How a 200-Year-Old Brand Pivoted to Athleisure Wear During the Pandemic

What's it like to care for someone who's sick? To wait for answers, to hope for healing. These are the moments our nation's healthcare teams and their patients face every single day. And it's why we do what we do. We're Siemens healthineers and we pioneer breakthroughs in healthcare for everyone everywhere across the country. From rural communities to busy cities, our medical imaging therapy and laboratory solutions help providers deliver that can be smarter, faster, and more precise. With more than 17,000 employees across the United States, we're driving innovations that support healthcare teams, strengthen systems, and truly change people's lives. Because for us, it's about more than technology, more than innovation. It's a promise built for generations. Siemens healthineers.

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms. With over 2,400 pre built audiences, there's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more@experian.com Adweek that's exp E R-I-A N.com Adweek.

I do think one thing that you really have to respect and that I do slow down for is the creative process. You can't really rush that and that doesn't mean that you can't fast track things and you can't move faster on certain things. But for the most part, you know that quality does take time.

To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move at an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of suz. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now, and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Culture. Hi everyone and welcome back to today's edition of our Speed of Culture podcast. I'm here today with a dear friend and a special guest, CEO of Brooks Brothers, Ken Ohashi. Ken, how are you?

I'm great.

Thank you so much for doing us. We're here in your shiny new Brooks Brothers headquarters. I was just saying as we were walking in here, it feels like 2019 again walking through here and seeing all the employees and the energy and the vibe. It's good to see people back. And I know you guys actually work throughout the entire pandemic in the office.

Yeah, I mean it's interesting and you know this, but we actually purchased Brooks Brothers right in the middle of pandemic, so.

And when you say we who's we?

It was a partnership between Authentic Brands Group and Simon Properties.

Okay.

Jamie Salter and David Simon.

Right.

And what was awesome about that was we literally bought a shirt and suit brand in the middle of the pandemic. So.

And we'll get on to that. That's been fun.

Yeah, that was joyous.

Well, you know, let's rewind a little bit. Let's start by getting to know a little bit about you and your journey. Tell us all the roads that led to you becoming CEO of Brooks Brothers, one of the most iconic brands in apparel fashion.

Okay. So for a number of years, worked in the consumer products Group, covered a bunch of retail pharmaceutical advertising. Really fell in love with retail. I joined Aeropostale, which a company you guys probably know. I joined the company pre ipo, really helped get the covenant become public. I did a number of roles, including the head of ir, which I learned a lot there, went on to a strategy role, and then went on to sort of run and develop and run the international business. So in aeropostale, we opened 300 stores in less than five years, which was globally. A lot of travel. Yeah. But that was a super fun period. And when Arab style started to run into some trouble, Jamie and Authentic Brands Group purchased the company. I then went on to work for Jamie to run the international business at Authentic Brands Group. And that was so much fun. I did that for four years. Built the China office, built the Mexico office, built the Europe business. And what was awesome about that was in many ways, I had had a retail background, but Authentic Brands Group has a pretty big celebrity and entertainment portfolio, so really got to understand more of the media side of the business. Not just sort of vertical retail, but other channels of distribution, whether it's event. So that was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. And then during the pandemic, we made another number of acquisitions at Authentic Brands Group, including Brooks Brothers. And I had been wanting to go back to the operating side of the business for a while. And as I was working on the due diligence for Brooks Brothers, I mean, I fell in love with the brand. It's just such an iconic brand. And you may not know this, but Brooks Brothers is just tons and tons of innovation in its history. Invented the navy blazer, actually invented the shirt with the collar and the button on it. Oh, wow. And really invented men's ready to wear as we know it back call it 200 years ago, people had everything custom made for them and you didn't really have off the rack product. And Brooks Brothers really invented that. And I just love the company in the sense that it was, it was really curious in its history. Brought a lot of fashion from overseas into America, including like Madras from India. And that did seersucker. It did the first collab with Lacoste, which was unheard of in the day for you to take a French tennis brand and mash it up with Brooks Brothers. Like, it was really, really innovative in the way that it was thinking about the business. It also was one of the first American brands to go international. The Japan business has been around for over 40 years, but it was one of the first American companies to go overseas. So a lot, a lot of great history there that I felt was a huge unlock for the consumer.

What an amazing story. And I mean, so now here you are CEO of Books Brothers. How would you describe your job on a day to day basis? What does the CEO of Books Brothers actually do every day?

It's an honor to be CEO of this incredibly iconic brand. I feel like I have a lot of responsibility in the menswear space to make sure that we're sort of the leader and front and center around innovation and fashion. I think a lot of customers rely on Brooks Brothers for quality and craftsmanship at, you know, sort of an accessible value. So I feel a lot of responsibility around that. I would say my biggest thing is it's like a push and pull. So I spend a lot of my time, you know, trying to move the brand forward in a lot of ways. And I feel like I spend a lot of my time actually a meeting before this, I was on a vendor call. Everybody knows that the industry is having supply chain issues right now. So I find like, I'm blocking and tackling a lot of the time. So, you know, spending a lot of time making sure that we build contingencies. How do we get the product here faster, do we air, how do we work with the vendors to give them a lot of logistics, but at the same time working on a lot of fun stuff about like, what is the brand narrative and how do we work? And I know we're going to get to it later, but also how do we think about marketing and how do we think about branding and how do we think about talking to the consumer? And you know, we have, historically the company has had sort of a consumer on the older demographic. And like, how do we make sure that we're talking to the next generation of Brooks Brothers customers on a continuous basis, but then how do we not alienate our customer that has always been with us? For a number of years.

So coming out of the global pandemic, the changes in office and, you know, workwear, and there's so many different, I think, variables that you have to kind of weigh when charting the future of this business, I would imagine so. Awesome. Well, that was, I think, hugely helpful and really inspiring in terms of your journey and where you are right now. And I have no doubt that Brooks Brothers will continue to thrive under your leadership. We're going to go into the next section, which we call Culture Watch. And basically we're all about the speed of culture at Suzy. You know, allowing our customers to put the finger on the pulse of the consumer. And we want to delve deeper into understanding what brands, technologies, and consumer trends are driving growth. Growth from your perspective. So I'm going to ask you four questions. Okay. 30 seconds to answer each of them. Really trying to get inside your mind. So let's start with the first one.

Okay.

What is the most important business decision that you had to make quickly?

Okay. There's probably two. One is just. It always starts with talent. I brought on a creative director, Michael Bastian, who was a very, very important talent because I think that he sets the tone for the organization, what we do creatively. And I would say in connection with that, historically, all of the design and product decisions were made in Europe. I brought everything back to the U.S. yeah, the lens of the business is kind of through the US but still having a global perspective. And I know that doesn't sound like a big shift, but it actually is because it's a clear esthetic shift in the business, which, thank God, it's working.

Absolutely.

That's good. And then it's resonating with the customer, and that's the most thing. But we did close the Italy office and we moved everything back to New York. So that was a big one.

Yeah. Let's talk about the fastest growing industry or business that you see coming out in the next couple years.

There are a few. Look, I mean, I think everything that's happening with energy and I'm seeing it across everywhere like I'm seeing it because obviously we have a pretty big E commerce business that's almost $200 million. So we ship every day, we ship product to our stores. Energy, I think, and how we get smarter and faster and more efficient I think is a hot topic, I think, from a consumer perspective, which I think we're going to get into in a bit. I think electric cars are definitely something that we're talking about. And I think the secondary thing just to shift gears a little bit. Is anyone that can create content is going to win.

I agree.

And it's really about what we're doing right now. Live content, things that feel authentic and real, not just static.

And we're going to do that.

Yeah, for sure. Really, really important.

Great. Number three, what do you think the fastest growing product will be in the next few years?

I think Tesla is going to take.

Are you a Tesla owner?

I'm a Tesla owner. I think they were very, very smart. First of all, the product from a design perspective is sort of fluid. I think they built the network to support the cars, especially in New York. And I would say they're made in usa, it's made in usa, made in America business, you know. So all those things are I think are incredibly important and I think making sure like they have long range on their cars. I'm not an advertisement for Tesla.

By the way, a lot of Tesla owners talk the way that you talk and that just, you know, that's the definition of advocacy. Right. Brand love is getting people to talk about it like they are being paid to do it.

Right, Right.

And then lastly, what do you think the fastest growing consumer trend will be this year and heading into the future?

So I think there are two getting back to my point earlier. One is let's just talk about content creation. And I have my head of marketing and I talk a lot about the we approach. Marketing is very different. I think historically, you know, companies did these beautiful campaigns that were meant for.

Billboard or they were made for catalog.

Or they were meant for in store signage. And the way we spend money right now on marketing is all through digital marketing, digital media, the way, you know, like social media is the new billboard.

Right.

If you think about it. And so live content is very important. So even when team, they're shooting our campaigns, we're making sure that all that content is being captured and that really is the money that we're spending around that live content less so around sort of the static images.

And that's, that's a huge shift especially in the world of fashion apparel. Right. Which was so image based.

Right.

For so long.

Right.

You looked at the, you know, September Vogue, you know, print ads or the big billboard you've seen. And now I do think a lot of marketers in your industry, rightly so.

Have to become more creative, much more dynamic storytelling. So if we launch a collab, right. It's more interesting for the customer to see how that collab is being launched in a store with the customers coming up grabbing the product like that journey is more important than just, you know, showing the collab on a photography perspective on a static image. So I think that's going to be important. I would say the second thing which I'm seeing a big, big increase in is just customization. And customization is so broad, but it's really the micro customization that you're seeing. And like when you go to Chipotle, you can see the number of variations. Or Starbucks. Yeah. The number of options that you can build in the product that you want. And I think that is going to only increase both within our industry and other industries.

Let's get into it. So a lot of topics. We're going to double click on a couple of these things so we can go for it. I think you brought up so much. It's good. This was a great way to kind of see what's going inside your mind every day and the things that you're thinking about. So the first thing you brought up was talent. And you talked about how, you know, you've had to hire so many executives.

In such a short period of time.

What do you look for in talent? And what are the big drivers of you saying I need to hire him or her to come to my executive team?

Yeah, I think the few things that I really look for is someone that really understands the esthetic of the brand and where we're really trying to take it. So, you know, a shared vision for the business is incredibly important. For me, someone that can really work in a team environment is important and someone that can really deliver what they say they're going to deliver.

That.

How do you know someone can work.

In a team environment? From an interview?

Because I've been told. I've been told it's really, really difficult. I mean, I think it's little cues about whether they take credit for things fully on their own or whether they really feel like the team's help them. And it's, it's how much you catch them talking about cross functional partners versus themselves.

I read that.

And they're. And they're. Yeah. And I think, I think that's right. Right. Like we can't turn this business with just one function.

Right.

Brooks Brothers. All of the function, all 11 of my executives have to be sort of humming all in the same direction. And I think that's reflected in conversation with people. And I think you catch that very, very quickly. So I mean, I think that that's a telltale sign for me.

Yeah, I can't remember the book. I read it In. But it was like, you ask somebody what's the best thing they accomplished? And when they're telling the story of what they accomplished, if they use the word I more than we and they don't talk about their team at all, then, you know, they probably won't be a team player.

And I think what's important also is typically the person that I'm talking to, they're usually had a function within a company. So, like, you may be talking to somebody from planning or somebody from IT or finance. You want to make sure that they can talk broader versus just sort of their one function. And then you can get a really feel for, like, do they really understand the business? Do they really understand all the nuances.

Versus working in a silo?

Exactly.

Absolutely. The other thing you talked about was how you had to pivot to this unchartered sportswear territory. I remember, you know, talking with you.

I sent you some stuff. Yeah, you did. You sent me some stuff.

But not only that, I mean, when we were talking when the pandemic hit and you were running Brooks Brothers and all the offices closed and all the major cities, and all of a sudden you had to figure it out. I mean, I can't imagine a bigger challenge in business. Talk us through the decision to pivot to sportswear, how it's worked out, you know, what are the different variables that somebody like yourself takes into account before making this massive decision to really change the tides of your future?

Yeah. So when we purchased the company, less than 25% of the business was sportswear. And, like, just clear definition for sportswear. It's basically why Matt and I are wearing right now.

Those of you who are listening, Ken's wearing a lovely Brooks Brothers cardigan.

Yeah.

And I'm wearing just a long sleeve gray T shirt. So that's sportswear. We can fix that. Yeah. I think Ken might need to, you know, dazzle me up a little bit.

But Brooks Brothers is historically known for suits and dress shirts, and we're in the middle of a pandemic, so we had to make a shift pretty quickly. I think the biggest thing is just getting the aesthetic right. Like, how do you take sort of the DNA of Brooks Brothers and translate it to sportswear? And I think Micha, my merchandising team, marketing, everybody sort of rallied together to say, we're going to move the business in this way. We got the business close to almost 50% sportswear for men's in the month of December. And so, like, that was a huge shift. And listen, it's not as easy as, like, oh, you get the design right. You have to make sure that you have the right vendors that they can produce it. You look at fabric qualities to make sure that, you know, do we use Supima cotton? What's the right cashmere blend? Like, all those things have to happen, and they all have to align. And I'm not saying it was like, perfect out the gate, but I couldn't have been happier. And it really, really helped us and saved us during the pandemic. And it was funny because we launched a Brooks Brothers athleisure program. Like a sweats program.

Right.

But, like, how do you do a sweats program for Brooks Brothers? And how do you do it in our handwriting? Right. So we use, like, a beautiful pique fabric. And we did little things like, you can get your sweatpants monogrammed. Wow. Which 25% of the sweatpants that we sold are actually monogrammed. So, like, how do we make sure that Brooks Brothers. How do we still make it feel like Brooks Brothers, but it's meeting the needs of our customers? So that was something that was definitely. We all got behind, we all rallied, but it was a big, strategic, amazing.

And it goes to the second point you talked about in terms of fastest growing trends. You talk about real time content creators. You talked about storytelling in the journey. I would imagine you have to do a lot of that when you're pivoting your brand because you need to make sure that the brand has a right to play in that space. You can't just switch out the inventory one day and say, hey, guys, we do this now. So what was that about in terms of how you went to market, telling a story about, we're not just about your formal or workwear anymore. We were about sportswear.

Yeah. I think it's really about creating these micro stories. The teams did a great job creating this micro story around Athleisure and making sure that we sort of feed that top of funnel and making sure that we feed that and making sure that we can get new customers. And it's kind of like playing with a lot of what's a micro store?

Give me example.

Like a micro shoot. So instead of doing these huge campaigns, like, be okay with shooting like half a day, taking some influencers, making sure that you see that, like, making sure that you take this content that feels dynamic and feels authentic.

Right.

And like, just blowing that out. So we used a lot of influencers as part of our content play, not just relying on ourselves. And that was a huge success. The other thing with sportswear was we did a collab with Fila where we learned a lot. And with that collab we really tried different channels of media to say like, where would things work and where didn't it work and why? And I think that was really interesting. So I think one of the things that we don't get it perfect out the gate, obviously, and we don't ever get it perfect. But I think the one change with the company since we purchased is there's a level of curiosity around, like, what will work? How far can we take the brand? Wow, this channel really worked. What does that mean? And I think sort of digital media allows you to really do that. Yeah. And that's something that you can't really do in brick and mortar. It's like you get one shot at your Windows.

Right.

And digital media allows you to say like, where's their interest versus where's the customer not responding? And then how do you dig deeper? And that's been both a big learning for us. And then it's also been just sort of, sort of fun. And I think it's, it's fun for everyone to kind of learn.

Absolutely.

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms. With over 2400 pre built audiences, there's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more at experian.com adweek that's E X P E-R-I-A-N.com adweek so just to.

Wrap this section up, you had talked about two other things that I think may be in some ways contradictory of one another. And I'm curious to hear how you see it playing out. First you talked about personalization.

Right? Right.

And in terms of what the consumer wants. But then you talked about the importance when you talk about Tesla of energy efficiency. And to me I'm thinking, well, how does that fit into a broader story? Sustainability. Right. In fashion, if someone is getting sweatpants monogrammed and you know, versus like maybe a rent the Runway model where you're taking clothing, you're giving it back, how are those two things going to play out?

I think you bring up a really interesting point. I mean, I think for Brooks Brothers we're about quality and craftsmanship. And I'm constantly hearing these stories about like my grandfather. I have this Brooks Brothers jacket from my grandfather from like 56 years ago. And like we actually, when we first bought the business to celebrate the longevity of the product.

Yeah.

We actually launched a vintage shop where we took vintage products on our website and we sold it. So we do believe in that quality and craftsmanship. And I think the sustainability piece is real. I mean, we're constantly looking at fabrics that we think are sustainable fabrics. We also believe in Supima cotton, which is the top 1% cotton that's grown in the U.S. so it's a more energy efficient, it uses less water overall. So we're constantly looking at things through that filter and through that lens to say how do we make our product last longer? And even if you think your average suit, I mean your average suit is lasting a guy, it could last a guy a decade easily. So we do believe in sort of these, what I want to call these long life products and continuing to build those long life products.

That's awesome. And what curiously, just what do you aside, what do you think about these clothing rental businesses like Rent the Runway, like what do you think the future is of businesses like that?

We're actually, we think there's an opportunity there. Yeah. Especially for a brand like Brooks Brothers. We really believe at the end of the day that everyone has a chance to look and feel their best through all of life's milestones. I mean that's really the reason why we do what we do.

Yeah.

And you know, renting product to people, whether it's for their wedding or it's a prom, what's their first job interview? All those moments or milestones and celebrations are important for Brooks Brothers and part of sort of our brand DNA. So more access to more people makes sense for us. Awesome.

Great. So to close everything out, we talked a lot about speed and we're in a very fast paced world. But what did you feel is worth kind of slowing down for? What slows down Ken Ohashi, in his world, very little. Very little.

Personally, professionally, I do meditate every morning. Okay. Which I find to be incredibly important. I do 10 minutes of yoga.

How long have you been doing that for? Meditating?

Consistently?

Yeah.

I would say it's been a year or so probably. And how has it helped you in business? I walk through the door with a little more space, I would say, versus jumping right in there. I do think one thing that you really have to respect and that I do slow down for is the creative process. You can't really rush that. And I've learn to have great respect for sort of the design and development process. Design needs to be Inspired by someone, they need to edit, they need to go through color, they need to talk things out. So I think really building the collection, Michael and the rest of the team, along with the merchants, I mean, to give them the proper time to make sure what we bring to market is the right product is incredibly important. And that doesn't mean that you can't fast track things and you can't move faster on certain things. But for the most part, you know, that quality does take time and you can't rush it. And I think that's something that I definitely slow down for and make sure that the organization slows down.

That's awesome. Well, thank you for that. Part of our Speed of Culture podcast is obviously doing research. And at the end of each podcast episode, we actually asked the prior guests to give a question that they want to ask the Suzy Platform. And our last episode, it was with Sophia Hernandez, global head of business marketing at TikTok. I actually would think you'd enjoy that episode given your guys going into the world of real time content. But we talked about how brands can best support community, and we actually asked 500 consumers through our Suzy Platform about this and learned that over half of people want brands to help connect people within the community, and 40% of people want brands that provide educational content. So, you know, community is obviously a huge thing, something we talked about a lot with Sophia, in terms of brands fostering community between consumers and how coming out of the pandemic, consumers really have a need to connect with one another. So coming out of our conversation, Aiken, is there something that you'd like to know from our Suzy audience in terms of how they're looking at the world?

That's a good one. Well, I think what is interesting is I think one of the things that's happened is while the pandemic was happening, I'm fascinated with this overswing effect in fashion. We talk about it a lot. One year you buy too much inventory, the next year you buy. You don't buy enough.

Right?

Like, so we overswing everything. Right? Like, remember the whole thing, you and I talked about this like, New York City is dead. Everybody is like, I never thought it was. People are selling their homes on the Upper west side, Real estate is crashing.

Right.

The same thing with, I think in our business, the biggest thing is sort of what happened was everybody was like, no one's going to wear a suit ever again. No one's going back to the offices. No one's ever going to put on a dress shirt ever again. And we are definitely not seeing that in our business. Our business in dress shirts and suits. Like I don't have enough right now. So I think my question, and that's a long winded way to get my question is what areas do you think, whether it's consumer products or whether it's consumer behaviors or behaviors around work that we have overswung that are going to return to a level of normal? It's a great question post Covid.

Great. We will ask that. We will cover that on our next episode of Speed of Culture. Ken, it's been amazing as always. We'll have to have you back in a couple months and see how everything's working out. And obviously I know your big season is the holiday season. I remember we talked last summer about the things that you were thinking about. Many of your predictions actually happen to be right about what was happening with E commerce people going back into stores. And I'm sure there's a lot you're juggling right now with everything going on in the world. So thanks for taking time out of your busy calendar to join us and it was a tremendous talk and I can't wait for our audience to hear it. So on behalf of myself, Matt Britton, and Ken Ohashi, CEO of Brooks Brothers, thanks so much for joining and we'll see you next time.

Thank you guys.

The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Susie as part of the Ad Week Podcast Network and a Guest Creator Network. You can listen subscribe to all Adweek's podcast by visiting Adweek.com podcasts to find out more about Susie, head to Suzy.com and make sure to search for the Speed of Culture in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are found. Click follow so you don't miss out on any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at Suzy, thanks for listening.

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms with over 2,400 pre built audiences. There's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more@experian.com Adweek that's experian.com Adweek.