogis to ditch their green tea in favour of a Curiosity Lager.

Lululemon has partnered with Vancouver’s Stanley Park Brewing and the lager will be available in a limited-edition run of 88,000 cans in Canadian liquor stores from mid-August. The beer features “chinook and lemon drop hops”, according to a statement,

“Just because you’re a yogi, doesn’t mean you won’t have an occasion for beer, and we’re certainly interested in talking to that crowd,” Doug Devlin, director of marketing for Vancouver brewery Stanley Park Brewing, told CBC News.

“I think Lululemon, by extension, is interested in talking to a more male beer-drinking crowd. It’s a nice way for each of us to take what it is we do to a new consumer.”

It’s an unusual move for the brand which has achieved cult status among women around the world. But the company has had to fight off accusations of elitism and body shaming.

In 2013, Lululemon’s founder and former CEO Chip Wilson said some women’s bodies “just don’t work” in their yoga pants, after women complained the tights were too sheer.

“It’s really about the rubbing of the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time and how much they use it,” he said.

Meet Curiosity Lager by @StanleyParkBrew. The official brew of @SeaWheeze coming soon to a party near you. pic.twitter.com/wWQIs1VpR5

— lululemon athletica (@lululemon) July 15, 2015

Part of Lululemon’s popularity is due to their merchandising strategy, which runs on a ‘scarcity’ model. The brand only makes a limited number of garments in each style and doesn’t refresh stock once it sells out.

They release new styles each week — not uncommon in the age of fast fashion — but this strategy creates hype over new stock and panic once popular styles sell out.

So hordes of cashed-up fitness fanatics turn to Lululemon online resale market to try and hunt down that sports bra or patterned jacket they adore, but can’t purchase in a Lululemon store or on their website.

It seems they’re employing a similar strategy with the limited-release launch of Curiosity Lager.

Professor of marketing and science at the University of South Australia, Byron Sharp told news.com.au earlier this year that this marketing hype is no accident.

“This exclusivity thing, it creates a bit of buzz for a while. People are chasing items and trying to get their hands on styles they couldn’t get at first.

“Department stores used to dominate the retail space and this has been replaced by fast fashion. Stores like Zara just pump out new designs all the time. So [Lululemon] are certainly claiming that space.”