Italy’s La Conceria writes that it was 2021 when at the top levels of Coach, a brand controlled by Tapestry, market research revealed positive and negative news. The positive: there was room to establish itself in the interests of young audiences. The negative: this was perceived as a ” brand for parents “, certainly not for children. We needed a path to convince kids of the opposite and put a generational it bag on a silver platter. For this reason, Coach involved Fabio Luzzi, head of data and analytics. Which started with targeted interviews with groups of customers selected based on geography. First result: they understood that Tabby, a 2019 model with features recovered from archive research, was the one that already enjoyed the greatest popularity among kids and therefore had the greatest potential.

So Coach planned for Tabby’s success

The maison then modulated the model based on the signals collected from the market. It differentiated size, variety and price (maintaining entry level positioning) according to channels and countries. Since 2022 it has launched ad hoc marketing campaigns that leveraged the theme of self-esteem, found to be sensitive among the target audience. The feedback came quickly. Trendalytics, a retail trend analysis platform, has shown that searches for Tabby increased by 368% year-on-year in 2022. Just as interactions on social media were growing. In 2023, Coach raised the bar by bringing in Jennifer Lopez. And in February 2024, during communications to the markets, the parent company recognized that the model’s performance had doubled on an annual basis thanks to its appeal to younger consumers.

Intuition is out of date

From the top levels of Coach, as we were saying, they explain to BoF that data analysis is a tool at the service of fashion. In short, if you don’t like a bag, you can’t force it into shopping just because you’ve looked at the Excel tables. But Coach’s exploit certainly demonstrates that data analysis is a very powerful tool. Taking Stock With Teens, research into the tastes of US teenagers, in June 2021 saw Coach fourth in the rankings in the leather goods category. In 2022 and 2023 it is permanently first. Would it have been possible without studying the data?