CATALOGUE
DOES THE CONSUMER WANT LIFE LESSONS FROM YOU?
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BY BILL LAPIERRE, DATAMANN USA
A few years back, I cited what I thought was an excellent example of “courageous creative” when Athleta featured on their cover a 98-year-old yoga instructor named Tao Porchon-Lynch. At the time, I received an email from a catalogue vendor asking why I had not also drawn attention to Athleta’s use of a plus-size model in that same catalogue. I responded that it would be “touching the third rail of blogging” for a male to comment on the physical appearance of any female model, especially calling attention to the model’s size. What might be plus-size to one person is potentially not to someone else.
Over the ten years of writing this blog, I have avoided many subjects. I have remained apolitical. I acknowledge that I’ve written some things that were controversial within the catalogue industry, but never ventured into political or social commentary. Te owners of Datamann have permitted me a wide berth of topics on which to write, but there’s an understated rule that I won’t write anything that is going to alienate half our audience. I have avoided – at least intentionally – touching that third rail.
I bring this up because in reviewing comments from readers at the end of last year, I found this one that I received last spring and had set aside for ‘future thought’. A member of a Creative department wrote to offer this:
“A trend I’m seeing is to cut product selling copy from catalogues, because ‘nobody reads anymore’, [and] then to fill that space back up with non- selling copy about ‘what we believe’ and ‘WOW do we love the planet’ and the like. Much like your president’s letter examples, but restated by today’s branding teams in pithy fonts. Looking for life lessons from a brand where one buys socks and tees is like looking for a genuine Rolex at the Dollar Store. It’s just not there.”
Tere is a lesson here for many of you. Here’s how the evolution usually plays out: You think very highly of your company, which you see as being a “lifestyle brand”. Moreover, you earnestly believe that your customers think the same – that they want to live the “XYZ brand” lifestyle – whatever that is. And whatever it is can be found in your catalogue, or on the “About Us” tab on your website.
You think so highly of your “brand” that you start to think it is imbued with qualities that make you, your employees, and by extension, your customers, much better people. But you can’t leave it to chance that your customers will recognize those qualities. So you start calling them out.
You’re subtle at first. But as time goes on, you keep adding a little more “spice” to your copy. You devote a whole page to how your company is donating money to stop some issue or support some cause. Pretty soon, you start getting angry letters/emails from customers
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