THE BIGGEST BUSINESS
COMEBACKS OF THE PAST 20 YEARS (3)
The preppy retailer
lost its pep in the late 1990s, and from 1998 until 2003, three CEOs cycled
through the fading brand. Then Mickey Drexler and Jenna Lyons came along. In
2003, Drexler—recently fired as CEO of Gap Inc.—invested $10 million of his
personal cash into J.Crew in return for a 22% stake and the CEO title. Soon
after he arrived he discovered Lyons, who had quietly been working in the
design department for 13 years. She soon became the company’s driving creative
force, crafting a more upscale product that was equal parts catwalk and
Nantucket. It was a hit: During Drexler’s first five years at J.Crew, revenues
leaped 107%.
With a prime-time
lineup full of snoozy grandparent bait likeMurder, She Wrote and Dr.
Quinn, Medicine Woman, the Tiffany Network sank to last place in the
mid-1990s. That changed after CBS hired Leslie Moonves away from Warner Bros.
TV, where he’d green-lighted such shows as the zeitgeist-defining Friends.
The Moonves era has produced a slew of huge hits—CSI, Survivor, Two and a
Half Men, The Big Bang Theory—and CBS is now the nation’s most-watched
network.
Launched in the 19th
century, iconic Milwaukee beer PBR reached peak popularity in the 8-track era.
But by the late 1990s, the brew had gone flat. Here’s how it came back:
In 2001, with sales
hitting an all-time low, the company brought in Benetton exec Brian Kovalchuk
as CEO and Neal Stewart as brand manager. Stewart was just 27 at the time.
One of the few places
where sales were up was the hipster hub of Portland, Oregon. Young people
embraced the brand due to its no-frills image, lack of cheesy advertising, and affordability.
PBR sponsored cool
events like gallery openings rather than buy traditional ads. Since 2001, national
sales have increased by 165%.
Remember the GameCube?
Nintendo dominated the video-game world in the ’80s and ’90s with products like
the Game Boy, but in the early 2000s Sony and Microsoft launched the PS2 and
Xbox, and Nintendo’s response—an underpowered purple box that screamed "me-too product"—was a flop. Then Nintendo embraced its
individuality with the DS, DS Lite, and Wii, each of which would go on to
sell around 100 million units worldwide.
It ruled the athletic
market from its founding at the beginning of the 20th century until the 1970s,
but then Nike and Adidas muscled their way in and Converse faded, filing for
bankruptcy in 2001. How it rebounded:
2003:
Nike buys Converse and
implements a counterintuitive plan: Make the brand less about sports and more
about style.
2005:
The shoe company
expands a previous partnership with John Varvatos to create a clothing line,
capitalizing on Converse’s association with cool musicians.
2011:
Converse builds on its
new reputation as a fashion and lifestyle brand with hip initiatives like
Rubber Tracks, a recording studio for emerging artists in Brooklyn.
2014:
The company sues 32
competitors, including Ralph Lauren, for allegedly producing knockoffs. Annual
revenues hit $1.7 billion, up from $205 million in 2003.
BY FAST COMPANY STAFF
http://www.fastcompany.com/3042431/meme/the-biggest-business-comebacks-of-the-past-20-years
No comments:
Post a Comment