Armed with an Idea: What Kenneth Cole Taught Me About Overcoming Obstacles by Thinking Like a Media Company

One key aspect of entrepreneurship is discovering creative ways to think outside the box. Or when it came to Kenneth Cole’s business, outside the showroom.

Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. doesn’t sound like the typical name for a line of high fashion footwear, but when has a good startup story ever been ordinary?

Kenneth Cole didn’t set out with a plan to establish himself as a name in the fashion industry. Although his father owned a Brooklyn-based women’s shoe factory, Cole attended college at Emory University. After graduating he went on to pursue law school, imagining himself excelling as a lawyer. 

Fate had other plans for him, though, when a senior executive at his father’s company left. Cole stepped in to help his father but quickly found himself drawn to the sample rooms. The numerous parts that came together to create a seemingly simple item fascinated him. Cole noticed that small adjustments to different areas of a shoe created a brand new look.

This ignited a pivotal realization about his own life: maybe the law wasn’t for him. 

As Cole explains, “In law, the quest was to learn the rules, and he who was most creative at interpreting those rules would go the furthest. In the fashion business, there weren’t any rules...the better you were at creating something new, the greater the likelihood you would be successful.”

Everyone Starts Somewhere

Kenneth Cole abandoned his law school pursuits and immersed himself in the business world. He spent two years with his father’s company and then the two started a new venture. They started Candie’s, a line of shoes imported directly from Italy, together in 1978.

Just like every good entrepreneur, Cole devoted his first few years in the business world to learning by closely watching his father. He pored over the details and took in as much as he could about the way businesses ran.

At the start of 1982, Kenneth Cole felt ready to take his turn and make the jump into starting his own business. He didn’t have much capital at the start but was driven by his intense determination to make it. 

Cole went to Italy looking for shoe factories in need of business. He brought with him ideas, designing and creating prototypes for his first line. Fueled by his tenacity, he committed to an order for 40,000 pairs of shoes under his new self-named company, Kenneth Cole.

Armed with an Idea

It isn’t easy to sell 40,000 pairs of shoes as a brand new company. Cole returned to the U.S. searching for a strategy to promote his new line of footwear. At that time in the 1980s, New York City’s Market Week trade show was the ultimate place to preview shoes.

Fashion shoe lines had two options to show their products: from a room in the New York Hilton or a large showroom. Both options were far out of Cole’s price range so he needed an alternative strategy, and fast. Market Week was quickly approaching. 

Fast on his feet, he thought of a friend who owned a 40-foot trailer. What if he parked the trailer near the trade show and ran his own viewing inside? Cole called his friend and asked to borrow his trailer if he could find a way to set up shop along the street.

Cole was fully aware of the tall order before him; New York City isn’t particularly privy to people parking 40-foot trailers along its streets. But he refused to be the type of businessman who sold themselves short before trying.

The Creation of Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.

No one builds a business by telling themselves, “I can’t.” Cole called the mayor’s office to find out the requirements for parking a massive trailer along the streets of New York City. Unless he was a utility company servicing the city or a production company filming a movie, there would be no 40-foot trailer.

Bingo. Another idea. He couldn’t position himself as running a utility company. But he could pitch Kenneth Cole as a production company. One $14 trip to the stationary store later he had a brand new letterhead reading “Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.”

The now-production manager submitted a permit to the city to shoot a film called The Birth of a Shoe Company. Cole’s permit was approved which set his brilliant plan in motion. On December 2nd, 1982, Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. parked their 40-foot showroom trailer along a street north of the New York Hilton. Just in time for Market Week.

The size of the trailer only afforded the space for a few showings at a time. A line formed outside the trailer which amplified the exclusive feel of the Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. footwear line. It took Cole all of three and a half days to sell all 40,000 pairs of shoes.

Setting Kenneth Cole Apart

Cole’s refusal to settle and the brilliant idea that led Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. to $5 million in first-year sales. His company made $1 million in profit in its first year alone. He continued setting his brand apart by providing not only what people wanted to wear. He aimed to provide what they wanted in an unanticipated way.

He wasn’t unique in only his initial ideas. Cole also aimed to set the bar when it came to taking a stand for an important cause. The company launched a brand-altering advertising campaign centered around supporting the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985. Their bold supportive stance during the AIDS epidemic catapulted them to new levels.

Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. has gone on to expand the original footwear line into five separate brands. The company now sells shoes, clothes, and accessories for both men and women. And they still run under their original name as a nod to Cole’s resourcefulness and ingenuity.

Are You Thinking Outside the Showroom?

What can you take away from Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.? Are you looking at all the possible angles you can use to promote your company? Is there another lens you can look through to reconsider a few of your ideas?

You’re going to run into roadblocks regardless of the vertical you’re breaking into. Wherever you look there are red tape and guidelines galore. But the characteristic that sets entrepreneurs apart from those who play it safe is their refusal to settle after the first stumbling block. Which of these two groups are you in?

Kenneth Cole’s fake film, The Birth of a Shoe Company, was truly a story about the birth of an entrepreneur. How can you learn from his story and adopt his creativity into your own business ideas and marketing endeavors? There’s always a new story waiting to be told. Find a way to make that story be your own!

About David Beebe

David Beebe is an Emmy, Cannes Lions, and James Beard Award-Winning Producer, Brand Storyteller, and Keynote Speaker who founded the Disney/ABC Television Group Digital Studio and Marriott Content Studio. He helps transform marketers into storytellers and brands into media companies through speaking engagements, workshops, and serves as an Executive Producer for original premium branded entertainment for clients. Beebe believes nothing should come between a good story and the audience that needs to hear it. Learn more at davidbeebe.com.