Jane Singer

Super Bowl 2018: What We Can Learn from the Advertisers

By    |  

The Super Bowl is the single biggest advertising event of the year. This year the Super Bowl reached 103.4 million people and a 30-second ad cost $5 million. To give some spending perspective, Sunday Night Football, the highest rated weekly television show, reached 18.6 million people and cost just shy of $700,000 for a 30-second ad. The Academy Awards, the nation’s second-largest television event reached 32.9 million people in 2017. This year, a 30-second spot in the Academy Awards will cost around $2.5 million dollars. But, the Super Bowl …

Super Bowl 2018: What We Can Learn from the AdvertisersRead More

It’s a Store, It’s a Restaurant, It’s…Eataly

By    |  

A friend wanted to recreate a delicious pasta dish we had in Sicily last spring. It was a strozzapreti—“strangled priest” or “priest strangler,” an elongated variation of cavatelli pasta, with a simple broccoli sauce that was one of the most delicious things we’d ever tasted. But the strozzapreti pasta was nearly impossible to find. I’m no foodie, and while I’d heard of Eataly, which opened its first American outpost in New York’s Flatiron district to great fanfare in 2010, I’d never been there. Seven years later my search for strozzapreti …

It’s a Store, It’s a Restaurant, It’s…EatalyRead More

Ralph Lauren: The Great American Brand Takes a Look in the Mirror and Decides to Change

By    |  

Earlier this fall I ran into a friend who is well connected and well versed in the chic Manhattan universe of society, celebrity and fashion. “That’s a great dress,” he said, complimenting me on the brighter-than-navy blue, three-quarter sleeved, gabardine wool stretch shift I wore. “Ralph,” I said. “Oh! I hear Ralph is going down the tubes,” he replied. My friend’s idea that Ralph Lauren was in trouble likely stemmed from reports of the company’s depressed stock price and sales numbers. In 2015, the company’s stock tumbled 40 percent, and …

Ralph Lauren: The Great American Brand Takes a Look in the Mirror and Decides to ChangeRead More

Cupcakes Worth Waiting For

By    |  

I called Two Little Red Hens, my go-to bakery, to order four or five dozen mini-cupcakes for a holiday party I was giving on December 18. After waiting on hold for some time I was told I’d missed the deadline for holiday orders. “Can’t you make an exception I pleaded?” “No, I’m sorry, the deadline for holiday orders has passed.” Determined, I asked to speak with a manager. The woman on the other end of the phone told me she was the manager, and, had been working at the bakery for about eight years. When I asked her what she suggested I do for …

Cupcakes Worth Waiting ForRead More

The New Whitney Museum of American Art: What Retailers Can Learn

By    |  

Museums and retailers have much in common. Each needs to create an engaging experience for customers. Yes, retailers need to sell their wares and make a profit doing so—no easy feat in today’s over-stored, over-saturated marketplace. Museums must attract visitors to maintain their vitality and relevance, and also to cultivate donors. What good is displaying art if no one comes to see it? Too Much Stuff, Not Enough Space The Whitney Museum of American Art shared a problem faced by many N.Y. retailers. It did not have enough space. Gertrude …

The New Whitney Museum of American Art: What Retailers Can LearnRead More

Give a Little, Get a Lot. Or Not.

By    |  

Philanthropy and Your Brand I first heard of Toms nearly five years ago while wedding dress shopping with my niece. To judge the right length of the dress, the sales person asked what type of shoe she was planning to wear. She answered definitively, “Toms,” sticking out a foot covered in what appeared to be a fabric espadrille, “I’ve already ordered a pair in white.” Her mother and I silently poked one another as the sales person replied, “Oh, I love Toms. I have them in almost every color!” Toms was started in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, an …

Give a Little, Get a Lot. Or Not.Read More

Polo Ralph Lauren – Adventures in Brand Architecture

By    |  

A New Take on an Old Story In 2004, Ralph Lauren launched Rugby, a new brand to appeal to a new customer. The company was serious enough about the brand to attempt to trademark the use of the name in apparel and related categories. The Rugby brand had less to do with the wide striped, white collared shirts associated with the sport than the desire to appeal to a new, younger customer who may or may not have been familiar with the Ralph Lauren brand. Or brands, because there are several in the Lauren stable. More on that later. …

Polo Ralph Lauren – Adventures in Brand ArchitectureRead More

Rent the Runway: Fashion Meets the Sharing Economy

By    |  

Over the years, whenever I purchased a “party dress” — meaning an expensive dress for a specific occasion, mostly black tie — I always thought, why can’t I just rent the dress, wear it, and be done with it, instead of spending so much money on something that, while gorgeous, might be out of style or not look so great when the time comes to wear it again? Two Harvard Business School classmates, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, had the same thought, but went so far as to turn it into an actual business. The first Jennifer, Hymen, was struck …

Rent the Runway: Fashion Meets the Sharing EconomyRead More

CONNECT WITH TRR