No one was behind the Casual Fridays rise in the 90s, or were they?
The most compelling thing for me in brand marketing is the possibility to get your professional gratification literally within a year while the strategy you executed might have changed the world
Your enlightening understanding of consumers’ needs together with sales fundamentals and a good campaign can turn around the business and drive the sell-out of your branded product already in several months after the launch. But the pre-requisite is a strong consumer idea and a bit of your personal leadership.
The marketing aerobatic is when you pick up a rising social trend and turn it into a consumption multiplier for your product. In the early 2000s, P&G’s senior managers were telling the story of a laundry business director who created Casual Fridays in America to increase Tide washing power consumption. The legend says that the washing power market was already huge but stagnating for a decade. Consumer habits and practices were well established and innovation in powders had reached the ceiling while new forms like liquids and tablets were at the early stage of adoption.
Competing brands were bound to go to upsizing and pricing wars which inevitably would lead to massive market value erosion. Only a miracle could save the category from the decline.
But by 1995 according to Evans Research, 95% of American companies had already adopted a relaxed Friday dress code (compared to 30% in the 80s) and just like that American households got an extra shirt and pair of jeans or khakis for a laundry basket on a weekly basis which increased the household washing powder consumption by 30 cups a year. As a result, the whole category was delivering annual 5% growth till the beginning of the 2000s.
You ask me how all the above is relevant to the P&G brand director — this smart guy allegedly had a meaningful conversation with an IMB executive (who happened to be his classmate) on how Casual Fridays can boost his staff motivation and how progressive IBM would look pioneering the initiative nationally and the ball start to roll quickly. Apparently, my proactive P&G manager was not alone. In 1992 Levi’s, for example, had a pamphlet distributed nationally among HR managers on how to define an appropriate dress code for casual Fridays.
I can only say it’s a legend with some questions to the facts substantiation, yet I like the thinking. Price discounts and bundle packs should be the very last resort to increase brand sales. Before that, a brand team should think about what kind of a new habit to create to drive the brand consumption. And there is no stronger gratification for a brand person when thanks to her or his idea, not the brand, the whole category is positively impacted.
August 2022, Singapore
