Let’s take a
clinical look at designer Calvin Klein and his life, his work and
his business in a rather bloodless manner. Klein is arguably one of
the most famous designers
America has ever produced. There is a mystique to
this man and his work that can never be fully understood without
measuring him against the society which produced him and without a
modern appraisal of the world which, in a way, he helped
create.
Klein's
greatness as a designer was defined by his futuristic vision that
understood the mood of his customers and often created it. His
obsession with simplicity and purity created a look that actually
defines a whole genre of fashion. He made dressing up so sexy, and
then made undressing even more sexy. Calvin Klein underwear is
probably the most sought after brand in the world today and occupies
a place in fashion history as the ultimate status symbol - to the
extent that the waistband emblazoned with his logo was often worn to
great effect by style icons who let it show between low-slung jeans
and cropped T-shirts. Additionally when it comes to Calvin Klein CRM
it is excellent.
We are
discussing Calvin Klein CRM here from different perspectives. Calvin
Klein was able to establish a three-year dialog with cK One
customers using an e-mail marketing campaign that attracted more
than 1 million users, V.A. Shiva, CEO of Cambridge, MA-based
EchoMail Inc., which managed the e-mail campaign, tells
InternetRetailer.com Offering e-mail addresses that consumers could
send mail to and receive responses from proved to be a smash with
Calvin Klein CRM target audience of young adults, Shiva says. The
program was slated to run for only a six-month pilot. The combined
advertising/e-mail campaign wrapped up earlier this year.
When fashion
designer Calvin Klein launched the cK One scent in 1998, the company
wanted to use new technology to create a marketing buzz about its
new unisex fragrance. Calvin Klein CRM had considered promoting a
web site, but decided web sites were too impersonal. Thus it opted
for a more personal e-mail campaign, hoping to create a conversation
with consumers and some marketing buzz. The e-mail effort was
integrated into its soap-opera style television advertisements,
which featured 16 characters, each with an e-mail address listed at
the end of the spot. While the e-mails did not directly promote cK
One, the e-mail addresses included the brand name, such as tia@ckone.com
and that plays an important role in Calvin Klein
CRM.
The success of
Calvin Klein CRM program is due to the actual relationship that the
e-mails built between the brand and the customer. Calvin Klein CRM
views e-mail as both an inbound and outbound medium. Blasting out
e-mails can have a severely negative impact on e-mail marketing and
customer relationships, fundamentally hurting ROI and brand
awareness. Companies who e-mail customers to create loyalty should
have the means to accept replies from those customers in order to
establish a dialog and that is what Calvin Klein CRM is doing
successfully.
The EchoMail
system was able to manage all the incoming mail to the cK One
character addresses by using a proprietary filtering system that
separates mail based on key words in the contents. To keep the story
going with consumers who sent e-mails, the company used a script
writer to maintain story lines based on particular consumer
responses. The e-mails continued to follow the story line of the TV
spots, including for example, a party scene that had corresponding
e-mails sent out after midnight from the TV spot characters. And this adds
to the further success of Calvin Klein
CRM.
