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Since 2001 though, Tommy Hilfiger has been learning from his mistakes and going back to basics. ‘As a result of learning from our errors, we went back to our roots: classics with a twist. We’re about colour, we’re about preppy, we’re about classic, we’re about America!’ And as a result of this turnaround, customers and investors alike are again comfortable with the Tommy Hilfiger brand. ‘It will never again be the hot, sexy, overly talked-about, flashy, zippy, fast-growing company it was, but it will be a damn nice company with lots of cash,’ observed one Wall Street analyst at the time of the turnaround. ‘What you’ve got now is a company that went from an A-plus to an F-minus. And now it’s going back to a B. And it’s a hell of a business as a B.’

Lessons from Tommy Hilfiger

Don’t deviate from your formula. Known as the brand which produces ‘classic with a twist’, Hilfiger concentrated too much on the ‘twist’ and not enough on the ‘classic’.

Don’t compete with irrelevant rivals. Tommy Hilfiger attempting to compete with successful European high fashion brands such as Gucci and Prada on their own terms was a mistake which even Hilfiger himself has acknowledged.

Don’t over-extend the brand. During its bad patch, Tommy Hilfiger moved into a lot of new product categories for which it wasn’t suited.

Don’t be scared of your logo. The logo is what made Tommy Hilfiger the brand it is today. In fact, the Tommy Hilfiger brand is pure logo. When the logo disappeared or was toned down, the brand ran into trouble.

75 ONdigital to ITV Digital

How the ‘beautiful dream’ went sour

In 1998, a new UK digital TV channel was introduced which aimed to take on Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB and convert millions of middle- England viewers to pay-television with a new platform accessible via set-top boxes – digital terrestrial television. In 2002, however, it went out of business.

‘We thought we could take on Sky, through its Achilles heel: it was the least trusted by the audience,’ says Marc Sands, the first director of brand marketing for ONdigital. ‘We would differentiate ourselves by our behaviour, clarity, and transparency of prices. That was the beautiful dream. Plug and play.’

However, it soon became clear that it would be difficult to deliver the special software and set-top boxes, and cope with patchy coverage across the country. ‘By summer 1999, I saw that the problems were terminal,’ says Sands. ‘For those for whom it didn’t work, when the pictures froze, the promise was shattered. We never got past first base.’

Then the company’s chief rival, BSkyB, raised the pressure by paying retailers money to recommend its system. BSkyB’s decision to give away free set-top boxes meant ONdigital had little choice but to follow suit, a move that cost an extra £100 million a year. ‘I think the decision by ONdigital to go head-to-head with BSkyB was probably a mistake,’ said Chris Smith, former secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport (who oversaw the government’s digital plans until June 2001), in an interview with the Guardian. ‘They should have aimed for a different part of the market.’

In 2001, ONdigital was rebranded ITV Digital, linking it to an established and trusted brand name (ITV remains the most popular terrestrial channel in the UK). However, the same problem remained. Viewers needed to buy completely new equipment, which didn’t require a dish. In other words, it was a completely new platform.

The technical problems were also an issue. The software used in the set-top boxes didn’t have enough memory and crashed frequently. As former customer Bridget Furst explains:

I signed up for ONdigital in November 1999 as we live in a conservation area and were told we couldn’t have a dish. But all the technical breakdowns drove us dotty. The picture would freeze without warning, three or four times a week. You had to phone for advice, give your security password, queue for technical assistance, and then you needed 15 fingers to put things right. I was