DTC athleisure brand Beyond Yoga is on a growth trajectory and chief marketing officer Katie Babineau sees that opportunity to break through with brand storytelling around the joy of doing yoga and feeling good.
“In this super crowded, saturated market, the message of performance and perfection is really well covered. It’s loud and clear,” says Babineau. “We believed we had a right opportunity to focus a bit more on joy and movement and progress over perfection. We really allow people to show up, come as they are and try new things.”
Levi Strauss & Co. acquired the brand in 2021 and it has been on a growth trajectory ever since. The brand has been expanding into new products beyond its core leggings and sports bras and reported 16% year-over-year growth in Q2 2026. The brand earned an estimated $43 million in sales during the quarter, according to earnings reports.The brand is currently expanding into new categories outside of the brand’s original core product of yoga pants, leggings and sports bras. The brand launched Glowzone, a new high-sweat performance activewear collection last week. The line is focused on high-intensity training, hot yoga, HIIT and cycling through UPF 50+ recycled fabrics, weightless support and seamless front designs.
The company is also increasing its retail footprint with new stores in key markets opening before the end of year, as well as partnerships with retailers including Nordstrom, REI, Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus.
“Retail expansion has been such a joy to be a part of, because what that means is we’re getting to interact in real life with more of our customer base,” says Babineau.
As the brand moves into communities, they are focused on being present in a hyperlocal way.
“Our goal is to continue to foster that hyperlocal community,” explains Babineau. “We do that through Club Beyond, our movement franchise where we partner with local studios and fitness movers in each neighborhood. It becomes a community hub in a way beyond just retail.”
Prior to joining Beyond Yoga, Babineau has held senior marketing positions at Snap, Apple, GoPro and Sony. Brand Innovators caught up with her to discuss the brand’s new product and retail expansion, showing up in culture and creating emotional storytelling with Issa Rae. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about the brand mission and where this shows up in your creative?
Our brand positioning is in every pocket of the organization. You take glowzone, a new collection that we are launching this month. The product is our first real innovation in performance fabric. The way that we’re bringing it to market is through the concept of finding joy in the zone, finding that magical state that you enter when you get a good workout in, try something new and sweat a lot. It’s the glowzone. In a world that is typically dominated with very turbo performance-driven messaging, we wanted to bring brand ethos into a major product innovation for us. The brand positioning is in every pocket of the organization from product to marketing to customer service to finance. We are living and breathing that mindset.
Can you talk about how the brand is showing up in culture?
Culture is very nuanced. For every brand, you’re going to find the pocket of culture that is right for you. Fitness and wellness is very relevant for our customer community and us as a brand. The way that we think about showing up in culture is really less about chasing cultural moments or chasing cultural trends. It’s about finding the right pockets or moments that are meaningful to the community and showing up in a way that adds value and is authentic for our brand. For example, this spring, we created a concept called Seat Beyond Open Air. It was all about leaning into an insight that we were hearing from the community to come together and connect in real life.
We wanted to bring people together around the spring Equinox, which is all about new beginnings and getting re-energized for the next season, to bring to life this concept of music and movement coming together in community. We also wanted to tap into the music festival season on our own terms as festival season was kicking off. We partnered with Sofi Tuckker, a very vibrant, joyful duo and beloved by our community and customers. We were able to bring this concept to life within this cultural moment that was right for our brand and in a way that we knew really resonated with the community. It is important to understand high quality moments versus high volume.
Can you talk about who your community is and how you’re fostering a connection with this audience?
Our customer ranges from Gen Z to Gen X to Boomer. We often see moms shopping with daughters, shopping with grandma in our retail stores. This multigenerational overlap is really cool to see. Our core customer is a very active, busy millennial. Being intentional and showing up on their path is our focus. They don’t have a lot of time, so we are showing up online where they are spending time and showing up in real life where they’re spending time. We’ve got to go where they. We have to know where they are spending time and that constantly changes. We take an iterative approach.
The media landscape is very fragmented these days. Can you think about breaking through?
It is super fragmented. I think about the ideas and the concept and the go-to market that’s really cut through for us is this idea of tidal wave messaging, where you have to say the thing a million times in a million different pockets of the journey to cut through. Repetition is key. Cohesion is key and consistency is key. We have formed this go-to-market that really is social first, community first. That becomes the heartbeat and we bring that social proof into our website, emails and SMS. Hopefully someone engaging with us will start to see that repetition around a brand campaign or a product launch for glozone. We brought the community into how we shape that product. We brought them into how we shot and captured the product and they are co-creating with us along the way.
Can you talk about your own career path and how your past experience helped shape your perspective where you are today?
I came to Beyond Yoga with majority experience in consumer tech. I really fell in love with the idea of breaking down really complex product attributes in relatable human ways. Being able to unpack a 4K television or mirrorless camera or a point of view camera in a way that means something to people that gets at what you’re actually offering in their day-to-day lives.
It trained me to think about product benefits and brand storytelling as one in the same. You’re driving an emotional connection, but it’s got to be powered by the thing that you’re contributing to that person’s life. The pace and innovation in consumer tech is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It really trained me to move quickly and in the mindset of bringing insights, so you’re grounded in truth, but also moving very quickly and being agile in your approach. Learning along the way, being okay to pivot, knowing that products can change, launch dates can change and all that.
You mentioned the importance of emotional storytelling. Can you give some examples of how you’re doing this at Beyond Yoga?
The Seek Beyond platform that came to life last year is a great example of this. We wanted to launch that platform in a way that would feel aspirational but attainable. We wanted to partner with someone who really represented the growth mindset with the ethos of progress over perfection. Issa Rae was someone who we found particularly interesting because she already loved the brand. She’s super creative, humble and really embraces that mindset. We partnered with her and created an anthem. She wrote it. We shot it together. We brought a collection of movers who have been a part of the brand for a very long time into that anthem. We launched it full funnel, so we’re reaching new people.
We brought it to life with the brand trip and brought together creators who have been a part of the brand for a very long time. The response from the community online was 100% positive which was a signal that this is really resonating. People are building content around it. They’re telling us how they seek Beyond and show us what that mindset means to them. We launched that in Q3 and saw incredible acceleration in the business during Q4 and Q1. One part was due to that new audience building that we did. One part was due to the product expansion into new categories, which allowed us to offer more Beyond to new customers and existing customers.
What are the marketing challenges that have you up at night and conversely, where are the opportunities?
I don’t get a lot of sleep. I have two young kids, so they keep me busy. But when I am trying to sleep, I would say the No. 1 thing that I hold dearly is this idea of scaling with soul and with purpose and being able to maintain that high growth that we’re seeing through the lens of long-term brand health. We want to make sure that we are keeping the people who we brought along the way at the forefront and honoring everything that the team before us has built in our 20 year history and iterating and building on that. It’s that balance and that dance.
