Collier Campbell — brand expansion through strategic partnerships
Collier Campbell was considered the finest textile design firm in England, and perhaps, in all of Europe. They designed the patterned fabrics for Yves Saint Laurent and created a line for Marks and Spenser, as well as a landmark collection for Habitat.
Our research showed us that there was a degree of name recognition in the target U.S. market, but also confusion. Because their American advertising was limited to Martex bedding, consumers who recognized the brand thought that Collier Campbell was the manufacturer of bed sheets, rather than the creators of patterns for application on all manner of fabrics and products—including, of course, bed sheets for Martex.
American manufacturers were not far behind in their limited understanding of this great design resource. We needed luxury manufacturers to understand that their lines could be energized and their business invigorated by an association with Collier Campbell and their organic, fresh, smart, unifying patterns.
We created a coordinated and concerted effort to bring their patterns to a full list of home furnishings manufacturers in a manner in which we'd had some success in the past – with the licensing program we'd created for Pierre Balmain.
Our first work for Collier Campbell, however, needed to reinforce and not alienate the licensing partner who was the most powerful member of the team, Martex, while introducing and featuring the newer players.
The first major market piece breaks the rules by showing a Faribault blanket, rather than a Martex sheet on its cover – and it is hanging from a rope line in a stand of trees, rather than on a bed. Sheets are presented next – but billowing from a clothesline – that takes them off the bed and insists the viewer see them all as pattern next to pattern.
The market piece echoes the seven page advertising insertion that went into the highest-end design magazines in time for Spring Market. Pages are flooded with color from painted brush stroked color-boards, giving the look of hand-painting (and therefore - the hand of the artist) to even the sections of solid color printing. Coordinated product is worked into images shot with cinema lighting in a nineteenth century greenhouse – giving us spectacular lighting effects never seen in any home furnishings advertising.
The piece and the campaign were major award winners and created an atmosphere for Collier Campbell that helped to create compelling interest and excitement among the licensing partners. MEIER set up the phone lines to answer the consumer and licensing calls within our own offices - both for research and for tracking, direction and confidential supervision.
In just three years, we took Collier Campbell to a total sales figure of millions in the US market. We created new ways of managing media relationships with programs and partnerships that included media placed in unorthodox ways, coordinated programs with targeted retailers, access to proprietary media research and reader groups, events that were retailer and licensed–partner driven, and product placement creatively designed in ways that carried integrity and authenticity.
Photo Credit: Ken Skalski