Influx

Some years back, the Tommy Hilfiger brand used to be one of the coolest names in the apparel business. Then in the late 1990s, the hip-hop crowd that had supported the brand for so long suddenly deserted it. On top of that, there were problems related to over extending the brand and tax and finance issues.

Now the company is hoping to use reality television to thrust the brand back into the mainstream. Following in the footsteps of the uber-successful Trump and the less-successful Branson, Hilfiger hopes that his show, about young designers battling for the chance to create a Hilfiger collection, will be a ratings winner.

Given the current state of the company, it seems like the right thing to do, to try to give the brand national exposure to a mass consumer audience. Ideally, this will help improve Hilfiger’s relationships with department stores. However, this is extremely challenging, since most department stores are now abandoning national brands to develop their own.

The show has already to run into problems with Hilfiger models and celebrity endorsers, David Bowie and Iman, refusing to appear on the show as judges.

Hopefully, for Hilfiger, the show will bring the brand back into the public spotlight and work as a test-bed for the development of some interesting ideas.

However, because of the single-minded focus on Hilfiger, Influx is unsure if this CBS show is another example of “adverprogramming” like MTV’s for the X-Box launch, or a genuine reality show. The lines are getting mighty blurry out there.