NEW YORK — Even as the retail universe continues to consolidate, branding consultant Arthur Rubinfeld sees a glimmer of daylight for the small boutique.
“The more people sit in front of computer screens and push buttons, the more they may want individualism — and they may seek it in fashion,” suggested Rubinfeld, whose upcoming book, “Built for Growth: Expanding Your Business Around the Corner or Across the Globe,” is slated to be published in April (Wharton School Publishing: $26.95). “This could result in people opening stores at the individual level, boutiques that would offer more than one brand,” added Rubinfeld, 51, who launched brand consultancy Airvision in 2002 after a 10-year run at Starbucks, where, as an executive vice president heading design, real estate and construction, he took the chain to more than 4,000 locations from 100.
Indeed, there’s something to be said for a simple approach to marketing in an age of hypersegmentation of brands, acknowledged Rubinfeld, whose clients have included Adidas, Oakley, Gateway and Taco Bell. Asked of the pluses and minuses of using multiple logos for a particular brand, as Nike and Adidas have done in the athletic sphere, he said, “It’s very tricky; very hard to do. It’s not the first route I would take. It can only be done where the customer gives a brand license to do it.”
In the case of Adidas, Rubinfeld said, two logos and brand segments were extended beyond the label’s long-running trefoil — which then was appropriated to Adidas sports heritage products — in a bid to keep the brand’s image fresh and appeal to narrower niches. A younger, more fashion-minded consumer became the target of Adidas’ round logo, while a more serious, sports performance customer formed the primary focus of goods bearing the brand’s triangle logo. The unifying element in the three symbols is the mark of three bands, which continues to be closely associated with the Adidas name.
“Brand is a way you touch the customer and branding is the personal experience your customer has with you,” Rubinfeld writes in Built for Growth, co-authored by fellow marketing consultant and former Microsoft executive Collins Hemingway. Rubinfeld is one in a growing cadre of believers in emotional branding, a phenomenon the Seattle-based, author-consultant dubs human touch. As such, a logo, among other aspects of branding, cannot compensate for poor products or experiences in stores, notes Rubinfeld, who has kept following the advice he received from Harry Helmsley at 25, when he was the project architect and construction manager for The Palace Hotel in Manhattan: Do businesses directly.
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“If the experience is poor, the logo deflects customers toward the competition,” Rubinfeld writes. “If the experiences are good, the logo becomes an icon that draws customers.” As for where urban fashion customers are likely to be lured anew, native-Brooklynite Rubinfeld advised, “Follow the galleries if you want to know where the next retail enclave is.”