When people ask me what I want to do with my life, my answers tend to be pretty scatterbrained. I know what my interests are: traveling, fashion, styling, culture, acting….but I’m not sure where I fit into the mix. I have dreams of being an editor or an actress or a Vogue stylist but who knows where I’ll end up.
The other week in the Wall Street Journal Magazine I read an article about a woman named Angela Ahrendts who is now the CEO of Burberry. Her story is pretty amazing….she started working at different jobs including merchandising executive at Liz Claiborne and earned her way to the top. She, along with Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer, Christopher Bailey, have completely transformed the iconic brand. Long known for its recognizable plaid pattern, Burberry needed a makeover after years of counterfeiting and a not-so-classy clientele. Ahrendts and Bailey completely transformed the fashion house into an esteemed luxury brand now comprised of less than 10% plaid. Their story is a successful one (bringing in about 2.2 billion in sales), and reflects the importance of customer insights. It definitely took some customer research to decide to expand the product line (duffle bags, cosmetics etc.), and to eliminate the most recognized part of their company (the plaid). Essentially they completely redeveloped and revamped the their image.
When I read the article on Ahrendts it inspired me to pursue a career similar to hers (in my dreams would it be this successful). I like problem solving and think that I would love the challenge of taking on a company and completely remarketing it. If a company needs to be transformed that usually means it is in some kind of financial or PR trouble. To adapt a company to survive the marketplace, customer insight is imperative. You have to know what people dislike, what they’re looking for, what their perception of your brand is, what their perception of other brands is. This is especially important in the fashion industry. Trying to understand price and value concepts of clothing can be tricky. You must also know the customer you cater to, whether it’s a luxury-oriented consumer or a budget-oriented consumer. In the instance of Burberry, they identified their current customer market and desired to change their target market to a more sophisticated, proper persona. A motivator in this transition was the company’s awareness of the reputation that their customers have on other people in the marketplace. If C-list celebrities are wearing your brand then A-list celebrities won’t want to be caught in your clothing. The executives at Burberry also realized (most likely through customer insights) an older persona as their primary customer and wished to make the brand appear more youthful and cutting-edge. As a result they used Emma Watson (from Harry Potter) in their amazing advertisements.
When I interned at Ralph Lauren I was given a similar task to brainstorm how to give the brand a younger image. In order to do this I interviewed friends to gain insight on their view of the company. Turns out that most people do perceive Ralph Lauren as a clothing line tailored to an older market. In the celebrity dressing department this was especially important information to gather because the director (my boss) wanted young, sexy, popular celebrities to choose Ralph Lauren for their premiere gowns etc., but it was always a challenge to work with the clothes because of their outdated feel.
I hope to create a cohesive paper from all of this brainstorming about the responsibilities of a creative director, specifically within the fashion industry, and how much they rely on customer insights. I am excited to learn the methods of research they use to gain information on customers and target markets (maybe style scouts, fashion blogs, etc.). I hope that this paper will introduce me to even more job opportunities within this bracket, and prepare me for interviews coming up in the next year!
Link to the WSJ article on Angela Ahrendts that I would highly recommend glancing at:
http://magazine.wsj.com/features/the-big-interview/earning-her-strips/2/
Kathryn - I think this is a GREAT idea for your paper. I'm so glad you'll be able to explore this career further and, hopefully, map out a plan for getting there while getting further inspired about the work. I had read about Ahrendts at some point, but glad that you found a recent article that looks like it has a lot of good detail. Certainly, feel free to do some primary research, in terms of talking with people in this field, which might hopefully even lead to some good contacts. Let me know if you want to chat about anything along the way.
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