Comment: There’s gold in them there archives
Like many retailers John Lewis has had its fair share of issues to deal with recently but one thing it has that nobody can take away from it is its heritage.
Young upstart brands can come along and play the cool card but they can’t compete with its history dating back to 1864. Established brands and retailers have been recognising the value of their heritage recently.
John Lewis has collaborated with fashion and homeware platform Collagerie to mine the company’s archive in Cookham, Berkshire, to create an 86-piece range of lighting, tableware, wallpaper, bed linen, cushions and nightwear. Its Heritage Centre houses an incredible array of products from throughout the company’s history and the old designs have been incorporated into this new line of goods under the John Lewis x Collagerie branding.
Whereas age can often be seen as a legacy issue there is a growing realisation that it can also be used very effectively to influence new products and branding for many types of companies. This is not unusual in the fashion industry where the haute couture houses frequently turn to their archives for inspiration. This thinking has also been increasingly adopted by many other brands including younger mainstream players recently.
For instance Adidas rolled-out new versions of its classic Samba shoes – that were originally produced in the 1950s. Even the sight of politicians wearing them did not dampen the enthusiasm of shoppers of all ages to buy into a bit of Adidas heritage. It now has a range of revitalised Superstar basketball shoes on the release agenda.
Over at rival Nike the company has employed a brand historian, Scott Reames, since the early-2000s who sought to create an archive that would enable the business to draw on its history to help with the future direction of products and give them a richer backstory. “It’s just a shoe, or a piece of apparel. But if you know the context, who wore it, when they wore it, what they did in it, who designed it, why they designed it, what it inspired, what it was inspired by —all that continuity of the product makes it much more interesting,” says Reames.
McDonald’s also has its own official archivist who oversees the brand’s 70 years of burger making. Its library of history is often tapped for branding and product development. It is understood that any big promotional roll-outs require the context of past campaigns to help inform their direction. The archive has been especially useful for the current development of a Collector’s Happy Meal, which gestures to previous campaigns in order to remind customers of their own childhood Happy Meals.
Such brands have lots of history to draw on should they choose to do so but the way it is handled requires great care. Sometimes it can be hard for companies to move on from their heritage and diversify their businesses. Burberry has perennially found it a tough ask to broaden out its offer from permutations of its famous check that have been integral to the brand from when it originally lined its trench-coats with the design back in the 1920s.
Much more contemporary examples of historical constraints involve French Connection that struggled to move on from its overtly branded FCUK products and the Japanese-style logos and branding on Superdry clothing also switched from being a superpower to a millstone.
Both these brands would no doubt prefer to confine these aspects of their backstory to the graveyard right now as they undertake reinventions but for many established brands their archives and heritage is something that should be proactively used as a rich resource. Nostalgia undoubtedly sells – see Oasis – so rather than a long history being a legacy that holds back retailers and brands it really can be an asset that younger competing brands simply cannot buy.
