7 Things Hugo Boss did to Rebrand its Image
One of the key tests of time is how do you stay relevant if your customer base ages over time? This is a dilemma most retailers face as time goes along. Think about Sears and how its image has become dated or look at 90-year old Revlon which recently filed for bankruptcy. Hugo Boss has been in business since 1924, nearly 100 years, that’s a long time. When Daniel Grieder, Hugo Boss’ CEO joined the company last June his first challenge was to make Hugo Boss relevant again.
“As a brand, you have to constantly reinvent yourself to stay relevant to customers,” said Grieder. “Hugo Boss has lost relevance over the past few years, and we are reclaiming our position now. Our ambition is to become one of the top-100 global brands.” In the past Hugo Boss was outside of the top 500 global brands as measured by Interbrand.
If you have ever tried to rebrand a product or an entire business then you know it’s not easy. While courting new customers it’s easy to lose your existing customers who still bring in revenue to your business. But Hugo Boss has gone all in in its pursuit of relevancy and it’s succeeding. Hugo Boss’ second quarter sales were up 34% over last year and are up 29% over 2019. And recently Hugo Boss raised its full year forecast. It expects sales this year to increase 20% to 25% to reach between €3.3 billion and €3.5 billion. If you are curious about how Hugo Boss has become relevant again then consider these seven moves it made to rebrand itself.
1. Target younger consumers. Hugo Boss has made a clear delineation between its clothing lines Boss and Hugo. Both skew younger now with more moderately priced Hugo targeting the Gen Z consumer who is under the age of 25. The more upscale Boss line is targeted at millennials between the ages of 25-40. “We are redefining our brands to make Boss and Hugo more relevant, especially among younger consumers,” said Greider.
To reach younger consumers Hugo Boss has found success by working with Khaby Lame, the most followed person on TikTok. After a digital first fashion show Hugo Boss held last year where Lame walked the runway, the event generated 15.9 billion impressions on TikTok and over 33 million social media engagements. “Because we are measuring everything on social media we could see who consumers were responding to after the show, and then we immediately went into deals and negotiations for brand ambassadorships,” said Miah Sullivan, senior vice president of global marketing and communications for Hugo Boss. “We saw very quickly the response that consumers had on social media,” said Grieder. “We saw new customers, younger customers and people who were absolutely in love with Khaby Lame come to the brand.”
Lame is now a long-term brand ambassador for Hugo Boss and is co-designing two capsule collections for Hugo Boss, one of which is out now. “For our last show in September, five times what we spent came back within two months in revenue,” said Sullivan.
2. Make digital a priority. As part of the rebrand Hugo Boss launched two global campaigns in January called #BeYourOwnBoss and #HowDoYouHugo. The campaigns included social media posts and ads featuring top models, influencers, athletes, entertainers as well as: “more than 200 talents posting their personal BOSS stories on Instagram, Weibo, Red, and WeChat with images of themselves wearing the signature BOSS hoodie.” Hugo Boss also createed a TikTok dance challenge to garner interest in its campaign.
These campaigns highlight how the definition of a boss has changed over time. Today anyone can use social media to create a following and build a lucrative career. In light of this Hugo Boss placed a large spotlight in these campaigns on Lame. “Hugo Boss has always been the brand for successful people. But in today’s world success is defined in a different way,” said Sullivan. “It doesn’t mean being the manager anymore. It means writing your own story. A ‘boss’ is a person who leads a self-determined life, by your own rules and finding your own way.”
The social media campaigns were a runaway success, achieving the following results:
· “1.9 billion impressions for both campaigns
· 75 million engagements across all social media channels
· Social engagement increased by 84% on BOSS’ Instagram
· 367 million views on [the] TikTok #HowDoYouHUGO challenge
· Number of followers on HUGO’s TikTok increased by 30%”
3. Leverage young creators. Hugo Boss knows the key to resonating with the younger generation is to have young people as an integral part of the content creation process. “If you are going to be a marketer today you always have to be learning,” said Grieder. “For example, we are working with a 17-year-old TikTok genius in Miami who lives at home with his parents. We have a proxy photographer for him here in Dubai who he is giving direction on what to shoot so he can create our social 3D content.”
Rebranding isn’t just about changing the product it is also about changing the way you do business. What has worked in the past may not work in the future or even today. “At one point recently I was in bed in my pajamas in Germany taking a video call with six creators between the ages of 17 and 19 brainstorming ideas,” said Grieder.
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4. Embrace diversity. If you have seen any of Hugo Boss’ social media posts, ads, runway shows or website you will notice the models, influencers and entertainers working for Hugo Boss are ethnically diverse. From American rapper Future to Korean actor Lee Min to Italian tennis star Matteo Berrettini to supermodel Naomi Campbell Hugo Boss doesn’t feel like a stuffy old brand but instead looks modern, like the kind of brand that appeals to a younger consumer who wants to feel represented. “The diversity of origin of these celebrities also indicate…[Hugo Boss] wants to be a global brand appealing to consumers in all regions,” said GlobalData retail analyst Louise Deglise-Favre.
With Fenty, Rihanna showed how financially lucrative it is to boldly showcase people of all ethnicities and now many brands including Hugo Boss have followed suit with success.
5. Elevate the product offering. You can’t successfully rebrand without changing the product. With its tailored suits Hugo Boss has always been known as a first choice if you are looking to dress to impress at the office. But with the COVID-19 pandemic office life has forever changed. Many people aren’t even going into the office anymore and those who do are dressing more casually.
Hugo Boss had to change with the times or risk targeting a smaller and smaller group of consumers. To take this challenge head on Hugo Boss updated the look of its clothing by offering more casual items. Take a look at Hugo Boss’ website. As soon as you enter the site it feels different, more modern, more on trend, more diverse. It feels less like corporate America of the past and more like where the world is heading, towards a place where success can be found in the corner office or in your home office. “Now everything is allowed as long as it’s modern and sophisticated,” said Grieder. “It’s now clear to the young generation that this brand is not just a suiting brand,” said Grieder.
To keep up with the times, Hugo Boss clothing now contains more fabric with a stretch to it. “You can sleep in that suit and you can get up and it still looks like you just put it on,” said Grieder. “This is the new definition of tailoring.”
6. Create new logos. As part of the rebrand Hugo Boss, for the first time in 50 years, introduced a new logo for its Boss brand. The Hugo line also has a new logo for the first time since the line was launched in the early 1990s. “The new logos have been designed to resonate well with the increasingly global pool of consumers, many of whom discover brands via social media and digital channels,” said Grieder. “The facelift of both logos with a bolder typeface and a more contemporary look, as well as a more impactful visual experience, works particularly well on digital applications. The new design for Boss, for example, includes camel as a new color in addition to the existing black and white and is combined with an iconic stripe. This gives the freedom to play with the brands´ iconography even in the collections.”
7. Commit financially. For the rebrand Hugo Boss increased its marketing budget from 6.5% of sales to 8% of sales proving it is taking its commitment to targeting a younger demographic seriously. This is a point that shouldn’t be taken lightly. One of the mistakes companies make when trying to change their image or when they are going in a new direction is that they don’t fully commit to it. They have one leg in the past and one leg in the future and that confusion can hold the rebranding initiative from reaching its full potential. If you are aching for a transformation then you have to jump in with both feet knowing that it might not work but if it does it can change the trajectory of your business.