Marketing crash and burn

Mike Redwood

Columnist

International Leather Maker

Leather does not succeed in the world because it is technically good; it succeeds when its qualities are turned into value that people recognise and are willing to pay for. That is the work of marketing and strategy. From my earliest days as a leather chemist through to work with Pittards, Ecco, ADOC, FootJoy and others, I have been preoccupied with this bridge between tannery and market.

For much of the last 50 years, tanners have been product oriented: “This is what the product is like, therefore you must take it like this”. In a world of informed consumers, intense competition and rising expectations, that stance is rarely viable. Indeed, apart from certain specific luxury goods, the quote “good leather sells itself” does little more than signify a business choosing to ignore customers and consumer trends.

One aspect of this has been that as marketing has grown as a taught management science, it has struggled with overexposure. The rush to university qualifications as an antidote to deindustrialisation created too many business courses for the staff available. Often, well-intentioned but ill-trained lecturers taught marketing as essentially communications plus basic branding picked up from the brand sugar rush of the late 1980s.

Communication and branding without context, strategy, expert market knowledge and full product knowledge only leads to consumer manipulation. And so, it is no surprise that the very term “marketing” has become synonymous with a lack of integrity if not direct dishonesty. A dishonesty now capable of immense amplification via the modern tools of social media.

This dangerous power of communication can also affect the brands. At a sports brand conference in the 1990s, I remember being told that the brand was now so well recognised that they could ditch my “expensive” leather and put any replacement in and still sell successfully. It was of course quite true; but only until the customers noted the drop in quality and the product crashed and burned.

It never happened, of course, as there are many component branding tools for tanners to deploy that tie relationships together and give time for negotiation and correction if required. All these tools exist today but need constant adjustments to fit with our changing world.

From product orientation to value orientation

Today, product strategy begins not with what we make, but with how, where and why customers – and consumers – see value.

In industrial, business to business markets, the temptation is to assume that leather is just another component and that traditional textbook models of ingredient branding will suffice. Yet leather’s role varies widely: in many cases it is the only, or the defining, component in the product. Treating it as a generic input misses the point.

Shifting from “what we produce” to “where the value is perceived” involves:

• Understanding how brands and consumers use leather to express performance, comfort, heritage or identity – and of course sustainability.
• Recognising that networks – between tanners, brands, retailers and final users – now shape markets more than linear supply chains and pure dyadic relationships.
• Accepting that the consumer increasingly participates in defining the brand and its meaning, rather than being a passive recipient of marketing messages.

This sees value as co created in networks, not embedded once and for all in the product. It also pushes design and innovation into consideration of longevity and easy repair as well as end of life. The correct threads and zips, with the latter accessible if replacement are needed to allow the leather to offer its true worth over time.

Innovation that matters

Innovation matters and “real” innovation that users will pay more must have substance. In practice, that means aligning three types of innovation:

• Product innovation – new properties, better performance, improved comfort, lighter weight.
• Process innovation – cleaner, more efficient, more reliable ways of making leather. Today we are pushing for simpler approaches with fewer chemicals and other inputs.
• Market innovation– new ways of positioning, selling and communicating leather’s strengths.

These used to be rather obscure and esoteric aspects, but all tanners and most consumers recognise them quickly in today’s world, particularly our very smart younger generations.

During my time with Booths, Pittards, Ecco and others, success came when these three moved together: when technical advances in performance leathers or comfort concepts were integrated with brand positioning and clear stories that consumers could understand. When they were separated, innovations remained curiosities instead of becoming long term business.

Some innovations can be simultaneously disruptive to supply chains. Mostly the three are viewed as parallel and complementary, but this is not always the case — they can conflict. Process changes to reduce chemical usage is one area needing work, as the true goal must be increased leather sales at higher prices.

Positioning leather in a circular world

Environmental and social responsibility are no longer optional extras; they are part of how value is defined. Leather has a strong story to tell here – as a long lasting, repairable material that makes high value use of a byproduct – but it must be told carefully and honestly.

Technical improvements in cleaner production, reduced impact and better end of life thinking are independently important, but they are also strategic assets. They allow leather to be positioned against disposable synthetics as a material that improves with age and invites repair rather than replacement.

At the same time, now that consumers use brands – and the materials those brands choose – to express individuality and social position, management can no longer assume full control over brand meaning via the traditional 4Ps. In this context:

• Transparency about sourcing, chemistry and labour standards becomes part of the value proposition.
• Storytelling about craft, place and durability must be open to scrutiny and participation.
• Direct to consumer channels, strengthened by the Covid 19 period, bring tanners and brands closer to the final user than ever before.

Working through networks

My academic work at the University of Bath and elsewhere has focused on how companies operate in complex networks rather than simple dyads. The leather trade is a textbook example: hides and skins, chemical suppliers, tanners, component makers, brands, retailers, recyclers and NGOs are all intertwined.

Seeing leather through a network lens changes strategy:

• Influence often comes less from formal power and more from the ability to shape shared pictures of the future.
• Innovation can spread or stall depending on how it fits into existing relationships and perceptions.
• Programmes such as Leather Naturally operate not just as communications campaigns, but as network actors changing how leather is collectively understood.

What this means in practice

Tanners need to ensure that their marketing is grounded in an understanding of leather, the raw material and its origins, its processing and role in society. If leather is not understood far beyond being a beautiful or clever “material”, the tanner’s work is wasted.

• Strategy in leather begins with a clear view of where value is seen and created.
• Marketing must be grounded in good science and honest environmental accounting.
• Innovation only succeeds when it is understood, desired and rewarded in the marketplace.

So, the marketing a tannery does must be able to look at the big picture and long-term trends as tanners have done all through history as society changed and leather adjusted to support – and often enable – transport, agriculture, industry, warfare, fashion, luxury, lifestyle and more.

mike@internationalleathermaker.com

You can find Dr Mike Redwood across social media at @michaelredwood.

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