Back in the UK and tired. Had great fun yesterday addressing the world’s fashion industry, assembled in Maastricht for the annual conference of the International Apparel Federation. Maastricht is a beautiful city crushed between Belgium, Holland and Germany. No wonder the people have invented their own dialect!
Conference highlight to me was a speech by Liz Claiborne’s CEO Bill McComb who absolutely ‘gets it’ and is in the early stages of reforming the group’s brand portfolio, including the likes of Mexx and JuicyCouture – focusing on core brands; driving a socially-minded e-tailing strategy and integrating CSR deep into the business, just as Nike has done with its ‘Considered Design’ philosophy…
Following a great speech on corporate turnaround by Ludo Onnink COO of Tommy Hilfiger, Bill said (roughly):
“Just as Tommy Hilfiger has ‘Classic American Cool’, we have brand essences for all our brands. But this will change. In the years ahead I’ll be surprised if we have a three word brand essence for our brands. Of course they’ll stand for something, but I think they’ll come to stand for something less prescribed, much richer, more individual and more purposeful…” Pretty much nails our philosophy!
Building on these illustrious foundations I then presented on the role of social communication in branding, calling the end of masstige branding and the birth of Simplux Brands. We’ll see how right or wrong I was in the months and years to come…
To save you reading it, the gist of this is simple.
Fashion branding (in fact all branding) has ultimately been about resolving a tension between delivering the emotional feelings of luxury while respecting largely rational benefits of simplicity. It has been about selling a realisable dream…
In an age of transparency and ethical enlightenment though, it is not enough to embellish and embroider ’simple’ brands to create the semblance of luxury. It just won’t wash with a sceptical (sustainability-aware and credit-crunched) consumer. If the value isn’t ‘real’ it just won’t be bought. Ultimately this approach is unethical. Ultimately, Masstige is a con and will be exposed as such.
BUT…there is another way. Come at branding from the other direction. Instead of glamming up mass-market offers, brand owners should start with by understanding the components of luxury…and just simplify them. Take the rational side of luxury – and add the emotional benefits of simplicity. This is the gist of Simplux branding.
Simplux brands embody authenticity, integrity, altruism, equity, craftsmanship, and originality. They do not patronise or preach or pretend. They simply are.
Or, put another (rather contrived!) way, Simplux brands sell a dreamable reality.