Do consumers really care when your apparel brand started?

Technology adoption rates are rapidly increasing.  I recently dusted off The Tipping Point; time to dust off Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm (one business book-of-the-minute I can’t dust off because I threw it away as fast as I finished it Who Moved My Cheese…nonsense).

As Wikipedia states:

Crossing the Chasm is closely related to the Technology Adoption Lifecycle where five main segments are recognized; innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. According to Moore, the marketer should focus on one group of customers at a time, using each group as a base for marketing to the next group. The most difficult step is making the transition between visionaries (early adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). This is the chasm that he refers to.  It can be argued, but the basic idea of the book is still relevant.

Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Technology adoption rates:

• 38 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners.
• 13 years for television to attract 50 million viewers.
• The iPod hit the market in 2001.
• Harvard students were using Facebook in 2004.
• Twitter was created in 2006.

Ok, so these examples refer to technology adoption.  What about brand adoption as it relates to apparel?  I mention technology because we all know that recent advances in social marketing and technology provide the platforms for your brand’s name to spread as rapidly as Jessica Simpson’s waistline before Tony Romo clipped her.

Are consumers more likely to buy your brand because you have been around the longest?  Maybe at one time people were nostalgic for how long ago your brand started.  I don’t think they care anymore – especially teens.  It might even make you look old?  Just ask Levi’s and Ford.  Are its sales to teens helped by the fact that they were first or the one of the oldest?  I don’t think so.

Teens are into what is now, what is current, what has strong design at a good price.  Save your breath and copy space to tell the current brand story and don’t waste your time telling consumers when your brand started…when it started only matters to you.

But wait…I stand corrected.

Is my sunblock rubbed in?

Hollister makes a point to mention that it started in 1922 (not in 2000 as it actually did, but it sure is convincing) and was ranked as the second most preferred teen clothing brand in 2008 by US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. So unless you can beat 1922, you’re out of luck.  Time to move on and stop mentioning that your brand was born when people listened to records while holding phones with cords and drinking Tang as an energy drink.

For more insights…visit www.forsenorse.com

Tags: crossing the chasm, forsenorse, hollister, piper jaffray, tang, technology adoption, technology adoption lifecycle, twitter