Codifying our Human Desires

An Example: Mapping the Evolution of Sweatpants

Let’s see how this whole Desires Map plays out in a real/semi-real example … with sweatpants. Sweatpants, joggers, tracksuit bottoms, or trackies were first introduced in the 1920s by Émile Camuset, the founder of Le Coq Sportif.

We’re no sweatpant experts. We simply started with a super mundane product category – sweatpants – to see how the Human Desires Map would play out in an example with which we can all relate.

We all know sweatpants. The staples of sidelines and lazy Sunday mornings. If I were to ask you to associate sweatpants with one of the four Human desires, without thinking, you would all say “Comfort”. And you’d be right, of course. Our immediate, natural association of sweatpants is with comfort.

However, when we dig into it and look at “sweats” over time, through different brands, products, materials and lifestyle shifts, we can see expanded associations, beyond “Comfort” and into “Play”, “Attraction” and even “Power”, creating new relevance with consumers by addressing more of our innate desires.

Somewhere back in history – let’s call it the 80s – sweatpants started to evolve beyond the “Comfort” box and moved into “Attraction” and “Play”… think luleulemon, Addidas, Nike and created, what is now an estimated US$200 billion global athleisure market.

While never giving up its “Comfort” cred, sweatpants found new relevance as they became more fit for “Play” (the pun is intentional). Sweats became more functional, with new materials, moisture wicking and/or repelling qualities – creating new occasions to use them, not merely after sport, but for it. Sweats became more emotional too, as identity markers of an aspirational, active lifestyle … where I both “work hard and play hard.” [insert 80s fashion model stare]

Further, the humble sweatpant, found new acceptance in the “Attraction” box, as they walked out of the yoga studio and walked into the after-yoga coffee shop. They took on new forms, fits, colors and designs. They showed up on celebrities “just like us”. They were embraced by designers. They were given new names like “leggings”, “jeggings”, and “joggers”. Lawmakers spoke out against them (btw, there is no better way to get people to embrace something than by getting lawmakers to speak out against that thing, but I digress ;-).

Not to mention the “Power” sweatpants can yield when I decide that I’ve had enough of squeezing myself into someone else’s version of me and I find “power” in the “comfort” of being my “real” self in the perfect pair of joggers.

To put a dramatic point on it all, let’s look at the difference in two different pairs of sweatpants.

In a collaboration with North Face, Gucci sells a “technical jersey jogging pant” for $1,300. Similar, but differently – very, very differently – the brand “Fruit of the Loom” sells “Eversoft Elastic Bottom Sweatpants” starting at $7.44 at Walmart. That’s a price elasticity of 175x – for a pair of cotton/polyester blend pants with an elastic waistband.

The Human Desires Map doesn’t explain why one would spend $1,300 for a pair of sweatpants, (that’s a whole separate Episode of Heartbeat), but it does help to understand the human conditions that create a market for $1,300 sweatpants. That is, by expanding one’s associations between a product and the Desires it could trigger, a brand can create new relevance between a product and its audience. To get people to think of it differently. To get people to feel differently … about themselves. To create new associations, use cases and occasions. To create new rational and emotional relevance for a brand, even within a product category as mundane as sweatpants.