Eileen Fisher Case Study Essay Sample

While reading through Eileen Fisher. Shifting the Brand. it became evident early on that the company’s chief issue was relevancy—an issue that many companies face in today’s market. Keeping the company current in order to pull new clients while non abandoning already loyal clients in the procedure is a immense challenge that EILEEN FISHER struggled with. For intents of distinguishing between the company and the individual. “EILEEN FISHER” shall mention to the company for the continuance of this analysis sum-up. As a company that Fisher started from abrasion. she seemed to pitch the company toward doing apparels that she herself liked to have on. which is a absolutely all right concern theoretical account. but merely to a certain extent. As she aged. so did the company. and 25 old ages subsequently. the lone adult females who were interested in purchasing her apparels were adult females her ain age. Womans aged 30-40. the demographic she ab initio intended to make upon the company’s creative activity. considered her vesture to be a coevals behind. Upon hearing this finding of fact. Fisher realized she had a job and had to make something about it. “The company so hired IDEO. a prima design and invention house to clear up the company’s trade name vision and to use those rules systematically across retail channels to make new audiences without estranging veteran fans. ” What resulted was the creative activity of the THREAD and STITCH undertakings.

Much like how you have to fix the acerate leaf ( thread ) before you take it to the cloth ( stitch ) . the THREAD undertaking consisted of all the homework work that would be launched during the STITCH project’s stage of the operation. The point behind THREAD was to develop clear trade name guidelines and to place ways to pull new patronages. IDEO foremost conducted interviews with the company’s employees. loyal clients. and consumers who had negative feelings towards the company’s merchandises. in order to acquire a better apprehension of the trade name. IDEO so created a series of design rules that laid out the foundation of the brand’s hereafter and guided the team’s coaction with the company’s staff. Keeping these principals in head. IDEO and EILEEN FISHER so set out to link the trade name to younger shoppers. After IDEO’s schemes were finalized. they were implemented during the 2009 autumn season via the STITCH undertaking. Together. both companies decided that a holistic attack would be the best manner to regenerate the company. updating the company’s advertisement aesthetic. altering in-store visuals and selling. passing the web site. and encompassing picture as a communicating medium in the process—all of which helped to pull a by and large younger consumer.

While Fisher herself saw the rebranding as a immense success as in-store and on-line gross revenues both saw big additions after the alteration was implemented. the company itself saw a nice sum of recoil from its already loyal patronages. Regular clients felt insulted at the evident short-sightedness of the company’s rebranding. saying that by making an edgier merchandise for a younger consumer. they were connoting that the older consumer has no border. thereby estranging them in the procedure. Without an already well-established societal media presence. the company had no existent manner of reacting to the unfavorable judgments. Despite the negativeness environing the trade name repositioning. EILEEN FISHER continued to encompass the alteration. contracting down its possible client base to three classs: the established adult female. the emerging adult female. and the nascent adult female. The emerging adult female seemed the most attractive consumer base to aim. as they would be the 1s who would hold a more “is this in? ” outlook when buying their apparels. coercing the company to remain relevant with their available manners.

The lone issue with this consumer group is that they are less profitable ; the established adult female would be more likely to buy 10 points of vesture. while the emerging adult female might merely purchase one or two. Emerging adult females would besides be less likely to have on the Eileen Fisher trade name entirely. Trading the established adult female for the emerging adult female would finally ensue in a loss for the company. Furthermore. if the company focused its attending on either the emerging or nascent adult female. they would hold to seting their monetary values. as these adult females are those who are merely come ining the work force and don’t have the degree of disposable income that the established adult female has. While take downing their monetary values might assist make the younger audience. it besides runs of the hazard of the company’s merchandises losing their high position arrangement in section shops. pass oning them to less expensive subdivisions. diminishing the company’s high-end repute. A possible solution to this market concentrate issue was to develop a separate sub-brand for the nascent adult female. leting the company to provide to all age groups. Rebranding a company is a hard undertaking to put to death efficaciously.

As in the instance of EILEEN FISHER. rebranding runs the hazard of losing already loyal clients who might non appreciate the new way the company is taking. This so becomes a simple issue of additions vs. losses—will the new clientele’s concern make up for the loss from the old clientele’s deficiency thereof? If a solid concern theoretical account is followed from the company’s origin. this shifting state of affairs could be avoided wholly. When Swarovski Crystal decided to get down fabrication and selling jewellery. they knew there were many ways to travel about it. Ultimately. they decided that by making different degrees of merchandises. they could guarantee that no market group would be left out. They so decided to make two classs of jewelry—their timeless and high-fashion aggregations. The timeless pieces range in monetary value from $ 40- $ 200. while the high-fashion pieces may travel from $ 150 and up. Making different classs of ware while keeping merchandise quality is what allowed Swarovski to prosecute many different types of clients. EILEEN FISHER made the error of restricting their entreaty to a really specific class of adult female: adult females of the same age as Eileen Fisher at any given point in clip.

As Eileen grew older. the company grew older. and the manner of dressing it provided reflected that. Had the company made an attempt to non allow the company age with Eileen. so it would hold ne’er been in a place that required a rebranding strategy. Another manner to look at this state of affairs is that by entirely selling women’s vesture. Fisher has already limited herself to 50 % of the available market. The more refined she makes her merchandise. the more she is minimising the list of possible clients. IDEO had some great thoughts with respects to regenerating the company. An on-line presence that engages in an facet of societal media will greatly increase the company’s exposure to a whole other class of consumers they had antecedently been pretermiting. Should EILEEN FISHER non desire to compromise their already alone manner of vesture in order to pull these new clients. that’s mulct ; why non travel along with the separate sub-company that was antecedently mentioned? Keep the individuality that has already been created. but create a new one with the purpose of pulling a whole new set of clients. This eliminates the possibility of losing clients who feel alienated.

Bibliography

“Design Strategy for Eileen Fisher. ” n. d. Ideo. com.
Keinan. Anat. et Al. “EILEEN FISHER: Shifting the Bran. ” Harvard
Business School ( 2012 ) : 1-21.