Recovery technology company Addaday has signed a new partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard to become the official handheld recovery equipment provider of the Olympic national governing body.
The active therapy device category is one of the fastest-growing categories in the more than $94 billion dollar fitness industry.
The popularity of massage guns and other tools has skyrocketed in the last year thanks to professional athletes publicly using them, as well as other fitness influencers touting their benefits across social media. That has been further aided by the technology becoming both cheaper and easier to purchase.
For Addaday, the push into sports marketing has helped to brand put itself “on a national stage to tell our brand story, build trust and set Addaday on path to leadership in its category,” according to president Hugh Williams.
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“We’ve seen great success from our partnerships in terms of awareness, sales and engagement to the extent that we’ve seen a recent surge of interest among a lot of big brands, events, celebrities and athletes,” Williams said. Other Addaday partners include IRONMAN, USA Climbing, and The Basketball Tournament. Williams said the company was “coming close to locking in some additional strategic opportunities that will be announced in the coming weeks.”
The active therapy device category has seen a boon in popularity as more people look to stay fit as they age as well as move away from other medicated pain relief.
That has further grown amid the coronavirus pandemic, as many professional athletes and at-home exercisers have looked to handheld recovery products to either boost their workout efforts or aide them.
“We’re already seeing strong demand for our recovery products as more people are working out or unable to visit physical therapists,” Williams said. “There’s also been somewhat of an exercise boom among everyday people who might be new to working out and are looking for ways to ease their aches and pains.”
For U.S. Ski and Snowboard, which is preparing its athletes for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the impetus for the deal came from helping them in their training efforts.
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“Recovery is an important component of any athletic program, whether you’re an Olympian or just starting a workout routine,” said Michael O’Conor, chief revenue officer of U.S. Ski & Snowboard. “In working with our high performance staff we learned that Addaday’s products were a perfect fit for our athletes and medical staff for recovery both at our home base in Park City at our Center of Excellence, as well as on the road during training and competition.”
Williams said the company will work with the NGB to make sure it continues to equip its team with the right products, as well as figure out where the next innovations in this space might be.
Furthermore, as the company does more deals in the space, he sees the opportunity to grow brand relevance “with a relatively affluent, educated audience of everyday people who are active and embody our brand mantra of living their fullest.”
