New dress

WW: The fact that the name Feldpausch is disappearing is a step towards simplifying the structure: What are the advantages of this simplification? 
Olivier Burger: There are various reasons why we want to focus the brand. We have worked with six brands so far. PKZ, Feldpausch, Blue Dog, Burger, Paul Kehl and TheLook.com. That was definitely too many brands for a company that does almost 200 million in sales. We had to promote them individually, profile them individually. In addition, we have realized in recent years that the target groups tend to merge. Today, we serve gray-haired men who wear Laundry jeans and young people who go to work in an Armani smock. With female customers, we've seen our Blue Dog grow closer to PKZ. That's why all the larger PKZ men & women stores already have a Blue Dog department under the same roof. 

In Zurich's Shop-Ville, however, your Blue Dog is still to remain independent, one hears? 
Yes, that's still the only store at the moment. We must always think from the consumer. His wishes are behind the concentration of PKZ men & women. Customer behavior has changed. The new concept will give us more opportunities in the future to bring men and women together under one roof. We have already had a store in Zug for many years where we combine PKZ, Feldpausch and Blue Dog under one roof. In the new concept, it's now simply called PKZ men & women. We are also extending this to various shopping centers. It already works in Marins, in the Glattzentrum and also in Shoppyland. This integration also offers more opportunities for expansion because we can cover larger areas. 

And what happens to Paul Kehl? 
Paul Kehl remains, of course. This is a brand we relaunched five years ago, named after the founder of PKZ, Paul Kehl. For this label we have our own design team for men and now newly for women. The newly created Paul Kehl women's collection has just moved into our three Paul Kehl stand-alone stores, as well as all PKZ men-&- women stores. After all, there are various companies that carry several brands in their portfolio. For a while, it was fashionable to keep creating new brands. Now, more concentration is the order of the day again. 

Feldpausch is a great traditional brand. Was it easy to dissolve it? 
This was not an easy decision. We have discussed the issue three times in the course of history. We considered it when we took over 17 years ago, then five years after the takeover. And we considered it most of all when we implemented the omni-channel strategy. Omni-channel means a seamless and unified brand experience, which is what we strive for today. Still, it was a difficult decision for us. Feldpausch is an anchored name that has been around since 1927. By comparison, the name PKZ was registered by Paul Kehl in 1891, 133 years ago. However, other considerations were more decisive for us. We realized that the online sector is becoming stronger and that it is a great advantage if we appear online and offline, i.e. in the omni-channel with the same name. That is a very important factor. In the future, everything will run via PKZ.ch.

Will the online store TheLook.com also be renamed?
Exactly. But it's easier online. I can enter Feldpausch, TheLook or PKZ and in any case end up at the PKZ website. It's not like in the stores, where I have to go from one department to another. The developments in online were a very important reason for this name change. We are convinced that in the next five to ten years the market will grow from today's 7 percent of total supply to 20 percent. Online trade will become a very decisive mainstay. Of course, it makes sense to have as uniform and strong a name as possible. But the question was: give up Feldpausch as a name. Was that difficult for us? It was difficult for us. That's why we also wanted to ask our customers. We conducted around 1,500 interviews with regular customers and others. We wanted to know what they thought of Feldpausch suddenly being called PKZ women. The reactions were 95 percent in favor of our decision. The customers said they had known for a long time that these companies belonged together. Our communication was already very similar beforehand, in terms of advertising and our magazine. Secondly, the customers said: "As long as the product range still appeals to me and I can still find my favorite saleswoman, it doesn't matter what's written on the top of the door.

So you don't see any risk?
Changing a retail brand is probably a lot less difficult than changing a brand. There are various examples. Manor used to be called Vilan in Zurich, Rheinbrücke in Basel, Nordmann in Lucerne and Innovazione in Ticino. So x others have already done that. WE used to be called Hey. An interesting observation can be made here. In the last two weeks we have adapted our logos on the houses. The customers who know us come to the store in exactly the same way. But there are a lot of new ones who pass by the store and say, "Wow, PKZ now has a women's store. I have to go in there! "So all of a sudden, completely new female customers come in. The old customers stay and new ones come in. In our survey of regular and non-customers, we also received confirmation that the values embodied by Feldpausch and PKZ are very similar. People know: we are a Swiss company, they know the good quality and we offer a wide range of brands as well as good service. With both companies, the profile was quite similar.

There used to be a saying: PKZ means "Dad can pay. Does such an image bother you?
As far as I know, this originates from the 1930s and is in the vernacular. Somehow the phrase still applies in families today, when young people make their wishes for new clothes in the spring. We are rather happy about the saying. But it is clear that PKZ has been dusted off in the last 20 years. We now have an average age of PKZ customers of 42. That's an interesting average. Among modern men, and now women, we are considered a household brand. Admittedly, the name PKZ can be debated. The advertising industry certainly knows even more resonant names ...

Fashion labels are also subject to a trend.
This is also something that can be debated. Our lettering certainly looks elegant. It's true that PKZ sounds a bit choppy. But that's no different with the big and successful fashion companies. Take H&M, C&A in Germany, P&C ... But I also like our lettering. A brand is something really exciting. Something that is charged with values. That's the crucial thing that people have in mind when they hear PKZ. And that's what has held us back the most over the last 17 years from changing the name Feldpausch. The decisive argument then in each case was in the company management: No, PKZ is clearly "Number One in Mind" for menswear. And PKZ is not Number One in Switzerland for fashion in general. That's why we stayed with Feldpausch. But with the changes currently underway in the market, where men's and women's fashion are coming closer together and online and offline are inspiring each other: Now the market is ripe for the move. What's more, why did we make the move now? It has to do with the fact that we have completely remodeled our flagship in Zurich, the previous Feldpausch store. We have invested a sum in the double-digit millions and can now present the most beautiful and the largest women's fashion store in Switzerland. With the opening of our flagship store PKZ women on March 6 on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, it was only natural for me to communicate the strategy of our new orientation around it. At the same time, we opened two new stores in Switzerland's largest shopping center, Glattzentrum, also PKZ men & women.

In Switzerland, you are considered the "fashion czar" for men. When will you also be the king of women?
I find fashion czar massively exaggerated. Our goal is to make the people of Switzerland look good. That's the motive and we've been doing that for men and women for a long time. The proportion of men's fashion in our store is about 55 percent and that for ladies is 45. That may very well even out soon.

As the responsible CEO, you have increased sales from 50 to 200 million Swiss francs in the last few years. What is your concept for success?
When I joined the company in 1984, we had 17 stores. Since then, we have continuously increased our presence. We have grown organically in part, taking over individual additional stores in Lucerne or Biel. The most important steps were the acquisition of Esco, a menswear chain, and later the takeover of Feldpausch, which opened the door to women's fashion in 1997. This was part of a clear strategy.

How do you see online developing in relation to stores?
Fashion consumption in Switzerland has been the same for years. Average prices are even tending to go down. I therefore believe that brick-and-mortar retail - if it's lucky - will stagnate at most. The growth is coming from online. Last year, we saw growth of around 35 percent in this area. That will continue. You can often see this kind of development in advance in other countries. In America, where four of our five children live, this market is growing massively. When I visit my children, I come to a house where young couples live. There's a doorman at the entrance. He has already set up a room for storing the boxes. In the evening, the boys come home and find their online deliveries at the gatekeeper's place: Food, shoes, Pampers and, of course, clothes. They take the packages into their homes, try on the new things - and the next day, the unsuitable items are deposited with the doorman again until the next courier from DHL comes by. This is now standard practice in the USA. In England, the online fashion market already accounts for 20 percent of sales. And that will happen here, too.

Which advertising agencies do you plan to move into this future with?
For the communication of the new PKZ men & women offers, we have now worked with the publishing house UCM in Salzburg. They designed our catalogs. But the Zurich agency By Heart will still be involved in certain projects.

Interview: Andreas Panzeri