These events must focus women artists who are breaking stereotypes of women athletes by being strong and self-sufficient. As the women's sporting goods market is the high growth segment today, that is a critical focus for the North Face to concentrate on. The need to embrace social networking and make it a core part of the PR, direct marketing and sales promotion strategies of the North Face is evident by the rapid growth of Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter and many other sites emerging. The reliance on Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2005) forces a high level of transparency and trust when these applications are used to ensure trust is created and maintained. The North Face needs to look beyond the hype of social networking to see it as a way to deliver a differentiated, highly valued and trusted experience to its customers (Pine, Gilmore, 2000). By connecting with customers in entirely new ways the company will be able to attain the 5% growth. If trust is achieved, then this growth will be possible.

References

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Market Growth

Market Share

Hurley

Women's Fitness

Starter

Soccer

Converse

Market Growth

Apparel APAC

Fitness Dance

Apparel U.S.

NB Hockey

Nike Golf

Footwear