Yesterday at MARKA 2007, the International Brand Conference of Istanbul, I heard Kenneth Cole talk about his approach to business and branding. Given that he is a New Yorker and I am based in New England, it seemed odd that I was hearing him speak in Turkey, but that made it no less worthwhile. In fact, it reminded me of something a colleague in Connecticut had said many years ago. Back when he was at Millward Brown, Don Frillici described creativity as problem solving. In the space of one hour yesterday, Kenneth Cole shared some of the creative problem-solving ideas he had used to build his successful $1.7 billion company.

When he started his business, Cole knew that many new businesses failed simply because people underestimated how much time and money it would take for them to become established. Therefore, he sought to jump start his company with some out-of-the-box thinking.

A classic example was his first trade show. Held at the New York Hilton, the show attracted buyers and sellers from all over the United States. Large companies took over showrooms within two blocks of the Hilton. Smaller ones rented rooms at the hotel, filling 30 floors. The show represented a prime opportunity for him to showcase his products. But how could he stand out from the crowd?

It happened that Cole knew someone who ran a trucking company. He phoned his friend and asked to borrow one of his 40-foot trucks to park outside the Hilton. The friend told him it would be illegal to park there, but said that if Cole could get permission, he would not only loan him the truck but also help him decorate it.

Cole phoned Mayor Koch’s office and learned that only utility trucks and film production companies could get parking permits. Thus Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. was born. Cole obtained a permit to shoot a film about the birth of a shoe company and sold 40,000 pairs of shoes from the truck in just two and a half days.

Another Millward Brown colleague, Stephen Jenke, once told me that the problem with market research was that too many people accepted research data at face value without questioning what it might mean or how things might change. He gave a lovely example. Did the fact that relatively few people in New Guinea wore sandals mean that there was a) no market for sandals there, b) a big opportunity to sell lots of sandals because no one had ever tried before?

I have no doubt what Kenneth Cole’s reply would have been. He would have recognized a big opportunity. In fact, he provided a similar example.

Cole’s strategy had always been to sell cool stuff to cool people. He knew that if, in growing his business, he tried to reach beyond that crowd and sell his cool stuff to more people, that he would simply turn the original group off. So, when he needed to branch out beyond shoes, he looked for another category. Oberving that men tended to wear one of two uniforms, either suits and ties or jeans and T-shirts, Cole chose menswear. Where others would have seen no business, Cole recognized an opportunity. His line of casual but fashionable clothes would offer an alternative to the existing norms.

For all of us in research, examples like this challenge us to look at our work differently. Whether our discipline is qualitative or quantitative, we need to look beyond what is to see what might be.

Kenneth Cole, on the other hand, moved on to a different challenge. Like many successful businesspeople, he started to question why he was working so hard. When he found that the compromises in his personal life were no longer justified by making money alone, he started looking for something that would add relevance and significance to his life.

He found it when he decided to raise people’s consciousness about AIDS prevention. His first ad was a picture of a condom (at a time when it was illegal to advertise them because it was thought to encourage promiscuity) with the tagline “Shoes are not the only thing we encourage you to wear.” He is still heavily involved in the campaign against AIDS today.

Cole believes brands need to be interdependent with the community, doing more than just selling things to people who don’t really need them. Then yesterday afternoon, we heard the case study of how Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty started. What other brands can you think of which have taken an active role in helping the community rather than just marketing to it? Is this just a Western phenomenon or truly global? Please let us know your thoughts.

Tags: Millward Brown, Nigel Hollis, Kenneth Cole, brands, creativity, problem solving, Don Frillici, Stephen Jenke, AIDS prevention

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