Why is polo ralph lauren so popular

In , it opened its first coffee shop on the second floor of the Polo Ralph Lauren flagship store in Manhattan. In , it opened The Polo Bar in the heart of New York, offering a more casual yet refined setting for food and drink.

The RL Restaurants are indeed a great way to present another channel for consumers to experience the Ralph Lauren brand, rather than just its fashion and home products.

Through extending into multiple product categories, Ralph Lauren has been able to leverage its brand equity to have a presence in these lucrative sectors. It is truly a success story of classic brand management — appealing to a broad category of discerning, fashion conscious consumers through holistic brand equity encompassing multiple categories combined with a high-quality product experience.

Brand architecture management: Strong brands provide companies with a very powerful tool to enter newer markets with limited investment, by leveraging their strong brand equity. It provides companies with opportunities to create multiple revenue streams. Therefore it is not a surprise that most strong brands have leveraged their equity and extended into newer product categories, newer markets, and newer market segments. However this strategy has its own pitfalls.

One of them is the risk of dilution of brand equity by over-stretching the brand into too many product and market segments. Some examples of brand equity dilution due to overstretch are those of Calvin Klein and Pierre Cardin. One of the many reasons that these brands diluted their equity was the use of the brand name on a very wide range of products.

By franchising their brand names to almost every conceivable product category, the brands significantly diluted their equity. This was because of a simple reason — a brand cannot have transferable equity in different product categories. In the last 50 years, the Ralph Lauren brand has expanded to create a diverse portfolio of sub-brands, of which 17 are fashion brands and 4 lifestyle brands. With such a burgeoning portfolio, Ralph Lauren has to be more focused and careful about managing and maintaining the equity of the master brand.

It also becomes more complex to maintain a consistent brand personality across all marketing and communication efforts, especially when the sub-brands do need to talk to different consumer segments who in turn have different and discerning needs. Over the long term, the performance of acquired brands also needs to be analyzed in isolation and also in relation to the wider portfolio.

In continuation of its strategy of expanding into categories that have synergies with high-end fashion, Ralph Lauren may keep on exploring opportunities.

With the master brand already quite stretched, it would need to take these decisions more carefully. Whatever category the expansion is into, and regardless of whether it is via an acquisition or through the launch of a new sub-brand, Ralph Lauren would need to ensure that the spirit of the brand lives through in a holistic manner. Additionally, the integration of new sub-brands or acquired brands into the architecture of the portfolio will always remain challenging.

Store profitability and inventory management: Another challenge that Ralph Lauren faces is store profitability and inventory management. This has had an effect on its bottom-line. As such, new management has expressed that it has plans to close about 50 high end stores to improve store profitability and reduce inventory as most of the inventory was subject to heavy discounting. Given that customer insights are the holy grail of modern business, the more companies know about their customers, the better they can innovate and compete.

One very good example of a company that has successfully leveraged its customer research capabilities to improve inventory management is Zara. This has allowed them to accurately supply fashion that resonates with customers in almost perfect quantities, resulting in the discounting of a very small proportion of its products, approximately half compared to its competitors — a very impressive feat.

Similarly, Ralph Lauren needs to also do the same and consider how it is using its customer intelligence capabilities to anticipate demand more accurately and respond with optimum levels of supply. As the main competitive advantage for the company is the founder himself, life after the founder is a hard topic for both the founder and company to discuss.

Ralph Lauren himself has a net worth of USD 5. With regard to corporate governance, as the brand continues into a new chapter, the search for a new CEO has ended. However, due to differences in opinion over direction, Stefan Larsson departed from the company in May In a bid to make Ralph Lauren a leaner company, the company has recently eliminated layers of management through restructuring.

For instance, the office of the chairman has been eliminated and the duties have been absorbed. It is expected that this will help improve efficiency within the organization, hence leading to greater profitability. Another growing challenge that Ralph Lauren may face is to be able to appeal to a new generation of consumers. To sustain the brand appeal to consumers who are now more digital savvy and have higher expectations in the 21st century, there are a few important issues that Ralph Lauren needs to tackle in the next years.

The need for product line optimization has already been recognised. As part of the most recent restructuring exercise, a decision has been taken to reduce the number of lines the brand produces. Ralph Lauren has plans to venture into the accessories space, which includes handbags and small leather goods to leverage its brand equity and also hedge the brand against the strong headwinds running through the global fashion industry.

A great example of a luxury fashion brand that has leveraged its strong brand equity and ventured into multiple product categories is Giorgio Armani. By leveraging its expert knowledge of the fashion and luxury industry, Armani has been able to come up with winning concepts in other product lines that include cosmetics, watches, jewellery and eye wear.

Instead of blindly experimenting with product categories, Ralph Lauren should conduct an expertise and capability check, which will help it identify the categories where it can extend the brand and showcase expertise and deliver using existing operational capabilities. Why is Polo expensive? Is Polo difficult to play? Is Polo Ralph Lauren high quality? What does it cost to play polo? How do polo players make money? How fast do polo ponies run? Does anyone play polo?

Why is polo important for youth? Do horses like polo? Do horses get hurt playing polo? Do horses die in polo? Ralph Lauren has always enjoyed success due to positive consumer perceptions of its classic designs, high quality and premium image. It has followed an expansion strategy using the same core credentials into other fashion segments. Overall, I think Ralph Lauren is a fantastic brand. The most popular Ralph Lauren label, also known as Blue Label.

While the Ralph Lauren Purple Label is the most expensive, arguably one of the most well-known labels is Polo Ralph Lauren which was started in The main difference between Polo and Ralph Lauren is the logo. Polo has two polo players in their respective horses while Ralph Lauren polo has only one polo player on his horse and has his mallet raised high.

Tommy Hilfiger branded clothing and accessories always seem to have more expensive price tags compared with other brands. The bear is so popular that yesterday the company announced that it was debuting Collegiate Bear — a new version picked by the obsessives who need to possess as many beanies and watches with the cuddly little guy on it as possible.

People have their reasons for buying up everything a specific brand puts out. Some are rabid completists, others know the resale market will reward them handsomely for their small investment. Fashion is fickle and tastes change with the seasons. This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter.

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