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from the campus of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School this is marketing matters on Business Radio
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hello and welcome you're listening to marketing matters here on Business Radio
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serus XM 132 I'm Barbara kme the Patty and JH Baker professor of marketing and
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today we are live in the studio with our Spotlight segment I'm thrilled to welcome Stuart
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whitesman Stuart is the founder and chairman Mar this of Stuart whitesman shoe company and that Footwear is sold
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in more than 75 countries and worn by numerous celebrities around the world uh Stewart sold the company to coach in
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2015 but he stayed on as shoe designer he graduated this is the most important fact about Stuart he graduated from the
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Wharton School and he was later honored by having the design and architecture school named after him it is known as
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the steuart whitesman school of design and now in his free time Stuart AIDS a number of philanthropic causes and he
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mentors students um who have entrepreneurial aspirations at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
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School but he also goes around the country and he's been giving talks at many universities and we're really happy
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to have him here back at warten Stuart thank you so much for joining us in the studio today well you know I love being
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here this is where my touring lecture circuit began yeah we could talk talk about that like as I recall what year
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was it do you remember it was eight years ago it was eight and you were still you hadn't retired yet no I was
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running the company still but you know my my daughter gave me good advice daddy figure out how to fill up these 15-hour
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days when you finally sell this business and I started with you yeah so I I'll
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just recount and then we'll talk about what's happened since but you came into
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my I think it was my consumer Behavior course and I told my students in advance that you were coming and anybody who had
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your shoes should wear them and we did have many many people in the audience who were wearing your shoes and very Pro
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we in our it was an undergraduate class as I recall and I had several fashionistas who really knew design they
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really knew your product and they were very proud to wear your your shoes and they came into the class and you told
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stories about your career which was very unusual at the time and I was happy that
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you came to do that because you were unusual in the sense and you and you emphasize this when you talk to our
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students that you were a business person trained by Wharton so you really knew business but you were also a design
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person and those two functions were unusual in the world of luxury in the world of fashion design to have both of
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them in one head and operating the company and you told the students at the time of many strategic decisions you
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made that really were milestones in your company so just because not everybody was in that class you want to talk a
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little bit about what you said then and then we'll take it what you're doing now
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well it was my first talk um you summarized it pretty well except you didn't point out that I signed 13 pair
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of shoes that day ran out of inking that silver tip pen um and what I the the impression I was trying to make with
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these students is that they are going to struggle a little to figure out what they really want to do in life
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but that struggle is worth it I told them I hope it makes your heart sing wherever you end up we say passion do it
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your passion but it's you know even even more than that and uh and a lot of them
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paid attention I um I talked about the business side because as CEO I had to run the business uh they were certainly
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even more interested in the creative side and how we were going to build a brand in the fashion world
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I made such a a clear point that regardless of what you think is valuable in the look of your product or your
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service it has to work you have to keep your promise Everyone's A salesperson so
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even if we're not selling a product we're selling ourselves and you're telling people this
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is what I do who I am what I make if you don't keep that promise when you deliver you're going to have to find
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another career and that was the most important point that I think I got out of Wharton quite honestly because one of
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my professors who had been an entrepreneur I think his name was Long Street he made that point well we know
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about the football coach who said you can't fool everybody all the time right
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um and you just can't so keep your promise find your Niche make sure you live up to it and you'll enjoy and be
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successful in whatever you do you know that's a very interesting thing um especially for somebody as successful
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as you are coming back to the students and telling them have values live by your values live by your ethics things
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like that you know don't cut corners on that don't cut corners on those kinds of
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things it'll come back to haunt you I think the students did 100% respect that
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message that you made I I can also tell you and this is from the hindsight I didn't prepare this so it's just Salient
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what I remember from that talk um some of the points you made that stay with me one of them which I thought was pretty
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interesting was that you opened a factory in Spain and at the time a lot of shoes were being made in Italy um and
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you talked a lot about that decision and I think you were making the point which
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came across that it was a one of your smarter decisions you made a lot of smart decisions but that was a
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particularly smart decision and can you go back and refresh what why that was such an important strategic decision
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well being 40 years ago ago really haven't thought about why I did it so any time recently but it was a risk I
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took because I was not going to a country where I could show off Prestige um Italy would have given me that but I
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saw opportunities there in many many ways less competition for workers very very few high-grade manufacturers to
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compete with and the sourcing of your product is as important as what you end up creating so that was a key risk I
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took and it paid off I also saw a real discipline in that Society um it's still
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there and I guess it was founded because they lived 30 40 years under Franco and
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it was a disciplined Society he made sure that those who weren't were no longer around and when he finally died
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and the King encouraged Parliament to move into the European community that same discipline existed we had no
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strikes in 46 years not one strike in any of our factories we always reached the right conclusions maybe that's why
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but also they they didn't see a confrontation between owner and worker we work together U paid off years to
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come the key to the city that we were in Alicante given to me not voted on by the
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administration but by the workers in the town I was in in you know if you if you
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take a risk and the reward is greater than the possible cost I encourage people to do it because it worked for me
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in that regard and that's why I went to Spain and I think it gave you a differentiation for your product uh and
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and advantages you know that you could translate so I I personally remember that as a very interesting decision
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because like you said most of the most of the products were being made in Italy at that time the other decision and I
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don't know I don't know if this was a decision or just a commitment to your
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values but another thing that I own many of your shoes so I know this is true um
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is that they're comfortable they're really they're not only beautiful but
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they're functional and I cannot say that about all of my other pairs of shoes so
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I think I think you also emphasized that as part of the product you were delivering yeah Spain kind of allowed
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that for me in this regard we we were AIG shot in a small world in Italy we would have been a little shot in a big
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world so being the big shot we were able to make our rules everyone would live by them they
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would naturally accept them and one of them was that the discipline in the quality of the product we could not
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change it we couldn't ever compromise it and from the very beginning I kind of
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realized this is the business side that I don't want to put shoes on you give you a
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blister you're going to tell your friend who's going to tell her friend and we
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probably lost eight customers not just you um and it cost me once we did the analysis with all the marketing costs of
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a season how many new customers did we get $88,000 for everyone you think I want to throw that away that was the
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business side so um and by the way it often was in conflict with the creative side I have discarded many gorgeous
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shoes really gorgeous shoes that I knew gals would love because my partner who made sure every shoe worked right before
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we distributed it said this is hurting the foot here as pretty as that line is it's cutting me in the wrong spot you
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can't put this in the marketplace so by playing off both of them and having that
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discipline in our Factory Spain worked out that's why the the DNA of Stuart whitesman became fashion and function
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not just one and not just the other yeah that's really interesting and I remember
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you talked about that it was an actual person that you worked with who wore your shoes right your actually be with
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me on at the talk tonight yeah that was pretty interesting uh and of course the thing that was most fun and I'm sure you
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still talk about was all your promotion ideas to support the I love marketing yeah like and I mean I sought you out
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because of your career yeah I mean what was most I remember and I'm sure this is
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one of many many stories I don't want to steal the Thunder from telling it in the
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wrong way but I remember you were talking about the Oscars obviously and you were saying everybody's focusing on
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the dresses but what shoes are they wearing and ever since you told us that story I look at the pictures now and
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they do start talking about the shoes which they didn't before you had this big Eureka moment right this was a big
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opportunity for you I uh I am proud to take credit for the shoe cam we exercised some originality one year and
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it was so well received that shoe cams were on most red carpets from then on out and Joan Rivers helped a lot too she
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she just carried on about how the shoes fit and I'm on the red carpet I'm going
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to wear your shoes the entire night Stuart it's unbelievable I'm so happy
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please don't retire with her big wonderful mouth as we know I mean it's just so interesting that people just
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accept status quo that you're going to focus on the celebrity you're going to
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focus on the dress and and it's such a natural to focus on the shoes but before
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you had that that idea it it just wasn't being done no and then having that creative idea gives you such an
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advantage going forward well it did because Italians are they have great hands they have a terrific eye they can
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put a line to a shoe that's incomparable honestly but they don't pay attention to
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how it feels um they care about how it looks and there are some great brands that have lived off of that and I admire
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them if you could have a huge market and actually acknowledge that my goal is not
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to make your foot feel good my goal is to make your foot look good um I admire someone who's able to do that it is not
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my DNA and it's not one of the values of our brand which another very important
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thing I think I instituted in our company we never had rules for our brand it was always
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values and that allowed us to evolve as the values of society changed um I think
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if I were restricted to certain rules you can't Veer from them you know might
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have been a handicap but it wasn't in our case you know you sound ahead of the
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curve there like you're saying things that I think we're talking about in
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modern branding now this idea of values and you had your values back then instead of being either product driven
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or customer driven you were always value driven is kind of what you're telling me
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um the other thing I think you were ahead of the curve on and this is some of the other things that happened I
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think around the Oscars or I can't remember exactly where but you did buzzworthy ideas like you had ideas that
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generated a lot it wasn't just the shoe cam which to me was a very big inspiration but I I can't remember they
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were like diamond encrusted boots or something I mean didn't you have something like that that got a lot of
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attention before before all the social media strategies that are now the way people people are doing I think you were
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doing that in well you know um all these talks have led me to have to come up with some titles for the different ones
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I give and the one that's most often part of of my touring is an entrepreneurial Journey On The Road Less
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Traveled and I emphasize The Road Less Traveled thank you Robert Frost for that wonderful poem um it became my Mantra
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and I recognized in life even before my career that when you do something that gets you to the finish line but in an
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unusual way a roundabout way not that straight line and predictable path you get noticed it's more fun your team
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loves doing it and the end result is Multiplied so all of these things that you just referenced about doing things
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that hadn't been done before to get get us noticed that became part of the company in abs absolutely every decision
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my I made even even how to finance the business that's how how pervasive this
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idea was so give us some examples because there's so much fun well um eventually I had to
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advertise I could you can't live off of all the celebrities wearing your shoes
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and getting the credits for it that's a brandbuilding thing but we're in
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business so I um I decided that I had to advertise but I was also this is again the business side coming into play I was
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so aware in four years in business I'm not making them as beautiful as others
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blanck had been around 20 years before me in Prada Etc I don't have the money
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to hire the celebrities or the actresses that are going to model them that they can so mine go faceless so to speak
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while theirs are so recognizable and maybe even the quality of shoe making it's a craft honestly
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Barbara it takes years to make it better and better and better and I will tell you in the last year I made shoes they
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were better than in the next the last year I made shoes that's how that's what
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happens with a craft I I could sum it up with four words everyone says I'm a
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little obsessed with shoes I think I'm a lot obsessed with shoes but they're
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being polite and our first ad said Stewart's dog there's a picture of this beautiful Dalmation we Whited
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out the spots and we stencl on shoes oh that's so cute and more than cute Barbara it won US the Cleo award for
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print advertising I am still a nobody in Footwear I mean I'm up you can you know
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who I'm up against and Stuart whitesman wins the ad c campaign with our little
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obsessed with shoes dalmati so that convinced me I always have to think out of the shoe box if pardon the pun but
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that little campaign was phenomenal you know you know what happened we got 8,000
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posters requests from mothers my daughter has a dog didn't have to be a do oh that' be so cute could you send me
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a poster so we weren't making posters but you can be sure we made posters sent
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out over 8,000 of them now I remember someone in the company say you really want to do that these kids are 10 years
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old they're not customers but what are they going to be in 12 years when they
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get married even what brand will they know before any other with that poster on the wall while
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they're gr course that's modern marketing lifetime value of the customer
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you know you see all of that kind of stuff going ahead of the game I think definely but I didn't think of it that
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way Barber it just seemed like something to do that others didn't because I I as
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I said am I going to hire a model as famous as them no I can't I had to think
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out of the box didn't you also I can't remember the details of this but didn't
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you also design an architect to help design your stores oh boy was that you talk about you can't do it alone um
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we're now successful and we're as good in America and Canada and a little bit
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in Europe as anybody but we're not in Asia the global market is beginning to
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open and just as I remember when I got into our shoes in Bergdorf Goodman a hundred boutiques around America wanted
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to buy Stuart whitesman they shop the best stores see who's being bought and they try to chase down those Brands
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there has to be a store in Asia or Hong Kong or soul that has that impact and a little research led me to a fabulous
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mall called the IFC Center in Hong Kong and today when I mention it even to Chinese students who I'm talking to have
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you ever been talk oh my gosh the IFC Center I couldn't get in the M the director said we sell Tom Ford we sell
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heres we sell cardier we don't want low price things like your shoes no that's
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the way we were seen compared to them and that went on for a couple of sales pitches but I didn't give up because
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there you ever think about it there's always another way in my touring of that area to see
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the retail stores I noticed zaha Hadid had buildings everywhere she was like the Superstar like Frank Gary went to
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bil B she went to Asia she won the pritsker prize she did the many buildings at the Japan Olympics she also
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was doing that had done them at London if I can hire zaha I thought maybe that would give this man a reason to let me
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in the mall so I did she built the most fabulous store it won retail store of the year on architectural digest Europe
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that's how good it was and this guy walks into our store in Milan gets the manager to call me tracks me down on my
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cell phone hey whitesman yeah this is oh I remember you I was polite although I didn't want to be um and he said if you
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build me a store like I'm here I'm in Milan here build it for me in the IFC
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mall I'll give you the best location there oh my God and he did now he wasn't
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buying didn't care about the shoes zaha helped me get in that mall and within
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three years 25 moles in Asia had Stuart whitesman doors wow I never heard that whole story remember cuz I was going to
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Milan and I went to visit that you told me go see that store um and the store is
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magnificent but I didn't know that whole story around the story occurred after
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you had seen that store cuz it was up for about a year before he noticed it during Milan Fashion Week yeah go see
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your story you know you go things do it things around the way do things in a creative way you get a lot of attention
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so now we said we're were going to talk a little bit about this so since you've
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retired you sold your company to coach you're in your act too so we only have a
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few minutes but it was interesting to get to this point but tell us from your act two you know you what you've done
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you've come back to Wharton a lot you've come back to pen and we appreciate it
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and you've been inspiring our students but you also have actually gone on the
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road and you're giving talks at lots of University so what's that experience
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been like well it's been about 125 U this year or a quarter of that U it's been fabulous and it's been
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inspiring and I'll tell you why the students I meet are so excited about getting started in a career they seem so
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wonderful so nice their questions are great it's like my gosh maybe in 20 years this country will be what we
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always had thought it was and should be these are the kids who are going to be running America and they are phenomenal
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and I will tell you you would expect that yes at Stanford or at Warton or at Princeton but I've also been to RDI and
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I feel the same thing the last week I was at SMU the same thing so it isn't whether it's in the top 10 top 20 top 30
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I am finding that everywhere and uh it's a great hope I am glad I'm doing this
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for that reason alone so when I mean you are unusual in that you had the design perspective and the business perspective
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when you talk to these students how common is that like I imagine that that's not as common generally it's
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people who have one idea mind but I so emphasize even in my talks at the whitesman school of design here we're
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all sales people we all have to Market a great product unknown remains unknown you have to know
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the business side I give them ideas how to finance without having to sell their soul to so-called angel investors who
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often become devil investors you know or or to a bank that is looking over your shoulder every time you take a nickel
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out of your company I try to teach them how to do it without that kind of NE unnecessary support and they listen and
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now by the way at the school of design here at Penn 30% of the students are taking courses in Wharton and that's up
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from 25 and up from 20 and I believe I mean how can you open an office as an architect if you don't know how to run
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it hire people leadership qualities you have to know all of that you just can't
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follow a passion with without reason you know and that kind of makes sense in that sense because the I don't know if
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this is true since you know both you'll know if it's true but it seems like it's
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easier to teach designers business than to teach business people how to design you're absolutely right you're
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absolutely right the most successful Executives in my company were not business people from
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Business Schools who wear blinkers it's creative people they have the best imagination and that makes them
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the best Executive also and we train them to become an executive within their role and in the end I think that helped
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make Stuart whitesman an important company in our industry without that we just would have been another shoe
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company well that is so great we're at a time I knew this was goingon to fly by
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and so many more questions I had to ask you but steuart thank you so much for joining us today and we're going to take
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a short break this is marketing matters Business Radio SiriusXM 132