Stilettos, Image, and Building a Brand

Last week in Australia, 265 women raced for 100 yards wearing stiletto heels and made it into the Guinness book of world records. The fastest runner was awarded $5,000 (and some band aids.) Many of the women never actually completed the 100 yards due to falling in their 3″ spikes.

The loyalty women have to their stilettos is almost mystifying. They are painful to wear, difficult to walk in (let alone run), and legions of medical articles have been printed touting the long-term foot, ankle and leg problems they cause. Yet the style thrives in brands like Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik that sell easily for hundreds of dollars a pair because legs look much more shapely in a high heel.

When reduced to their essence, brands are personal reflections of how we want others to see us. At both the subconscious and conscious levels, consumers “brand” themselves with dozens of decisions every day.

From the cars we drive, to the clothes we wear, the foods we eat, the technology devices we use, how we spend our leisure time, where we live, and who we choose to do business with; every choice has been influenced with images created by marketers and advertisers to build brands in which we see ourselves.

The basis of marketing is to understand that purchases are made by individuals, and selling must be done at the one-to-one level. Create advertising that speaks to one person; not millions.

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to want their products to become the brands chosen by the most consumers. In the quest for bigger sales, the sheer power of exclusivity has become elusive or forgotten. The surest way to become a successful brand is to not be for everyone, but to be for only some.

If you start to understand the depths of the connection women have with their shoes, you will get to the heart, or perhaps to the “sole,” of understanding the concept of building a brand. Here are some tips:

Own the Image! Your product is the reflection of the self-image of the person who uses it. Match your product to personal branding. Visit the women’s shoe department of any major store and you’ll find the merchandise clustered and displayed by brand, not by style, to make it easier for women to find the brands they feel reflect their image.

Know Your Customer! It takes consistent messages and positioning in the right channels to establish your product as part of a consumer’s self image. Look for the most powerful channels you can use to reach the customer that matches your product, then keep your product in front of that customer with a continuous advertising schedule or product placement. Hit or miss is always a miss when it comes to taking ownership of a person’s self image. For six seasons there was rarely a Sex and the City TV show that didn’t mention the name Manolo Blahnik. No schedule of advertising could have produced results equal to that product placement.

Options Equal Multiple Purchases! Within your product line are there options and different choices for different needs or price points? When your brand becomes part of the consumer’s self image, he or she will make crossover purchases within your brand and increase their customer value to you. These are called sub-brands. Be constantly looking for more ways to provide sub-brand choices for your customers. Look in any woman’s shoe closet and you’ll see multiple pairs of shoes from the same brand, but each pair is different. How many different ways can you sell to the same customer?

Peer Influence is Power! Women own lots of shoes so they always have just the right pair for any occasion. Product choices are a key way of establishing what group you belong to. Consumers who aspire to be perceived in a particular way look at the behavior and style of others in the group and purchase goods and services that guarantee they’ll fit in. Within all consumer groups and classes there are those who start trends, those who influence trends, and those who follow trends. Successful brands develop all three groups.

It’s Not About Price! In branding, the self-image always comes first. When your product fits a consumer’s self-image, price becomes the final consideration, not the first. Too often marketing is focused on price point when it really needs to focus on getting the consumer to see himself or herself in the brand. A woman will wear her $10 marked-down sale bargain shoes with the same verve and panache as her $500 designer shoes as long as they both reflect the image she wants to present.

Perhaps nowhere is the personal connection with brands more evident than in the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” advertising campaign. It’s computers, not shoes, but it clearly demonstrates how brands are developed by consumers relating to products that project their self image.

Businesses are all looking for that Cinderella moment when the consumer tries on their glass slipper and it is the “brand” that fits. Knowing which consumers’ self images are reflected in your brands and sub-brands will keep you a step ahead. Whether you take that step in stilettos or something more practical is up to you.

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