When executives at the tiny shoemaker Kaepa started to receive phone calls and even fan mail from cheerleaders five years ago, they paid scant attention. After all, the executives figured, the cheerleader market couldn't be much to shout about.
Then the firm began to get special orders from entire teams of cheerleaders--and their coaches. Callers said they wanted the shoe mostly because its snap-on logos could be made to match their school colors.
That's all that Kaepa--a then-struggling company--had to hear. It turned its marketing plans upside down and began promoting to cheerleaders. That has since led Kaepa to target an even more lucrative market: cheerleader wannabes. The firm is now broadly pushing its shoes in Teen and Seventeen magazines. A UCLA cheerleader is even featured in a Kaepa shoes store ad. And other marketers--from Nordstrom to Teen Spirit deodorant--have joined in the cheerleader frenzy.
Marketing experts say companies that push the image of cheerleading are trying to sell impressionable teen-age girls on pure fantasy. "Almost every teen-age girl, deep down inside, wants to be a cheerleader," said Marian Salzman, president of BKG Youth, a New York-based youth market consulting firm. "It's a certificate of belonging. It's a uniform that says, you are in."
It is also a marketer's gold mine. "If 400 girls try out for the cheerleading squad, but only 10 make it, why limit yourself to reaching the 10 who make the team?" posed Patti Thomas, chief executive at CheerGear, a mail order company in Overland Park, Kan., that sells cheerleading apparel. She recently ran ads for her catalogue on cable television.
In Southern California, Kaepa--which supplies UCLA cheerleaders with shoes, bags and other goodies--occasionally brings the team into Nordstrom stores, where they hang around the shoe department performing stunts to attract the attention of teen-agers.
Before bringing a flashy new carrying case to market, New Jersey-based Cosmepak had a group of 12 cheerleaders from Oceanside High School examine it closely. "If it's hip with cheerleaders," said Ashley Rogers of BKG Youth/Los Angeles, "it will be hip with everyone."
This is the time of year when cheerleaders are in the public eye. High school, college and pro football seasons are in full swing--and basketball is just around the corner.
