All's fair in love and retailing
What looked like All's fair in love and retailinga story of boy meets girl, or girl wants to meet boy, turned out to be a low budget publicity stunt by womenswear retailer, Witchery.
The story began on Youtube. It was about a bloke who leaves his jacket in a Sydney city café after a solo breakfast. A 25-year-old girl (blonde, toothpaste ad teeth, excellent legs) and Jacketman have been mistakenly served each other's breakfast. Smittengirl then proceeds to a charm-enhanced swap before Jacketman can raise his fork. Their eyes meet. Cupid fires off a couple of bullseyes - well, one into Smittengirl, anyway. Jacketman leaves the café sans jacket.
Smittengirl then goes public on the internet. Her intention, she says, is to restore the jacket to jacketman and test him for a cupid hit at the same time. She holds the jacket aloft, exposing the label, then slips it over her slim shoulders for a modelling shoot. Any suggestion of a publicity stunt is hotly denied by all who are questioned, including Witchery, the supplier behind the label.
There's an unhappy ending. Smittengirl owns up that she is a hired actor (I wouldn't hire her) and it's all been a publicity stunt to launch a male Witchery label 'Witchery Man'. She confesses all on Youtube, and doesn't miss the opportunity to display and fondle the jacket, show its striped satin lining and clearly articulate that it retails at $370.
Jacketman, of course, does not exist, which I think is reasonable since he is such a thickhead when it comes to jackets. But that didn't stop a number of men contacting the actress (real name Lily) to tell her that they were Jacketman.
Which leaves us with the marketing question as to whether this was a good promotion or not. I see it as bit of fun, but there are plenty giving Witchery a serve for being deceptive. And then you have to ask yourself if a clearly female retailer is wise launching a male range. There are plenty of examples, such as Sportscraft and Zara, that are successful, but Witchery? Maybe it could launch a store within a store and call it Warlockery.
Giving something back
After 55 years' in garment manufacturing and retail, Jim Swan wants to give something back to the trade by offering assistance to young, and probably struggling companies in men's or womenswear. He sees his major strengths as being in market positioning and defining target distribution channels, range and production planning and sales - once all the above are in place. And, as you'll see from his story, he's known failure as well as success.
Who is Jim Swan, needy young entrepreneurs may ask? This is his story: Jim Swan spent his early years as a leading fashion agent, handling both men's and womenswear. When Levi's came to Australia in 1967 he was appointed Queensland agent and shortly after became its general manager in Sydney. Two years later he launched the Farah brand in Australia with such success that he was appointed president, Farah Pacific, which meant responsibility for Farah Japan, Farah Hong Kong, Farah Singapore and Farah Australia. That involved controlling product development, manufacturing, sales and the profitability of the Pacific area. Five years later he moved back to Sydney as consultant to Continental Shirts - which also had the Pierre Cardin shirt license.
When the Australiana craze hit he successfully applied for the exclusive rights to T-shirts. Based on the success of this venture he decided to open retail stores called "The Proud Australian" which featured the Advance Australia range of products and other Australiana lables like Ken Done, Viva La Wombat, and Weiss Art.
"It was here I made the biggest mistake of my career," Jim frankly admits. "In opening 26 shops and trying to run an ever increasing wholesale business in T-shirts and sweats, we'd grown too big too fast and we went into voluntary liquidation.
"Fortunately all my manufactures for the wholesale business backed us into business again and with the exclusive license for the Boxing Kangaroo T-shirts and, with the America's Cup success, it wasn't long before we were up and running a new business specialising in Australiana. It has been very successful now for 22 years."
"I have been extremely lucky to be involved with so many great people, companies and products that I would love now to be able to give back a little to any young company that may be able to use my experience - at no charge - to help find their way to success."
Jim has pencilled in Wednesdays as his 'help' day. He lives in NSW, so Sydney companies will find it easier to take advantage of his offer. But he's flexible. He can be contacted on (02) 9954 7355 or email: swanmkt@bigpond.com.