Q&A: Zensah on Their Partnership with NBA Player Justin Holiday
A brief Q&A covering a rising sportswear brand, a new partnership between Justin Holiday and Zensah, NBA Top Shot, and more
On March 25th, Zensah, a sports compression brand, announced a new partnership with Justin Holiday, a swingman with the Indiana Pacers.
In doing so, Holiday became the first ever NBA professional partner of Zensah, which has been around for over 15 years and has a client base that features many professional athletes.
For as competitive as the NBA is on the court, with teams investing millions of dollars annually to win the championship, the business scene of the league may be just as competitive. Just at the surface level, companies compete for branding rights, product placement, and advertising spots on TV. That reality makes it all the more fascinating how Zensah, a smaller scale brand relative to the industry leaders that dominate the NBA, found its place in the league.
We did a Q&A with Zensah’s CEO, Ze’ev Feig, about their new partnership, how they promote their brand in a hyper-competitive market dominated by many large brands, and what they envision for the future.
This interview has been edited and condensed, all images have been provided by Zensah, and all quotes are from Ze’ev Feig, CEO of Zensah, and Justin Holiday, a guard/forward for the Indiana Pacers.
Let’s start from the top. What is Zensah, and what do they do?
Zensah is a premium compression apparel brand known for quality and innovation. The company was started in 2004 and was one of the first brands producing seamless sportswear at the very beginning of when the technology hit the market. The name of the company comes from the Italian word “SENZA,” meaning “to be without,” and this is a foundational and fundamental belief of the company — that athletes should be without limits.
Elaborate on Zensah’s journey to becoming a prominent player in the sports compression industry. It’s no secret that the NBA’s apparel is dominated by a few major sportswear brands, so how is it that a smaller company was able to burst onto the sportswear scene of the NBA?
Zensah was really one of the pioneers; [one of] the first of only a handful of companies working in compression. And since then we’ve built relationships based on the dependability of the products that have carried us until today.
Still, one of the reasons we felt Justin Holiday was a great fit as our first NBA partner in 16 years was because of his story of being undrafted and having to really earn his place in the NBA after being doubted. Zensah too feels like an underdog at times, having to fight for our place within the industry.
Sometimes it can feel like a David and Goliath scenario, going up against these huge corporations. But we know that we have products that people trust and we’ve worked for over 16 years building that trust, within an organization like the NBA and to our average customers on the street. We’ve been on the scene and we’re going to continue to stay on the scene and get more recognition as a brand who is here to stay.
Performance is everything in today’s NBA: every player seeks a competitive advantage to push them over the top. What does Zensah’s compression do for athletes like Justin Holiday?
There’s no question that compression provides benefits to professional players and athletes. It’s essential, especially since those players are expected to put in 100% of their effort every single game and recover as quickly as possible to stay in peak condition.
Justin Holiday himself told us just how important recovery is for him, explaining, “Recovery is so important to professional athletes. Finding new and better ways to recover is crucial to playing successfully in every game and throughout the season.”
He also explained to us how grueling his time in the overseas leagues was for him physically, “When I finally joined the NBA, I just got finished playing 38 minutes a game in the D-League so I was exhausted. My first game [in the NBA], I played 6 minutes in the game; I took 6 shots and I missed all of them. But I was ultra-aggressive, because I wanted to stand out and show that I belonged.”
We also appreciate Justin’s story of using his skill to fight his way to his rightful place in the NBA, and if Zensah compression was at all a part of that journey, we can call ourselves lucky. Zensah’s compression products are known for their durability, but also comfort. The seamless technology and moisture-wicking fabric helps players like Justin to keep from overheating in games. Justin wears our base layer tights (made in Italy) almost exclusively and we believe the quality is why players like him choose Zensah again and again.
“Recovery is so important to professional athletes. Finding new and better ways to recover is crucial to playing successfully in every game and throughout the season.”
— Justin Holiday
A common cliché in the NBA is that especially come playoff time, recovery is king. How does Zensah help athletes recover, and what advantages that bring to an athlete?
Yes, recovery is a huge focus for Zensah. And we are focusing on recovery as part of a greater campaign centered on changing the attitudes of the industry around the use of heat for recovery.
The long-held method of “RICE,” (the acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) has been shown to be wholly invalidated, and heat has been shown to be actually more suitable for an accelerated and more effective recovery. Zensah as a brand and a voice in the industry is looking to educate the public around the importance of heat, instead of ice, to recovery.
By relying on solid science, rather than anecdotal evidence, thoughts around how to recover most effectively are changing. Just a few weeks ago we released a product that utilizes this idea; it’s called the Heat Recovery Sock. Rather than directly applying heat, such as in a heating pad, the heat in the product is delivered in the form of Far Infrared Rays. The fabric transforms the energy generated by the body into FIRs, which are emitted directly into muscle tissue.
We’ve seen a huge response to this product, but also to the new and cutting-edge technology we’ve put into it.
Talk about your giveaway with Justin Holiday’s first NBA Top Shot moment. What is NBA Top Shot, and what are your thoughts on its future in the NBA world?
NBA Top Shot is, at its most basic, digital basketball trading cards. Zensah, as a company, is known for innovating, and being an early adaptor of new tech, so we jumped on Top Shot at the beginning of the frenzy. But also, we could see the immense value in NFTs for the future of commerce.
Gamification of commerce, creating scarcity, and owning a digital piece of sports history is all part of a greater lesson of the immense capacity that NFTs could have, not only for the NBA, but for D2C commerce in general. Creating digital pieces that people can own in the internet space could have huge implications for brands that sell physically, as well.
We’re currently thinking a lot about this aspect of how it shifts our markets and how our customers could benefit from having NFTs, and specially-made pieces alongside NFTs. Also, as part of [a] comprehensive creative marketing [plan], Zensah is going to be giving away three moments from the Justin Holiday base set.
We’ve seen players like Allen Iverson, and more recently, Kyrie Irving, catch the eye of fans for wearing custom, branded accessories like socks and shooting sleeves. Is that something we can expect from Justin Holiday in the future?
Absolutely, yes. Justin is already a fan of a lot of our products and we’re looking to do more with him on the product level. We are already working to create some pieces that speak to his style and performance needs. We have a lot more surprises coming.
Our arm sleeves are also popular across professional sports and, without giving too much away, we do have relationships with MLB and NFL teams who wear our products as well. They’ve also become an iconic part of basketball style too.
Elaborate on what fans might expect in the future from Zensah? More partnerships? More giveaways?
We’re lucky to have Justin as a face and a partner, and we’re definitely going to make use of that and we’ve already begun working on a few custom products with him.
