White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 5for Issey Miyake in New York, TadaoAndo for the Teatro Giorgio Armani inMilan, and Massimiliano and DorianaFuksas for the Armani emporia inHong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.Showrooms have abandoned thestrictly commercial spirit to becomeplaces for exchanges, culture, and artswhich boost the brand image.Chain stores, low prices, excellentdesign, low quality: the ItalianweaknessThe most successful segment in thedistribution sector is that for youngpeople, who are offered well-designedmedium to low quality products at lowprices. Examples of brands in this caseare the Spanish Zara and Mango, theSwedish H&M, the French Promod,and the American Gap. However, theyhave met with relatively little success inthe Italian distribution sector which,moreover, produced a leader likeBenetton.Exploiting a highly successful formulacombining production and distribution,these large companies are able to veryeffectively monitor changes in youngconsumers’ tastes and to supplyperipheral sales outlets fast enough tocapture and satisfy all nascent demand.The Zara business model has a numberof specific innovative features. Theyinclude very fast lead times in thedesign of new products (around threeweeks), continuous updating onproposed lines informed by the salesstatistics and the almost total absenceof any advertising campaigns.Employing over 200 designers, Zara isable to design, produce and distribute acollection to any shop worldwide twicea week. Sales are made in over 3,000propriety shops in 64 countries,strategically situated in significanturban commercial areas, whose staffdeal at most with the window dressingand the internal display areas. Zara hasalmost 70,000 employees. Retail brandslike Zara and H&M could not existwithout their distribution channels;today H&M has over 1,900 sales pointsin 22 countries and over 50,000employees.If we look at the European scene, wefind no Italian company among thefirst ten in terms of brand value.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 122