Preparing for Your Master Class Final: Saving Old Brands
Q. Pick a sagging, 144-year-old brand and make it vibrant and relevant to a broad market segment today.
John B. Stetson started making hats in 1865 with $10 worth of fur, some tools and a rented workroom. Go to www.stetsonhat.com and you’ll learn that when he founded the John B. Stetson Hat Company, hatters were considered a lazy, unreliable lot. John B. changed all that establishing a reputation as a premium hat maker. Family members built the company right into the 20th Century, where at its peak it was known as the American leader in brimmed and straw chapeaux, selling 2 million hats a year.
But demand started to fall off in the ‘50s and ‘60s and in 1970 the Stetson trademark was sold to a Brooklyn jewelry shop owner, Ira Guilden. Guilden wanted to bring back Stetson as a hat maker, so he set up a licensing agreement with a southern manufacturer and gradually nursed the company back to health. But, as we all know, it isn’t enough for a great brand to be limited to a core product. The question is what can you do to extend the brand to other products and categories?
If Breitling is a superior luxury watch—can it lend cache to a Bentley motorcar? Can fashion brands like Nautica and Ralph Lauren not only be leaders in apparel but in eyeglasses, bed linens and, in the case of Ralph Lauren, paints and home furnishings? Manufacturers may own the trademark to a brand—but brands live in our imaginations. Honda sells motorcycles and cars of high quality. Would you trust Honda to sell you an annuity or let it insure your home? The answer is maybe you would.
In 1981 Guilden provided Coty with a license to start a fragrance line that did well at the low end of the market. After Ira’s death in 1983, the company was passed to his sons Richard and Paul. Richard managed it until his death in 2006 when Paul took it over. But anyone visiting www.stetsonhat.com will see that the hat side of the company isn’t in tip-top shape. The site has year old descriptions of "new products" like the “RealTree Camouflage” a straw hat for would-be commandos interested in a little shade on patrol.
Over at www.stetson.com however the brand is more vibrant and having a lot more fun. Here Stetson CEO Pamela Fields is building a whole eyewear and apparel line, doing all kinds of promotions and through careful licensing pulling in $200 million a year. Jeans, shirts and boots build on the brand’s Western wear heritage. Fields has adopted a “Made of America" theme, targeting members of the U.S. military and trying to leverage overseas interest in cowboy related American gear.
In other words, here is a treasured American brand that probably should have died long ago. But thanks to the careful nurturing of an Eastern family and the vision and imagination of Pamela Fields, the brand has won new currency for the enjoyment of a new generation, more interested in Facebook than rodeos. I for one salute them. Turning around a brand twice is hard enough; three times is the trifecta.
John B. Stetson started making hats in 1865 with $10 worth of fur, some tools and a rented workroom. Go to www.stetsonhat.com and you’ll learn that when he founded the John B. Stetson Hat Company, hatters were considered a lazy, unreliable lot. John B. changed all that establishing a reputation as a premium hat maker. Family members built the company right into the 20th Century, where at its peak it was known as the American leader in brimmed and straw chapeaux, selling 2 million hats a year.
But demand started to fall off in the ‘50s and ‘60s and in 1970 the Stetson trademark was sold to a Brooklyn jewelry shop owner, Ira Guilden. Guilden wanted to bring back Stetson as a hat maker, so he set up a licensing agreement with a southern manufacturer and gradually nursed the company back to health. But, as we all know, it isn’t enough for a great brand to be limited to a core product. The question is what can you do to extend the brand to other products and categories?
If Breitling is a superior luxury watch—can it lend cache to a Bentley motorcar? Can fashion brands like Nautica and Ralph Lauren not only be leaders in apparel but in eyeglasses, bed linens and, in the case of Ralph Lauren, paints and home furnishings? Manufacturers may own the trademark to a brand—but brands live in our imaginations. Honda sells motorcycles and cars of high quality. Would you trust Honda to sell you an annuity or let it insure your home? The answer is maybe you would.
In 1981 Guilden provided Coty with a license to start a fragrance line that did well at the low end of the market. After Ira’s death in 1983, the company was passed to his sons Richard and Paul. Richard managed it until his death in 2006 when Paul took it over. But anyone visiting www.stetsonhat.com will see that the hat side of the company isn’t in tip-top shape. The site has year old descriptions of "new products" like the “RealTree Camouflage” a straw hat for would-be commandos interested in a little shade on patrol.
Over at www.stetson.com however the brand is more vibrant and having a lot more fun. Here Stetson CEO Pamela Fields is building a whole eyewear and apparel line, doing all kinds of promotions and through careful licensing pulling in $200 million a year. Jeans, shirts and boots build on the brand’s Western wear heritage. Fields has adopted a “Made of America" theme, targeting members of the U.S. military and trying to leverage overseas interest in cowboy related American gear.
In other words, here is a treasured American brand that probably should have died long ago. But thanks to the careful nurturing of an Eastern family and the vision and imagination of Pamela Fields, the brand has won new currency for the enjoyment of a new generation, more interested in Facebook than rodeos. I for one salute them. Turning around a brand twice is hard enough; three times is the trifecta.
posted by Andrew at Compass Consulting at 3:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home