"Marketeer of the Year" has to cope with setback

As recently as March 2018, everything looked rosy: Victorinox CEO Carl Elsener was crowned "Marketeer of the Year" at a festive gala. As the first recipient of the newly created award, a "high-caliber jury" praised him for his entrepreneurial skills.An important argument for the award: Elsener had dared to expand into other business areas after the September 11, 2001 attacks and the knife ban at airports. With clothing, luggage, watches and household goods, he tried to compensate for the ailing bag knife core business.

Expansion in the textile sector failed

At least in the apparel sector, this did not work out the way Victorinox would have liked. At the "Marketeer of the Year" gala, however, not a word was heard about this, either from the jury or from the award winner himself, although it must have been clear last March what Carl Elsener had to say in an interview with the "Handelszeitung"confirmed: The CEO speaks of a total loss of around 70 million Swiss francs that the foray into the apparel business has brought him in recent years - store closures in Japan and layoffs in the US included. "This is a very big and painful loss," the Handelszeitung quotes Carl Elsener as saying.

Even brilliant marketeers are allowed to fail

Knowledgeable observers are probably not offended by the unsuccessful expansion of the product range - but by the fact that it went completely unmentioned in the context of an award that has yet to earn its reputation, because it would not actually disqualify a brand manager like Carl Elsener for an award if one of his ideas did not work out. In addition, Victorinox is now very successful in other areas that are not part of its core business: luggage and kitchen knives, according to the article in the Handelszeitung, have even benefited from the clothing discontinuation.