The Legend Of Crocodile Fashion Company

　　 France The legend of Lacoste, the largest and most famous fashion company, began in 1933. This year, its founder Ren é Lacoste launched a revolution in the men's clothing industry. He abandoned the traditional long sleeved shirt on the tennis court and replaced it with the classic Crocodile Polo shirt. Now this field is full of fierce market competition, and the Crocodile brand is still popular.

Everyone in Crocodile Company will be surprised to find that they have integrated into this brand. From the female receptionist in sportswear at the front desk to the director of the Public Relations Department, every employee confidently wore polo shirts with the world's most famous crocodile logo.

It's easy for people to forget Crocodile brand Impact in the past few years. In fact, when people's fashion orientation turns to polo shirts, people on the streets of Paris seem to wear polo shirts, although not all of them are from crocodile brand companies. Since Ren é Lacoste, the tennis champion of French Open, Wimbledon and US Open and a famous family in Paris, launched the world's first short sleeved polo shirt in 1933, the market in this field has begun to face competition from many brands: the luxury polo shirt launched by Ralph Lauren, the home polo shirt launched by Abercrombie&Fitch, and the less than $20 polo shirt launched by Uniqlo, It also has Polo shirts with good texture and tailoring.

However, Ryan Lacoster is a great pioneer in Polo shirt field. Because he contracted bronchitis, he had to end his sports career in advance, and then he began to focus on the innovation of sportswear. He created many firsts: the first to use conspicuous signs on sportswear, and the first tennis player to successfully build a fashion brand, setting an example for future generations.

So, how did the crocodile brand become competitive and remain invincible when its core products were challenged by various high-school and low-end competitors? In order to answer this question, the media interviewed Christophe Chenut, CEO of Crocodile Company, who wore the Crocodile logo Polo shirt.

　　 Authorization mode is a brand tradition

Q: I want to start with the tradition of crocodile brand. The crocodile brand has the iconic crocodile logo, and the authorization mode has existed since the company was founded. How does your company view these traditions?

RISTOPHER SCHNEY (Answer for short): Ryan Lacoster is still a famous tennis player, especially in France. He is a tennis player who has won the championship for six consecutive years, and also a designer who has been innovating for more than 60 years.

He pays attention to all innovations, including, of course, adding signs on shirts, inventing plain needle small embossed fabrics, and creating a licensed business model. Not every competitor can do this. Moreover, Ryan Lacoster has been innovating golf products, cricket products and baseball products for many years. Although it is more and more difficult for the modern textile industry to launch new fabrics, innovation is still the spirit of our company. I think we will always keep this in mind.

Q: I also want to know more about the authorized operation of Devanlay by the crocodile brand 80 years ago. In addition to authorized operation, Devanlay has also carried out a number of cooperative operations with your company and owns 35% of your company's shares, while your company also owns 10% of Devanlay's shares. This brings me to a question: Why do these two companies not merge? What is the strategic relationship between these two independent companies that have been interdependent for many years?

A: Good question. I am asked this question every day because it is a completely different cooperation model, but it is very effective. As CEO, I am not responsible for discussing this issue, but I also have my own views.

I think the most important thing is the tradition of the crocodile brand family. The crocodile brand family wants to control and own the brand. This is their family name. It is a business system that they obtained from their grandfather and great grandfather without investing any more. The investment comes from the franchiser of the product. They must maintain the family tradition and brand value, so they want to maintain the ownership of the brand.

They don't want alligator to become part of the retail industry, because they don't like this model. They want to control the brand as long as possible, because all 20 of our shareholders are closely related, and they are also part of the company's history. They don't want to disappear. If we merge the two companies, they will no longer be able to control the crocodile brand.

From a business perspective, Devanly and we both want to tell each other that we have a better business philosophy. I think the coexistence of the two companies is really very good, because we have a healthy antagonistic relationship.

　　 New products and new markets promote sales growth

Q: Crocodile brand has gone through several years of hard work, but its profit last year increased to 1.6 billion euros. What measures have you taken to turn losses into profits?

A: In 2008, we asked Boston Consulting to conduct a survey. In short, we have reformulated the brand concept. This research took three years. We launched Lacoste Live, a brand for young consumers, and Lacoste Women, a women's wear brand.

We employ young people who are sensitive to fashion, as well as female employees who like to talk about fashion. These people are more interested in fashion than our former target male customer group. By providing consumers with better choices, we can rebuild the global demand for our brand. We will form a good brand reputation, and make regular customers happy to see their children and wives wear our brand again.

Therefore, we have hired a new art director, a new design director, and introduced new styles and concepts. We have a large number of new models on the market, and we have completed a magnificent transformation. Our sales increased by 44% this year, which is really good news at a time of poor economic conditions.

Q: What drives the sales growth of crocodile brand?

A: All products of Crocodile brand have performed well, especially Lacoste Live and Lacoste Women. However, what makes us most happy is the expansion of the brand in the global market. Of course, the European market performance was flat. Although the sales in Germany and Northern Europe are good, the growth of the European market is only 1% to 2%, and we estimate that this year's growth will be 5% to 10%. The growth of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese markets will decline due to the economic environment.

On the other hand, the market performance in Asia and Latin America is very satisfactory, especially Brazil. Of course, China, South Korea and Japan in Asia also performed well.

Q: I heard everyone talking about the rise of the luxury market when I was traveling in emerging market countries. If you look closely, you will find that the middle class in these countries is rising, and crocodile brands and products just meet their needs.

A: Compared with the upper class, our products tend to focus on the middle class, which is a global market with tens of millions of people. We are also experts in global leisure brands. You can go to parties or offices without wearing formal clothes or ties, which means that we benefit from the popularity of leisure brands.

Crocodile brand has been in the Brazilian market for 30 years. Bernard Lacoste, like his father, has foresight in expanding global markets. He always tries his best to be a leader in the global market. We registered the Lacoste trademark in China in 1980, and began to enter the Chinese market in 1984. We have 20 years of experience in China, while some brands have just tried to enter the Chinese market. We have also made great market exploration in the Philippines and Thailand. Local consumers know our brand from birth.

Q: You have made the innovation of Crocodile brand complete an excellent transformation. After Christophe Lemaire left, Felipe Oliveira Baptista took office. How did you complete the transformation within the company? What do you think is the significance of this to the crocodile brand?

A: This concerns the interests of Crocodile Brand Company. Felipe Olivier Babechsta is responsible for the fabric work in Devanlay Company. The design department of Crocodile has 20 employees who are responsible for communicating with partners including Devanlay about product value, fabric selection, footwear design and sports glasses. After Christopher Lemaire left, the design team in charge of Felipe was still able to maintain design consistency.

Of course, Felipe's design concept has revitalized the Crocodile brand, especially for women's wear, because he is a professional in women's wear design. Crocodile brand is originally a leisure brand, but our style is quite different. Felipe has different views on brand, and everyone finds that his idea is correct. We should thank him for his work. Also, it is a good thing that Christopher left after 10 years of service. People always need rest to regain their vitality.

Q: But Polo shirt It is still the core business of the company. Since 2003, a total of 81 million crocodile T-shirts have been sold in the world, which is an amazing number. But I want to know how you compete with many other Polo brands?

A: We are very lucky to have a landmark product. It's interesting to think that this brand is 80 years old. We want to continue the way we communicated 30 to 50 years ago. Other brands have also launched Polo shirts, but not crocodile brands.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having iconic products. Many consumers will come to your boutique to buy symbolic products, but they only want to buy Polo shirts instead of other products.

You have to put a lot of effort into maintaining the iconic products, and at the same time you have to say, "Hey, guys, do you want to buy anything else in the store?"?

At present, the sales volume of Polo Shirts accounts for 30% of the total sales volume, which is a large proportion. We are glad to see that the sales volume of our Polo Shirts is more than twice that of other brands.

　　 Brand e-commerce to be expanded

Q: I have seen the website of Crocodile Brand, and I would like to know your plan for e-commerce channels, as well as your views on the relationship between physical stores and e-commerce (your company has 1200 stores, which is also a large part of your sales network).

A: There are three main contents of electronic channels. The first is social networks, the second is traditional communication through websites, and the third is e-commerce.

I think our company's performance in mass media is very good, because we realized two years ago that we are a French fashion company leading crocodile brand fans, which requires us to pay special attention to the brand itself.

Our traditional way of communication with customers is good, maybe not very good, but still good. Of course, we also vigorously promote the Lacoste live brand, because our website mainly targets young people.

We are still beginners in e-commerce. In addition to entering the US e-commerce market in 2004, we also entered the UK, France and Germany e-commerce markets in 2010. We also entered the Korean and Japanese e-commerce market a few months ago, and plan to enter the Chinese e-commerce market in 2013.

There are many reasons for us to do so. Because of the authorization mode we adopt, it takes a long time for everyone to reach an agreement. The licensors in some countries are a little worried about the competition between physical stores and e-commerce models, so we launch e-commerce later than our competitors. However, our current e-commerce performance is good and exceeds our expectations.

Q: In theory, your company has huge potential business opportunities because of your products, your online fans and recognition.

A: Yes, e-commerce is an important part of our overall business. Although we started late, we still have the opportunity to make branded products easier to sell online.