Clothing firm uses doping angle to sell its products

Outdoor brand 37.5 Technology is trying to raise the profile of its athletic performance fabric with a “doping kit.” Without wishing to undermine what is clearly an eye-catching campaign, we have to tell you that it’s actually just a box of cycling clothing.

The Drum reports that 37.5’s going all-in though. It’s registered the domain name StartDoping.com which redirects to a page where it’ll be giving away doping kits daily for the first couple of weeks of the Tour de France.

The page is headlined ‘Just Dope It’ and states: “Our doping kit for cyclists contains 37.5 Technology which is proven to extend an athlete’s peak performance by 26%.”

The fabric is said to slow the rise of core temperature and so improve athletic performance over a given timespan. It is of course completely legal, so you pretty much just have to strip the word of half of its meaning for the following quotes to make sense.  

“If we can convince even one clean athlete to start doping with our fabric technology, then it’s all been worth it,” said Dr Greg Haggquist, the chief technology officer and founder of Cocona Inc, the parent company of 37.5 Technology.

“Hopefully this free sample will get them hooked on doping and then they’ll keep crawling back for another fix,” added Cocona chief executive Jeff Bowman.

The campaign’s the work of marketing firm WorkInProgress. Creative director Andrew Lincoln said: “Given that doping has played a key role in sports over the last 50 years, particularly cycling, we figured the best way to get cyclists’ attention was to give them what they want: a legal way to dope. We’re using the tried and true 'first taste is free' approach.”

One of WorkInProgress’s previous efforts for 37.5 saw the creation of a pop-up shop on the side of a cliff.