A representative survey of Donna Karan customers might give you clues as to why her fashion became so popular with women but 10 minutes with her in the back of a limo speeding through Manhattan and you understand exactly what the brand is and why it was so successful. You only have to listen to Knight tell the story of how he walked into the Japanese HQ of Onitsuka, the Japanese running shoe manufacturer that was leading the world of sporting goods in 1964, and convinced the company’s leadership to appoint him as its American affiliate. You don’t need data to work out that Nike stands for ‘Just Do It’. It might sound over-romantic to those of you with a more statistical orientation but, trust me, I have learned more about brand equity from visiting a brand’s birthplace and hanging out with its founders than a thousand psychometric Likert questions. You can run focus groups and usage and attitude surveys until you’re blue in the face, but if you need to get to grips with brand equity, a close examination of a brand’s founder, origins and history will always offer a superior avenue of understanding. Founders are inseparable from the brands they create. Shavitz also moved on last week, heading off to the great beehive in the sky at 80 years of age.ĭespite the biographical tenor of this post, it is about brand management. Karan made similar moves last week announcing that she is stepping down as chief designer of her own label, now owned by French conglomerate LVMH. Knight, now 77, announced he would step down as chairman of Nike next year. Second, all three headed for the exit of their respective empires last week. First, they each became founders of globally successful, billion-dollar brands. These unconnected people have two things in common. Inspired by the city of New York and the new era of femininity that the eighties ushered in, Karan’s clothes were an immediate sensation. The marriage failed and the newly-single Donna Karan decided to start her own line of clothes in 1984. Faske eventually became head of design and married her childhood sweetheart, Mark Karan. As Klein’s assistant she took part in the infamous 1973 Battle of Versailles in which American designers competed in a fashion face-off against their French counterparts. Born in Queens, she attended Parsons School of Design and began working for Anne Klein straight out of school. In honor of the insects that made the business possible, she named the business Burt’s Bees.ĭonna Faske was always talented. She became Burt’s lover and then his partner in a new business that used beeswax mixed with almond oil to create a simple, all natural lip balm. In 1984, Burt picked up a young hitch-hiker called Roxanne. Looking for a simpler way of life he changed his name to Burt, bought a small parcel of land and began to keep bees, living off the meager income they produced. In 1970, Ingram Shavitz gave up his New York City apartment and his job and drove his battered old Volkswagen north to Maine. That essay, combined with a trip to Japan after graduation, resulted in the formation of the Blue Ribbon Sports company, which, a few years and a $35 logo later, was renamed Nike. Knight came up with a 3,000 word essay entitled ‘Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?’. It was mid-way during the course that he was asked by his entrepreneurship professor to write a business plan. Knight the MBA student certainly got his money’s worth at Stanford Business School. But I write this week not about who these three people were, but rather what they became. Carlyle recognized this when he said, “Had this doctrine of the deity of Christ been lost, Christianity would have vanished like a dream.” The historian Lecky remarks, “Christianity is not a system of morals, it is the worship of a Person.At first sight, an MBA student called Philip Knight, a bee-keeper called Ingram Shavitz and a designer called Donna Faske perhaps don’t appear to be the most fascinating subjects for a branding post. They are wrong!Ĭhristianity is forever linked with the Person of Christ. Some say that no matter what one thinks about Christ, it does not affect Christianity. Others talk about a Christless Christianity. Others say that He was merely a man, that there was nothing supernatural about His birth, and that His resurrection was a hallucination. Some say that Jesus Christ is a myth, and He never existed in history. Archaeologists are digging to discover new evidence. The records of the Early Church are being reexamined for their testimony to Him. History, philosophy, theology, and-in many centers of learning-even the sciences are being studied to discover what they have to say about Jesus Christ. this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |