Eileen Fisher Case Study
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While reading through Eileen Fisher, Repositioning the Brand, it became apparent early on that the company’s main issue was relevancy—an issue that many companies face in today’s market. Keeping the company current in order to attract new customers while not abandoning already loyal customers in the process is a huge challenge that EILEEN FISHER struggled with. For purposes of differentiating between the company and the person, “EILEEN FISHER” shall refer to the company for the duration of this analysis summary.
As a company that Fisher started from scratch, she seemed to gear the company toward making clothes that she herself liked to wear, which is a perfectly fine business model, but only to a certain extent. As she aged, so did the company, and 25 years later, the only women who were interested in buying her clothes were women her own age. Women aged 30-40, the demographic she initially intended to reach upon the company’s creation, considered her clothing to be a generation behind. Upon hearing this verdict, Fisher realized she had a problem and had to do something about it. “The company then hired IDEO, a leading design and innovation firm to clarify the company’s brand vision and to apply those principles consistently across retail channels to reach new audiences without alienating veteran devotees.” What resulted was the creation of the THREAD and STITCH projects.
Much like how you have to prepare the needle (thread) before you take it to the fabric (stitch), the THREAD project consisted of all the prep work that would be launched during the STITCH project’s phase of the operation. The point behind THREAD was to develop clear brand guidelines and to identify ways to attract new clientele. IDEO first conducted interviews with the company’s employees, loyal customers, and consumers who had negative feelings towards the company’s products, in order to get a better understanding of the brand. IDEO then created a series of design principles that laid
While reading through Eileen Fisher, Repositioning the Brand, it became apparent early on that the company’s main issue was relevancy—an issue that many companies face in today’s market. Keeping the company current in order to attract new customers while not abandoning already loyal customers in the process is a huge challenge that EILEEN FISHER struggled with. For purposes of differentiating between the company and the person, “EILEEN FISHER” shall refer to the company for the duration of this analysis summary.
As a company that Fisher started from scratch, she seemed to gear the company toward making clothes that she herself liked to wear, which is a perfectly fine business model, but only to a certain extent. As she aged, so did the company, and 25 years later, the only women who were interested in buying her clothes were women her own age. Women aged 30-40, the demographic she initially intended to reach upon the company’s creation, considered her clothing to be a generation behind. Upon hearing this verdict, Fisher realized she had a problem and had to do something about it. “The company then hired IDEO, a leading design and innovation firm to clarify the company’s brand vision and to apply those principles consistently across retail channels to reach new audiences without alienating veteran devotees.” What resulted was the creation of the THREAD and STITCH projects.
Much like how you have to prepare the needle (thread) before you take it to the fabric (stitch), the THREAD project consisted of all the prep work that would be launched during the STITCH project’s phase of the operation. The point behind THREAD was to develop clear brand guidelines and to identify ways to attract new clientele. IDEO first conducted interviews with the company’s employees, loyal customers, and consumers who had negative feelings towards the company’s products, in order to get a better understanding of the brand. IDEO then created a series of design principles that laid
Bibliography: "Design Strategy for Eileen Fisher." n.d. Ideo.com. Keinan, Anat, et al. "EILEEN FISHER: Repositioning the Bran." Harvard Business School (2012): 1-21. -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. (Design Strategy for Eileen Fisher)