Casting a thing called business development

Marketing a campaign (or more aptly, marketing campaign) for a new product has a variety of interests at stake. Take Tom Ford. The Gucci's boy designer who, after 14 years, brought the old maid to what can be deemed heel-clicking sexy (semantics, semantics), is finally putting his own line of menswear on the fashion market. The subtlety of his advertisements--a single, male eye wrapped in aged thirtysomething wrinkles-- makes a striking contrast to the grandiose, hullabaloo of Dior's or Prada's layouts. What this image of the eye tells us is not a masculine feminine, but rather an ambiguous new design called Tom Ford. In other words, Mr. Ford's company is casting a wide net with a very tight weave--his line is immediately capturing a variety of markets with this tired retina.

It does make one think.

If a start-up company is wishing to enter an unregulated market for this or that technology product (per se), it generally finds a niche within it. It find a crevice to bury itself in, hoping to trip the occasional consumer waltzing by their services. But what if these little companies begin to do the Tom Ford thing? Would they be biting off more than they can chew? Should they take steps?

Mr. Ford has taken steps, gigantic ones at that. He is tossing out perfumes like nobody's business. But since the market for luxury goods is ever expanding should he not simply niche it up for a bit? Is there not plenty of the all-arounders out there (Mark Jacobs, Burberry, and now Louis Vuitton)? Versace is designing hotel suites, and yachts. Prada has it's PDA. What if Mr. Ford decides to put his own laptop design on the market?

The morale here is: if entering a new market, is it better to stick to a simple product or service (say outsourcing consulting, or Welsh jams), or from the get-go--or a little after (a year or so)--dabble in each of the departments or niches under the rubric of choice? It could mean less profit upfront, but dabbling may just be method of choice. With such a decision, diversification is anticipated, and will allow for a swift, and hopefully painless, shutting-down of this or that niche which isn't succeeding. In the meantime, we take our hats off to Mr. Ford, and take-up our binoculars for his anticipated spectacle.