How To Build A Billion-Dollar Brand Overnight
This is a story about the maddest of Mad Men, T _ _ _ _ H _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , and how to live forever.
George Lois was the maddest of the Mad Men.
The son of Greek immigrants, he grew up defending himself from the bigger Irish kids that picked on him in West Bronx, New York.
In that neighbourhood compromise was weakness.
So George became a man that refused to compromise.
He refused to compromise his taste.
When a client rejected a campaign he opened a window and threatened to jump.
When he saw a colleague wearing a shirt he didn’t like he tore off the pocket.
When a client called him over lunch to tell him his New York agency was just too far from them he got on the first plane out of town.
And beat them back to their offices to prove a point.
He was just as uncompromising with his ethics.
On his first day serving in the US Army he was given 14 weeks company punishment for telling a racist major to, “Go fuck yourself, Sir!”
And too with his work ethic, saying:
“If a man does not work passionately — even furiously — at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.”
Tommy Hilfiger was a mild-mannered man.
He grew up in an “All-American” family, with parents that instilled a good work ethic and an honest compassion for others.
That lead him to set up a small clothes store with friends.
And lead him to become frustrated with the products they were selling.
T-shirts that just didn’t fit right.
Jeans that wore out quickly.
He could tell the makers were in it for the money.
He wanted to do it right.
His interest soon turned in to a passion.
And he’d spend hours sketching the intricate patterns.
Then hours more making those ideas a reality.
But that only got him so far.
The small clothes store struggled, then went bankrupt.
This, he said, was when his MBA began.
During the next few years Tommy was in the wilderness, travelling as far as India to sit in factories and study the craftsmen.
Then Tommy’s wife fell pregnant.
Being a penniless dreamer was no longer practical.
Practical was taking the jobs he’d been offered assisting Calvin Klein or Perry Ellis — both designers America loved and Tommy admired.
But he refused them.
Reflecting on that decision he said, “I knew what existed and I wanted it to be different”.
Persistence paid off when he got the backing he needed to open a store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
And that’s when Tommy met George.
Still a shy young man, Tommy nervously told George about his plans and the kinds of ads he was thinking of making with the tiny budget he had.
Ordinarily George would tear these kinds of ideas apart.
But he saw the passion and work ethic behind the clothes.
And that gave him an idea.
Instead of the preppy, respectful, All-American ads that every designer did, that Tommy had suggested, George’s instinct was to pick a fight.
To be outrageous.
He designed a billboard ad to appear on Seventh Avenue — also known as Fashion Avenue — that read:
The Four Great American Designers For Men Are…
With the initials RL, PE, CK and TH written out like a game of hangman.
The idea terrified Tommy:
“You can’t compare me to Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren” he said, “it’ll sound like I’m bragging or something.”
So George told him:
“Look, if you want to have any name recognition in this business at all you need millions of dollars worth of advertising over and over and over. And it’ll take you years. If you want your name to be known right away, we need something unique like this”.
Tommy eventually agreed, though he spent several sleepless nights worrying about it.
The night the billboard went up, he lay in bed an unknown designer.
The next day he was a star.
That one ad created an avalanche of publicity.
The thousands who saw it wondered, “Who the hell is T _ _ _ _ H _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?”
They soon found out, along with the rest of the world, when Tommy was invited onto every talk show in town.
Customers flooded his store.
Buyers from Bloomingdale’s, Saks and elsewhere called to order his collection.
Tommy Hilfiger became a billion-dollar brand overnight.
The fashion elite were furious.
When Calvin Klein saw George Lois he grabbed him and told him, “It took me twenty years to get where I am”.
Never one to duck a fight, George replied, “Oh yeah?! Well if you’d done it right it would’ve taken twenty minutes”.
But the ad did something else.
It made Tommy work harder than ever before.
The only way to prove the naysayers wrong was to come out with amazing clothes.
So that’s what he did.
He perfected every button, every pocket detail, every stitch.
So the ads were true.
Tommy Hilfiger was one of the four great American designers for men.
He just hadn’t realised it yet.
Years later George visited his friend Massimo Vignelli on his death-bed.
Vignelli was himself an outrageously accomplished designer, best known for the iconic New York Subway system.
He had once told a young George Lois, “if you do it right, it will live forever”.
That line had pushed him to reject compromise.
To become one of the greats.
George recounted this tale and they both laughed.
Then George said:
“But Massimo, you didn’t go far enough…”
“If you do it right, it, and you, will live forever.”
Thomas Cornwall is the Director of Behave, London’s creative behavioural practice.
