What can consulting firms learn about branding from couture?

Consultants looking for fashion tips are in the wrong place here. Just keep it simple: well-cut suit, crisp white shirt, smart shoes. Ditch the novelty tie. You’ll be fine. Consultants interested in branding, on the other hand, should stick around. And judging by the conversations we’ve been having with people in consulting firms recently, many of you will.

Brand is a big talking point right now. As consulting firms expand beyond their core propositions, particularly into implementation activities, they’re finding that clients are reluctant to be charged fees similar to those they pay for the firm’s traditional services. When that happens firms have to change their underpinning business model, something that, in turn, involves the introduction of a separate brand in order to avoid across-the-board discounting and price reduction. But consulting firms don’t have a particularly good track record in this respect: the desire to draw a clear distinction between the core offering and the new has led to the creation of brands that we’d rather not mention here for fear of making people shudder.

Instead, we’ve been wondering if consulting firms should be looking to the world of couture for inspiration.

In fashion, brand value is created from consumer feelings about exclusivity that arise from owning an expensive handbag, for example. But for many a love of the brand and a desire to wear (and be seen wearing) it doesn’t necessarily translate into a willingness to spend thousands on a luxury bag. So couture brands have responded with products that are cheaper to produce and sell but retain the brand name association. Consumers love it because they can buy into some of the brand cachet and style that they like and admire, but at a fraction of the price. Fashion brands that have managed this well have been able to enjoy selling to this far larger market without diluting the experience of their original high-end consumers.

So, Burberry offers Burberry Prorsum, its exclusive main brand, Burberry London, its mid-priced weekday work brand, and Burberry Brit, a more accessibly priced, casual weekend solution. Capitalizing on its royal connections, dress designer Alexander McQueen has a ready to wear line, McQ, while Victoria Beckham has a Victoria brand alongside her signature line. Max Mara exemplifies this approach more than most others with nine sub-brands, five of which are some derivative of the main brand name.

There is no reason why consulting firms should not consider a similar approach and create new brands that are associative to the host name — distinctive without being completely new and different. The cost of promoting the brand is less than doing something completely new as there are economies of scale, and the risk of adverse publicity is greatly reduced.

But in the end, the real test is whether clients believe that the new brand provides them with all the great values that the main brands offers, but at a lower price point. And still without novelty ties.