Focus on the international market
'During a crisis we all need to work even harder to improve products', remarked Rod Lane, Chairman of Fabris Lane, interviewed by Eyesway at the Silmo Exhibition, Paris. 'A crisis can serve to promote renewal and improvement", added Andy Lipscombe, the company's Head of Marketing.
Fabris Lane was created from the friendship between Rod Lane and Mario Fabris who met in Italy in 1971 whilst working for the Mazzucchelli Group. They formed their own company in 1982 and in 1993 launched the Fabris Lane brand and soon afterwards brands such as M:UK, Freerange and Monkey Monkey and licensed brands such as Fat Face, Jigsaw, Ben Sherman, French Connection and Nicole Farhi.
Rod Lane has confirmed that in order to fight the undeniable crisis one must constantly improve to best understand and satisfy client needs. 'We should not view this difficult economic moment in a negative light but rather as a stimulus to help us improve even more', stated the Fabris Lane Chairman. The growth strategy for 2009 is based on certain fundamentals that can be summarised as follows: repositioning of the Fabris Lane sunglasses brand with a massive marketing campaign coinciding with the launch of the Fabris Lane optical collection. The company also plans to grow its optical frames sales in the UK and to invest heavily in growing its exports sales of both sunglasses and optical frames.
We asked Mr. Lane what he thought about the use of celebrity endorsements in product promotion: 'generally speaking I do not like the idea. The creation of a strong connection with celebrities can destroy brand personalities that become too closely linked to those that wear and represent the glasses'. Andy Lipscombe stated, 'At the moment the only brand of ours that could warrant an endorsement is M:UK. It is a youth brand that may benefit from the right associations within the music culture that is currently very celebrity focussed'.
When asked what he thought of the extension of the Village's Saturday opening times up to 10 p.m., Mr. Lipscombe answered with a smile: 'It's not a bad idea, at least with a bit more time we won't complain that we weren't able to find anything"!
