> does anyone here know why companies like Sarah Blakely’s Spanx didn’t suffer the same fate?
Spanx succeeded because they built a brand around convincing a wide swath of the population that their life would be better if they wore a fancy girdle. Their success was because of sales excellence and a smart customer engagement campaign, not proprietary tech.
I think it also helps that when Spanx would go viral there was already a product available, so it would be less lucrative for a knockoff to enter a competitive market. When this guy's boots would go viral there was nothing to buy, so if a knockoff could get to market faster they'd get the sales.
Presumably you’re making the case that they grew quickly enough that by the time any competitors were aware of the potential of product they did have the money to fight infringement.
Even still, in the early days of their marketing campaign it would have been so easy for a foreign competitor to swoop in and make the same thing. I didn’t get the vibe that they grew that quickly, and I do get the vibe that there are foreign manufacturers on the hunt for ideas to copy.
I really don't think it's a question of proprietary IP, infringement risks, etc. It's not complicated technology. Spanx succeeded because they created a brand that massively expanded the market for slimming compression undergarments; they were especially effective in marketing to men.
Yes absolutely this imo. I worked at Saks Fifth Avenue around the time Spanx we’re taking off. It was absolutely about the “lifestyle” and the brand. There might have been competitor and there might have been knockoffs, but they were just that: not Spanx. And that was very important.
I remember one of the top sales girls joking with her clients constantly after Christmas one year about how she’d had too much to drink at the Christmas party and she’d fallen and rolled or something and “next thing I knew my Spanx were hanging out”. And they’d all laugh uproariously as they held several pairs to buy.
It’s this magical sweet spot where they were just expensive enough to be special and “the real deal”. Competition didn’t matter. Price didn’t matter. Spanx mattered. I found it insanely interesting.
I think the question is what prevented Amazon counterfeiters from selling their fake merchandise under the Spanx name on Amazon. But as said above, Spanx may have had the resources to fight this.
I think things like [1], where YouTube electronics reverse engineering wizard Big Clive disassembles a fake "magnetic" shaker flashlight, shows that no pretty much no product is too cheap to bother pirating.
That people spend time to put parts together, including a fake circuit board with pretend-mounted components, to create a non-functional light, is just insane to me.
Spanx succeeded because they built a brand around convincing a wide swath of the population that their life would be better if they wore a fancy girdle. Their success was because of sales excellence and a smart customer engagement campaign, not proprietary tech.