The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Are you saying that Commodore’s Vic 20/C64 ads in the US with William Shatner WERENT cool?!!

Ah come on now:

THE commodore vic TWENTY.
Six….TEEN k of ram, more valUE for your MONey.

No wonder the C64 sold by the bucketload 😉

Also, its worth remembering that Levi’s have been investing in the “tech jacket” for a few years; adding various tech gadgets into these products.

I dont think you can call it a decline, but its certainly a major shift. Points 1 and 2 are very very right.

Technology clothing hasn’t been popular precisely because of that approach. People need technology clothing like they need technology food.

The design emphasis shouldn’t be on marrying technology with clothing, but rather accomodate the use of it. Case in point is the success of Surf Wear or Skate Board wear. The brands in those cases didn’t make shorts with spare wheels (along the lines of jackets with bluetooth built in) but simply accounted for the benefits needed like freedom of movement and water resistant features.

RM: glad to see there’s still some sense in the world of planning. Guess this also seals my planning job.

RC: I still don’t agree with you when you say the category of fashion has gone into a marketing decline. Your basis for that comment is that they are no longer pioneering mass market cool, that was never the category purpose. Mass market cool is now dictated by Luxury brands, while as brands they are not mass, fashion as a topic has today become more mass than ever. …H&M and Karl Lagerfield for example.

No Hari … I am not saying the marketing of the Fashion industry has gone into decline, I am saying the whole of the marketing category has gone into decline.

We now live in a World with more information and more opportunities to reach and connect with consumers than ever before and yet, bar a few certain exceptions, brands have less emotional connection with consumers than at any other point in history.

Sure, this is not just the fault of marketing departments around the World, but their influence on consumers tends to be disproportionate to other departments within organisations.

As for fashion not being about mass market cool … that is totally dependent on which brand you are talking about because in many examples, that was certainly the case – from LEVI’s and Le Coq Sportif in the 80’s right through to Diesel and Ben Sherman of today.

Surely the rise and fall and fall of FCUK is a fantastic example of how mass marketing and over-doing the cool factor can affect a brand.

Ive never seen a better more exact example of a brand using mass market cool to become huge; then suffering as they fail to notice when it has lost the cool factor.

The point about emotional connection is spot on. I wonder how much the model of consumer ambition has played in the detachment or attachment of brands. That is, that brands represent a position in society or quality of life… owning said brand creates happiness by making someone feel like they have reached that place in their life.

I agree with Hari that fashion is becoming more and more mass market. I wonder how much the Primark effect (branded clothing at discount prices) has played in this.

When I was at school, we knew the guy who dealt most of the fake clothing in our town. All the people who went round claiming they had all this excellent clothing…ALL fake. But now people can afford these items if they wait a little out of season.

I think in FCUK’s case … their failure was more to do with their decline of fashion relevance, rather than their advertising relevance.

And whilst NIKE obviously care very much about fashion [and they’re mad to deny it], that still doesn’t mean they are a wholehearted fashion brand anymore so than B&O or Apple – who also appreciate ‘looks’ are important.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of NIKE’s sales are probably from people after a ‘look’ rather than an ‘athletic benefit’, but that’s surely the consumers choice, rather than the brand manufacturer misguided communication.

Well the emotional bit is surely right. But then again in the spirit of evolution maybe we need to explore other forms of connection with the consumer. Especially given the proliferation of brands today and a consumer very aware of the function of advertising and marketing, we may be trying the same old trick a little too long.

Of course at this point it’s purely hypothetical but can we maybe talk about a physical connection with the consumer that leads to a brand (emotion) connection over time, the case of wines for example. Consumers largely describe their choices in that with the use of product description rather than a brand and lifestyle connection.

And then there’s another factore we need to consider about brands and scale. Most examples that we have spoken about from Levis to even Apple itself established emotional connection on the basis of belonging to a minority of the world, and once that strong ‘reason to belive’ of their rebel character is lost, they slip away from their cult status.

RM: Nike is an exception to this, and I belive their secret to success is that they continue to focus on a very very practical aspect of their products which are conveyed with attitude as opposed to the attitude itself being the product.

While one can argue Levis did the same with it’s series of classic commercials about the ‘Fifth pocket’ or ‘Double stitched’ etc., they forgot to take into account that Denim itself was an attitude statement, and once it became mainstream they had no additional layer of attitude to rely on that was ownable.

Oh dear, please lets not go into the whole ‘what brands do and don’t own’ … that’s an area that makes me very, very angry.

Hari, of course your view on denim having a natural ‘attitude’ within the product is right – but you’re a planner, so you should know that sort of thing.

Whilst your hypothosis is interesting [and probably has some real merit to it] this is not why NIKE continually win and LEVI’s have had ups and downs because there’s a shedload of counter examples which I’d go into but I’ve seen the time and I have to be up in 3 hours to catch a plane.

That’s the problem with our industry – we all search for a perfect, one-size-fits-all solution, but it doesn’t exist and as soon as we all understand that and spend time understanding ‘people’ and ‘present’, the better we can all be.

Have a lovely weekend boys, need some sleep.