How Big Brands Like Fila and Lacoste Fail Dismally at Marketing!

I like Fila sportswear I have ever since I was a kid and watched Bjorn Borg march to five Wimbledon titles. Back when I was a kid it was the leading high-end brand, made in Italy and costing five times what a normal sports shirt cost. Now it’s a middle-of-the-road brand like every other brand made in China or occasionally Turkey. Still, I like the logo and I’m loyal to the brand. I have a tennis court at my house, and I buy Fila tennis shoes every six months when they wear out. Also, on average I buy three or four Fila shirts a year. If you look at my buying history for the last two decades you won’t see much fluctuation either way.

Yet Fila insist on relentlessly remarketing to me. Fila shows up somewhere on my computer every day, some weeks. This makes zero sense to me since they also email me at least once or twice a week and I frequently browse the email. This senseless and costly remarketing takes me from being a loyal and profitable customer down to a marginal one at best.

This is not an isolated incident Lacoste does much the same thing and I buy from them the same three to four shirts per year. I could understand the constant remarketing if I were not on their mailing list. I could understand it if I was on their mailing list but was not frequently opening their emails to browse them. However, I have no understanding why they keep spending money on remarketing to me when it does not increase the amount of Lacoste or Fila products I purchase.

Both Fila and Lacoste have very poor marketing. Their websites are awful and obviously designed by graphics people NOT salespeople. Apart from the very irritating navigation on both sites, in fact, both look like they were designed by the same agency, they are almost identical. They have lots of nice pictures, no headlines, and bullet point copy that frequently fails to provide even the basic information I’m looking for. Both always fail to provide any kind of story about the brand how, or I will feel wearing the product.

???????????????????????????????????????Lots of pictures never any sales copy!

Their emails to me are equally lame. What they should include is some content marketing, some history of the brand or tell me about the people who make the product, who designed the product? Give me some personal connection to the players who wear the product. Occasionally there is a token effort but generally, it’s only visual and void of any real substance.

If Djokovic was involved in the design of the Lacoste shirts with his name on them I’d be interested to know what suggestions he made?

If he had any input in the design?

Why he choose certain patterns or colors?

I’d like to know what is important to him?

The sad part of all this is many companies copy the marketing of large iconic companies because they assume it must be good. Because they hire big-name agencies and spend millions of dollars. Both of these iconic companies have some of the lamest marketing I have ever seen. I could increase their sales dramatically in a matter of days simply by improving their sales copy and adding some stories to their emails. I would ask customers why they like certain products or styles? I would fix the navigation on their lousy websites. But I will continue to buy their products because as a tennis player and for nostalgic reasons I have some connection to the brands. In fact, I’d still buy their products if they never re-marketed to me or sent me another email again!