Posts Tagged: "brand strategy"

Trust and estate attorneys regularly advise their clients to enter into prenuptial agreements to protect the valuable assets each spouse brings to the marriage as well as how to distribute community property in the event of a divorce. Brand collaborations with celebrities, influencers or other brands are much like marriages, but brand collaborations are even more unlikely to last. Why not plan for the split, whether it be a conscious uncoupling or a Page 6 kind of divorce, with a prenup? The high profile split between Adidas and Ye (fka Kanye West) reminds us that collaboration agreements should not only plan for the best of times, but it is worth setting up the agreement to account for a sudden and troubling end.   

Whenever I wanted my grandmother to reveal a deep secret—such as what I was getting for my birthday—she would reply by asking, “Does Gimbels tell Macy’s?” That was when the Gimbels and Macy’s department stores battled for market share like colossi astride Herald Square. Gimbels is long gone from the New York metropolitan area retail market—as are, from all levels of pricing—Alexander’s, B. Altman and Company, Bamberger’s, Bonwit Teller, Galleries Lafayette, E. J. Korvette, the Lord & Taylor flagship on Fifth Avenue, Stern’s, Takashimaya, and Two Guys, among others. And to that list we can now add Barneys. As I never tire of advising our clients, trademarks are the awards that the law bestows upon a well-operated brand, and brand—in fashion and luxury, and in retailing of all but the most elemental variety—is about story. That is, the brand has to tell a story that is clear and identifiable to the customer—a story so compelling that he or she will elect to participate in it by making purchases. Enter an Hermès and you are sharing in a gentrified vision of France as authentic to the XVIe arrondissement as to a canter on horseback through the fields of the Loire. Walk down the block to Salvatore Ferragamo and inhabit that world of Florentine grace and worldliness that has guided the West since the Renaissance. Maintaining a distinct brand image is often challenging for a manufacturer/design company, especially if it operates its own boutiques. But it can by even more demanding for a large, multi-brand retailer, especially now.