Business Insight Zone

Some brand names manage to become so prominent that they stand in for a whole class of goods — Kleenex, Coke, Xerox, Frigidaire. But not many brands can be used as shorthand for a social class. Since it was founded in 1818, Brooks Brothers has come to enjoy that cachet, with its name used as a stand-in for prep school, Wall Street, quiet money, and conservative sartorial style. Abraham Lincoln was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit the night he was killed, and when Katharine Hepburn first wore trousers on screen, they came from Brooks Brothers. The clothier of the east-coast Establishment is now trying to rebuild its relevance for new generations of businesspeople who have little connection to neckties and suits, much less old money.

To aid these efforts, Brooks Brothers has rolled out the largest print advertising campaign in its history, one example of which is the 24-page black-and-white spread in the current issue of American Express’s luxe Departures magazine. While the ads evoke the clothier’s long history, they’re meant to promote its spanking-new Black Fleece collection, with which designer Thom Browne aims to maintain Brooks Brothers’ classical style while updating it for today’s consumers. (This includes women, who account for about one-fifth of the retailer’s sales.) Retail Brand Alliance, the clothier’s parent company, has divested most of its other businesses to focus on Brooks Brothers, which is extending its brand into new markets by opening stores in Britain and on the Continent. All of these efforts should allow Brooks Brothers to take advantage of booming sales of luxury items, and to compete better with a range of rivals that includes specialist retailers like shirtmaker Thomas Pink and high-end clothiers with global aspirations such as Burberry and Polo Ralph Lauren.

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* This article originally appeared on our Company of the Day page on 22 August 2007. Unless I’m mistaken, this catches us up on Company of the Day postings that didn’t originally appear in simulcast on this blog. From here on out, you should see only “current edition” Companies of the Day.

Category: Company of the Day, Consumer goods