Tension, controversy, technology: How Calvin Klein builds its brand
Stephen WhitesideWarc
Calvin Klein's apparel aims to provide the perfect fit for style-conscious shoppers.
At the same time, the New York-based fashion brand's marketing strategy is hugging a very different kind of curve – namely, the elegant contours of the technology-adoption cycle.
Tracing its origins to 1957, this theory predates Calvin Klein's debut collection by around a decade. And it demonstrates how new goods and services move towards the mainstream by achieving popularity with successive consumer cohorts:
- Innovators
- Early adopters
- Early majority
- Late majority
- Laggards
"You have to make the...