On Is Becoming a Sportswear Giant, Not Just a Running Brand
Co-founder Caspar Coppetti spoke to me about On's shifting marketing strategy and making inroads into fashion. He also provided an update on the brand's LightSpray manufacturing tech and much more.
Hi friends! Welcome back to another edition of SportsVerse, your favourite newsletter at the intersection of sports, fashion, culture and business. Powered by OffBall.
Today, we are joined by Caspar Coppetti, co-founder and executive co-chairman of On, the multi-billion dollar Swiss sportswear giant famous for its quirky running sneakers and its long-running association with Roger Federer. Many of you know that On is a company I’ve covered in great detail for years, so it was an exciting moment to interview the brand’s co-founder for my newsletter. Thanks to Maria Peterson for making it happen.
Yet again, On is swimming against the tide.
The Swiss sneaker company just posted record first quarter earnings of CHF 726.6 million ($865.4 million), up 43 percent compared to the same period last year. The brand also swiftly raised its expected revenue target for the current financial year to CHF 2.86 billion ($3.4 billion), which would be a 28 percent increase on 2024’s total.
For those who follow On, this behaviour is nothing new. The company has long been on a growth streak.
What is new is that On is continuing this trajectory in a sports apparel and footwear market now dominated by unfavourable headwinds that have rocked the industry’s biggest names. Nike has lurched from quarter to quarter as it slowly puts together a turnaround plan, Skechers pulled its guidance last month, citing macroeconomic uncertainty, and Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden recently warned of the potential impact of tariffs on the brand and sector at large.
The only sign that On has also been affected by the market uncertainty of its peers was its quarterly profits of CHF 56.7 million, a 38 percent decrease from the same period last year.
Regardless, there is much to be cheerful about. Over the past year, On has finally been able to begin shaking off its tag as a quirky running footwear business from Switzerland, and is looking more and more like an all-around global sportswear it-brand, with a deep presence not just in performance sports, but sports culture and fashion too.
Once known for its scrappy DIY customer acquisition strategy, letting its speciality running retail partners, athletes and their unconventional shoe designs spread the word organically, On has begun flexing its muscles when it comes to big budget marketing campaigns and activations designed to truly establish the brand as an alternative to its much larger and older competitors like Nike and Adidas.
Much of this push has been driven by a simple truth: “There are still a lot of people out there who have never heard of On,” said Caspar Coppetti, who co-founded the brand at the onset of the 2010s alongside David Allemann and Olivier Bernhard.
Since the start of 2025, On released a big budget collaboration called “Soft Wins” with Sesame Street’s Elmo character, which debuted at the Super Bowl in February and was a tongue-in-cheek nod to the confusion surrounding the brand’s logo and name.
On has also begun rolling out its partnership with global superstar Zendaya, a relationship that has allowed the brand to put serious momentum behind its push to become equally as known for its fashion-forward multi-purpose training and lifestyle gear as it is for its performance running sneakers.
Along with multi-hyphenate British artist FKA Twigs, Zendaya has helped push the brand into a new sphere, attracting the attention of mainstream consumers who may never have paid it a second look in years gone by. It’s already paying off. Earlier this month, the brand became the first Swiss business to be listed among the world’s 20 hottest brands in the fashion world on the Lyst Index, the only sportswear brand selected this quarter and ranking among the likes of Gucci, Jacquemus, Bottega, and other luxury names.
The brand has also benefited by (slightly) widening the roster of external brands it collaborates with, another factor in its ever-soaring sales figures and increasing credibility in fashion and lifestyle.
“For the first 10-11 years, we did no collaborations at all. That was maybe my fault. I always said: ‘Rolex doesn’t do any collaborations, why should we?’ Coppetti said, conceding that the approach may have been overly cautious. But it paid dividends. In an era where every major sports brand fires off countless new drops and collaborations every week, On’s more tactile approach makes people stand up and take notice more often than not.
Instead of going shallow and wide, trying to work with everyone or jumping on quick trends, On has been strategic about selecting collaborators who understand its mission and can help introduce the brand to their influential markets and consumer groups.
One such example is the esteemed Japanese fashion retailer and tastemaker, Beams, which On released a sellout tennis-focused collaboration with last summer, and included a collaborative version of the brand’s Roger Pro tennis sneaker and accompanying apparel that bridged the gap between performance tennis gear and streetwear.
The release had a transformative effect in enhancing On’s standing in the Japanese market — even though it has had a presence there through retail partners and subsidiaries since the early 2010s. In consumers’ minds, it was suddenly a must-have sports-fashion brand, rather than one they’d simply go to for running or gym gear.
“This past quarter, we grew [sales] by 100 percent [year-over-year] in Japan, already from a pretty high base,” Coppetti said. “Our Tokyo store, for example, had a really, really strong quarter. The Tokyo store even outperformed our Regent Street [London] flagship, which is already a spaceship on its own. So we're actually opening a second store in Tokyo in September."
After collaborating on a deep level almost exclusively with Loewe, Beams and Post Archive Faction, On is slowly opening up to new relationships (and has released products with the likes of LA-based streetwear label Pleasures) to make further inroads with mainstream and lifestyle consumers — all without losing sight of its core performance principles, Coppetti said.
“We almost doubled our apparel business this quarter — that’s a result of all the homework we’ve done in this past year,” he said, adding that the brand has been working hard to educate consumers on the brand’s assortment and establish “hero” footwear lines such as the Cloud 6 shoe, which On has recently returned to circulation as a new and improved offering.
Q&A: Tariffs, Manufacturing Closer to Home, Tennis, New Sports Categories & More.
Caspar and I enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation over video call that spanned tennis, tariffs, technology and everything in between. Here is an excerpt of three of the most interesting points we covered, which I wanted to present as an edited Q&A.
DYM: What’s the latest on the LightSpeed technology? Being able to spray-on shoes in up to three minutes and be more flexible about where and how you manufacture footwear seems to be a well-timed innovation, given the uncertainty in global markets right now.
Caspar: This is maybe the one thing that we haven't talked about as much today because we got so excited about fashion. But LightSpray is the area I spend most of my time on. It’s a new manufacturing technology — a way to automate production, and a way to get away from manufacturing footwear just in one place in the world. It allows us to manufacture footwear very, very close to consumers. About three weeks ago, we brought the first LightSpray products to consumers that were made here in Zurich, which is unheard of, manufacturing footwear products in such a high-wage country like Switzerland. And I've recently visited a couple of sites here where we potentially would put larger production facilities. Finally, throughout the year, we will have more consumer-facing launches of LightSpray products and most likely you’ll also hear some news around our scaling of production.
DYM: I’ve written extensively about how On is injecting new life into the tennis category where other brands have increasingly pulled out. How’s that working out?
Caspar: When [award-winning Belgian designer] Tim Coppens joined the company [in 2022], he was coming from the world of high fashion. We basically asked him to express his vision of the brand through product, merchandising and accessories and then bring it to life. I think his first assignment was actually tennis. Then it's very easy to fall in love with someone like [US tennis player and On athlete] Ben Shelton, his style and his attitude, and then amplifying that [through product and marketing]. We started to have a bit of fun, and for us, it was also the first time that we as a brand were doing something and it was coming back to us larger than life through TV and through social media. And we really saw the power of having the On logo on the chest and being bold about our visual language. And so you’ll see more and more of that now in our apparel collection — it gives people a reason to come back and buy more. We put so much engineering into our footwear that we can sometimes be a bit serious. And, you know, tennis apparel leans into fashion, an area where we can be more playful. Having a bit more fun has been really good for the brand. I'm 50 years old. I'm wearing a light blue hoodie. You know, we get to have fun.
DYM: I’m seeing more and more serious athletes wearing On footwear to play golf in, even though the company doesn’t make any golf-specific footwear. Have you given any consideration to that, or what the next big category that the brand might enter would be?
Caspar: Of course, we're always exploring on the innovation side here. But yeah, a lot of it, as you're pointing out, comes through organic adoption. Like we were adopted naturally by gym-goers, which led to us developing our training category, which is really working for us. [The brand’s relationship with Roger Federer started in the first place because Federer organically began wearing On’s shoes to play tennis after the expiration of his Nike deal.] Yes, we do know a lot of people are wearing On products on the golf course. We also think it's exciting to see how that sport is changing. But we haven't decided on any new sports yet.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride. We’re back on Thursday with an exciting guest post!
Until next time,
DYM
Very timely and interesting read! I've been thinking quite a bit about On's expansion into different sports categories, specifically F1 and a possible collaboration with someone like Carlos Sainz, for example. With F1's (imo) weird positioning in the the fashion, cultural space atm, I think there's still a lot of potential for really fun collaborations with drivers, especially in the luxury sportswear space. For instance I am excited to see how the Lewis Hamilton and Lululemon collab plays out. With Carlos specifically, he makes sense, because he is seen as the sports enthusiast of the grid - he's into golf, cycling, football, padel etc. He is also stepping into beauty and fashion with his Loreal ambassadorship and Hackett London SS 25 campaign feature, so it shows an interest in becoming a bit more than just another F1 driver and being more in the "pop culture zeitgeist". If you could not tell I would really love to see the two working together haha.
The rising star of the sportswear industry!