Here are the brands: Nine West, Ferragamo, Marc Jacobs, Allen-Edmonds and Geox. Only one has a functional point of difference. Yet you’d hardly know it if you went into their retail stores.
All these brands are sold through other retailers but also have their own retail stores. They all sell shoes and other fashion items that are arguably more expensive than the average price point in their category. And they are all positioned differently in the market.
The first three brands are what I would call fashion brands. Yes, you’re buying a quality shoe. But you can get a quality product from DSW. With these brands you’re buying into the brand name as a fashion statement and a particular style.
With Allen-Edmonds, there is a fashion statement, but you’re really buying into the idea that their shoes are constructed to provide lasting (albeit expensive upfront) value. They’ll never go out of style and they’ll last forever. I think you could even pass them on to your kids in your will.
But Geox has a functional point of difference. Yet, at retail, they don’t really act much different from these other brands. Oh, their stores are a little less the trappings of wealth and more Euro-modern in appearance. But they really do little to point out the “breathe-ability” of their shoes in-store. In fact, they look like most other regular shoe stores when you enter them. Shoes on wall displays: women’s over here, men’s over there, kid’s in the back. I could spend 30 minutes looking at their shoes and walk out never knowing why Geox shoes are different. There’s little in the stores to describe that, and nothing attached to the shoes themselves. I pick each pair up and look it over, or I handle the price tag to see the cost, and I still don’t know about how these shoes breathe. Yes, they have funny holes on the soles. I don’t know why.
Wait, there’s a poster over there that shows steam coming out of the bottom of one of their shoes. Huh?
I rant. But here’s the point: so few products have real, functional points-of-differences that when they do, retailers need to really take advantage of them. We ad people spend agonizing hours divining positions and identifying audiences with whom to create a perceptual alignment. When a brand has a real advantage, we break out the good beer.
If you have a retail brand that has a point of difference, scream it. Put it in the store windows. Add it to in-store displays. Have your sales people start every conversation with the difference. Make sure no one enters or leaves your store without knowing the difference. They may not buy something, but make sure that’s not because they missed the reason why.
Posted by eswpartners 
Posted by eswpartners 
Posted by eswpartners 
Another with stores within blocks from each other. Distribution, and a budget, that did not allow effective market-wide media.
t already uses social media personally. Maybe $40K (double that with benefits). Social media is an ongoing, evolving conversation and someone on your end needs to stay in the conversation on a regular basis to make it work. Their job is to not only participate and manage the social media dialog on your behalf, but to grow the people in your social media base.
Welcome to "We Play in Traffic," by Dave Hamel Managing Director, ESW Partners: insights, thoughts and tips for driving traffic and sales using retail branding and advertising.
