Men’s clothing brand Pink burst onto the scene in the 1980s and has now reclaimed its original reputation for individualised style, with a rebrand powered by customised service both in stores and online
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9 september 2019
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How an 80s icon is reinventing itself through personalisation
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Shirtmaker Thomas Pink was one of the 1980s’ most recognisable menswear brands. Founded by three brothers in 1984, its colourful shirts became synonymous with the swagger and style of the London financial industry’s young ‘City boys’. By the 1990s it was dressing top politicians and A-list actors and in 1997 was bought by luxury house LVMH – owner of Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy, among other brands.
But more recently, by the admission of Christina Estebaek, its director of ecommerce and omnichannel, the brand had “drifted too far away from its core values”. The outcome was a full-scale brand relaunch.
In November 2018, the brand announced it was changing its branding from Thomas Pink to Pink Shirtmaker London – just Pink in most contexts, which matches the original branding from 1984. That has been accompanied by a move upmarket and a focus on personalisation, of both the product and the customer experience. And at the start of September, Pink also launched a new ad campaign utilising its refreshed image, fronted by The Crown actor Matthew Goode (pictured below).
According to brand and image director Loic Le Bihan: “It always comes back to the same thing, which is confidence and individuality. It is all about making sure we serve the client the best we can.”
Some of that individuality had been missing from the business recently, neither being a bespoke tailor nor offering a particularly personalised ecommerce experience. Instead it had fallen into the mid-market of fashion retail. Now Pink wants to offer a more individual experience both offline and online. This is a key demand of modern consumers, 84% of whom say being treated like a person rather than a number is very important to winning their business, according to Salesforce’s most recent ‘State of Marketing’ report.
As president and CEO Christopher Zanardi-Landi told Marketing Week at Salesforce World Tour earlier this year: “One of the most important things that is happening in our world right now, of course, is everything around customisation, and a client wanting something that fits them exactly, so we have brought in two aspects. One, in our workshop in Vauxhall, we are offering a fully bespoke service in a way that actually hasn’t been [available] in the UK for quite a long time, [but doing] it in a way that is much more accessible.”
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“One of the most important things that is happening in our world right now is everything around customisation.”
Christopher Zanardi-Landi, Pink
SPONSORED BY
By: Morag Cuddeford-Jones
The second aspect is: “From a technology point of view, [there is an opportunity] to take a customer through that journey - not just from what used to be taking an order and then a long dull silence until hopefully your shirts show up, [but] to continue to engage and activate, and even come and watch your shirts being made.”
According to Zanardi-Landi, Pink finds the fusion of online and offline channels works particularly well in delivering the personalised experience it is aiming for. Supported by technology such as Salesforce, it is attempting to replicate the feeling of bespoke tailoring in its online communications, and the two have to go hand-in-hand because so much of the brand’s business comes through loyal customers reordering.
Pink store staff are empowered to nurture ongoing relationships with customers using technology – for example, dictating notes about a customer’s visit, their shirt size and their preferred fit into a mobile device, which then updates their online profile using voice-driven AI. This profile information will then, in turn, be able to automate the customer’s size and fit choices next time they shop online, making the process quicker and easier.
As Estebaek says: “Technology needs to be seamless. It needs to make itself forgotten. If you've given information, you don't want to repeat yourself, you actually want someone to just know you.”
But there’s a flip-side to this, she adds: “Technology is amazing because it allows us to experiment and it allows us to do some really innovative stuff, and also have fun. We have a history of being a traditional shirt maker but we're a traditional shirt maker with a very modern twist.”
The technology-led approach to injecting greater personalisation into the customer experience has been a central part of Pink’s rebrand. It allows the business to go back to its roots while reimagining the service it offers in a modern context. ■
Read the 'State of Marketing' report
here
