Caroline Henneman – PassaSports

PassaSports is on a mission to become Europe’s leading online sports specialist. Born from the merger of two e-commerce companies, it has evolved into a dynamic brand offering expertise across nine sports categories. In this interview, we speak with Caroline Henneman, Marketing Director at PassaSports, who shares insights into the brand’s journey—from unifying its platforms and aligning its team to launching impactful campaigns and embracing innovation. Discover how PassaSports is helping customers “Beat Your Best” while staying true to its specialist roots.

The evolution of PassaSports

PassaSports emerged in 2019 through the merger of two specialised e-commerce companies, each rooted in a different region and sports niche. One focused on tennis, later adding hockey and football, while the other catered to indoor sports enthusiasts and running. The merger marked the beginning of a transformation and vision to create the leading sports retail brand in Europe. Since then, PassaSports has unified its operations, consolidating multiple distribution centres into one and establishing a cohesive commercial headquarter in Leiderdorp.

Today, PassaSports encompasses over 17 webshops across four countries: The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. These webshops include specialised platforms like TennisDirect, RunningDirect, VoetbalDirect, and HockeyDirect, but also VolleybalShop, HandbalShop, KorfbalShop, and BasketbalDirect., The PassaSports brand has not been directly communicated before this year. “This year was the first time we started introducing PassaSports, albeit subtly. For example, ‘VoetbalDirect powered by PassaSports,’ but PassaSports itself isn’t well-known yet, but we are working on that,” Caroline says.

As the company’s first Marketing Director, Caroline reflects on the brand’s ambitions: “Our goal is to unify the nine specialist sports we focus on without losing our specialist focus, which is our core strength.” Her team is working on bringing things closer together, but the challenge of creating a unified brand focused on specialisation remains as each platform has a unique name and identity.

‘’Our goal is to unify the nine specialist sports we focus on without losing our specialist focus, which is our core strength.”

Building the brand

To tackle this challenge, Caroline first created a clear brand positioning for PassaSports. As a company formed through a merger, fostering alignment among employees was a critical first step. “Since the merger brought together two different companies, employees often identified more with their original company. The concept of PassaSports was still relatively new to them,” she states.

Hence, the first step towards the new brand positioning was holding storytelling workshops with employees, asking them what makes the organisation unique. These workshops gave a lot of insight about the DNA of both companies, helped unify the team and gave employees a sense of pride and purpose in the newly established PassaSports brand.

“Employees are your greatest ambassadors. It’s important they feel proud of the company and understand what they’re working toward.”

The second step in developing the brand positioning was using customer insights to find out how customers perceive the sport platforms and what drives them to shop with PassaSports. Caroline’s team did this by inviting recent customers to the office for a discussion to understand them better.

“It was important for me to lead the discussion myself to really get first hand insights and understand them better,” Caroline says, showcasing the hands-on approach to consumer research. Furthermore, PassaSports also work closely with brands and sports associations, like the Dutch Tennis Federation, to survey these for input.

“Employees are your greatest ambassadors. They need to feel proud of the company and understand what they’re working toward.”

Expertise, Experience and Empowerment

Combining the insights from these three parts, a positioning strategy that defines PassaSports’ vision, mission and values was created based on three pillars: expertise, experience and empowerment. These are the new brand values.

Caroline explains, “Empowerment is about enabling employees, customers, and our partners to grow—whether that’s through exploring new opportunities within the company or helping customers and partners achieve their goals in sports. Expertise is another cornerstone, as we pride ourselves on being specialists. “Our sport specialists know all there is to know in their sport, whether it is about the right tennis shoes for a specific surface, or the right nutrition for you during a marathon, we have the knowledge to guide our customers. Experience focuses on providing seamless customer journeys—whether it’s navigating the website, interacting with customer service, or when returning items.

PassaSports also creates physical experiences at their stores and elsewhere. For example, in Amstelpark, they have a tennis park connected to a dedicated tennis shop. Here they also host “test Fridays” once a month where people can try various products. At the Amsterdam Dance Event, PassaSports collaborated with Björn Borg to hold a “rave run” where participants would run through the city wearing headphones, creating a unique experience. These events add real value for participants and are always fully booked. “We aim to embody our three values—expertise, experience, and empowerment—in everything we do.”

The “Beat Your Best” tagline was developed from these three values. It resonates with both elite athletes and casual sports enthusiasts. “Your best is entirely different from mine,” Caroline explains. “It’s about what your goals are and how we can support you in reaching them.” The brand made an internal video showcasing this idea, which was very well-received. “Employees felt proud and inspired by it, which is fantastic.”

“We aim to embody our three values—expertise, experience, and empowerment—in everything we do.”

Creative Development

PassaSports has also made strides in marketing transformation, with its first mass-media campaigns launched in 2024, focusing on football and running, clearly communicating the pay off “Beat Your Best”.

Caroline explains, “We identified football and running as key sports for us. Football has a very clear seasonal start in August, so we focused heavily on that. Running is more year-round but still sees a spike after summer, as people pick up their routines again. For football, we partnered with a big football brand and the VVCS (Dutch Players’ Union) to highlight women’s football. Together, we contracted five women playing in the Eredivisie (the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands) to feature in campaigns.

This collaboration stemmed from shared values—women’s football is still underrepresented, underfunded, and undervalued. For example, women often play in unisex shoes, even though they have a different anatomy than men. This increases the risk of injuries like ACL tears. We wanted to spotlight these issues while celebrating women’s football. We made the players the focal point of the campaign.” She continues, “In the visuals, they’re posed confidently—arms crossed, ball underarm—projecting strength and determination. They’re not smiling; they’re owning their space.” These images were placed on massive billboards along highways, literally putting the players on a pedestal.

For running, the campaign also used the tagline “Beat your Best”, showcasing a man and a woman running on the old airstrip in Soest (a municipality in the Netherlands). The visuals focused on determination and self-improvement. One featured someone in a starting stance, fully concentrated and ready to beat their personal record. “Beat Your Best” is our overarching message, applicable to PassaSports and the individual labels,” Caroline says.

While these campaigns focus primarily on building brand awareness, the goal is to build a more cohesive story that aligns with the brand’s positioning, pillars and tagline in the future. “We’re working with a creative partner now to figure out how to bring the concept of PassaSports to life visually and consistently over the next few years,” Caroline shares. For now, the company uses their brand tracker as a means to see the impact of its campaigns, however, Caroline mentions that further research and testing of new creative concepts could be relevant in the future to ensure that they’re heading in the right direction.

“Beat Your Best” is our overarching message, applicable to PassaSports and the individual labels.”

Future ambitions

PassaSports’ future lies in breaking down silos between its various platforms while maintaining their specialised identities. The aim is to encourage cross-category customer engagement, turning a football gear purchase into an opportunity to explore running products to stay fit in the summer. “We’re constantly looking for synergies between sports—how can the marketer Football learn from the marketer Tennis, and vice versa? Right now, they still operate somewhat in silos. By creating more synergy, we can cater to more customers. It’s about getting the flywheel turning,” Caroline explains. She is hopeful for the future, “If we get it right, we won’t just be the largest online sports specialist in the Benelux; we could become the largest in Europe.”

Additionally, the company is exploring innovation through AI, particularly in product descriptions and customer service, with an eye on expanding its use strategically. However, Caroline sees it as a tool and not an end goal, “AI can play a role in areas like conversational follow-ups or data analysis, but it’s still not the same as interacting with a real person.”

“AI can play a role in areas like conversational follow-ups or data analysis, but it’s still not the same as interacting with a real person.”