High performance sports eyewear is considered something of a luxury product in the UK. While nationalities such as the French enjoy stylish, wrapped prescription eyewear for the slopes, sea and sun, the British see this as the reserve of professional sportspeople or the wealthy.
Bushnell Optics is hoping to change attitudes with a new line of prescription products within its revamped
collection of Cébé sports and active lifestyle eyewear. Cébé, whose 120-year heritage is in the optical frames, sport performance sunglasses, ski goggles and helmet sector, was acquired by Bushnell in 2009 with the intention of expanding the Bushnell Outdoor Products family of eyewear. Cébé’s role is to complement the Bollé and Serengeti brands with its focus on winter sports, running and biking; a role it has largely accomplished through plano product in non-optical outlets.
Cébé is massive in France within the adventure sector and finds a wide following within urban and country areas. This spans prescription eyewear including junior styles all helped by France’s funding system, under which subsidies of 60 per cent are available for frames and lenses. This means children also benefit from the marque’s performance, styling and safety technology.
Vibrant new look
Bushnell currently has a handful of optical stockists for the Cébé brand but is hoping the introduction of a prescription glazing programme into the Sportech section of the range will enthuse practices to get more involved with the brand. To help this along, Cébé is sporting a vibrant new look and a price point below Bollé.
Bushnell is hoping the Rx launch will increase awareness of Cébé. ‘This is our inroad into UK opticians with the Cébé brand,’ says key account manager Elaine Morrison.
Bushnell is hoping the surge in interest in outdoor and adventure sports among the public will translate into interest in the new Cébé product, and the Rx programme, from opticians. It also hopes that buyers of goggles, helmets, Bollé eyewear and other related products in non-optical outlets, such as Snow and Rock (which will carry the plano Cébé product), provides a further catalyst for customers to seek a prescription product from an optical practice.
Bushnell is using the launch of the Rx Cébé line to brief non-optical suppliers on the Rx programme to let them know where their local Cébé prescription suppliers are. ‘We brief the staff at Snow and Rock that there’s a local optician that can do prescription glazing,’ says Dawne Warren, business and communications manager. She says Cébé will be presented to all of its customers and supported by emails and information through its web shop. ‘We want to use this to support the independents,’ she adds.
Ripe for Rx
The launch of the Rx programme is also something of a relaunch for the Cébé brand within UK opticians, says Warren. ‘We have been selling it on a plano basis for the past five or six years so we want to get the brand out there.’ Having researched the market, Bushnell felt the brand was ideally suited to an Rx programme. Warren says: ‘We exhibited at the Bike Show and so many people were looking for Rx eyewear. We want to create more activity around the brand so it presents itself as another option for the optician.’
Cébé also opens up new options for customers, she adds, both through the breadth of the styles within the brand and the Rx programme. ‘Do they want a more lairy frame or more classical Bollé?’ The adrenaline lifestyle association of the Cébé brand is very much at the forefront of Bushnell’s thinking rather than age grouping. Pure adrenaline and adventure sports are its watchwords. Cébé’s sporting credentials are front and centre in the presentation of the brand with lens and frame technology and sport ambassadors providing the performance plus lifestyle story.
Cebe’s colourful brochure showcases a mass of frames across adrenaline sports, street, vintage and junior styles. The same brochure profiles the technology and brand ambassador. The Sportech line has been singled out for the prescription treatment with frames in the programme denoted with the nano legend.
What is also key is the relationship Bushnell can build with practices through service and approaches around stock levels. ‘It’s important to allow practices to engage with the sports eyewear market at their own speed to gain confidence,’ says Warren. ‘More and more opticians are fed up with being dictated to.’ She says there are no enforced volumes with Cébé and practices get the choice of what its customers want.
Despite the lower price point Bushnell wants to emphasise the performance credentials of the optics used in the prescription programme. With adventure sports, often in challenging conditions, lens performance is key, says Warren. Cébé offers mineral lenses or an ultra safe polycarbonate option ideally suited to sport due to their lightness and impact resistance. This is particularly important with high speed sports and younger wearers.
In terms of optical protection, the lenses feature anti-reflective, hard and photochromic treatments and, on the front side, photochromic, polarised hard and mirrored coatings. These cover myriad light conditions and sporting requirements. Swappable lenses are offered in many of the styles. There are also lens treatments targeted towards specific groups; for example, Cébé’s 1500 Blue Light lens is being aimed at the children’s market to highlight the issue of sunlight damage.
Contemporary colour
Cébé’s frame technology and styling may also come as a surprise to many. Historically it was known for its iconic metal and leather-clad mountaineering eyewear but today’s collection takes a much brighter approach in colour and materials. While a modern take on the classics are still there, adventurous lives need adventurous frames and the Cébé collection is awash with adjustable and interchangeable temples, adjustable nose pads, flexible and anti-slip materials. A particular highlight is the S’track. This model features Symbiotech temples which use a V-shaped insert to improve the fit and maximise stability.
Warren says that while a few practices have bought into the idea of sports eyewear there is still a lot of work to do to get them to understand the opportunity. ‘It’s so helpful when one of the practice managers is sporty,’ says Morrison. She says Bushnell is trying to create more interest among staff through outdoor magazines and individual training sessions.
Cébé is hoping to provide practices with an opportunity to tap into an exciting and emerging market and, to do that, it hopes to help practice staff understand those sports and the adrenaline junkies who take part. Having the right kit is all part of the lifestyle so understanding the technology behind the frames is key too. ‘They are quite technical pieces of kit, after all,’ she says.