Hugo Boss is revamping both of its brands to attract younger customers and become a premium tech-driven fashion platform
German luxury fashion house Hugo Boss has been struggling for years to revive its business, and now, with the changes the lockdown brought to the fashion industry (the rise of loungewear) the company is putting all its resources to reinvent itself.
Strategy: Adapting to the new normal
Last August, new CEO Daniel Grieder (former director of Tommy Hilfiger) announced the company’s new growth strategy CLAIM 5. The strategy seeks to position the company as a premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide and double the company’s sales to € 4 billion by 2025.
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“It is our vision to become the leading premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide and in this context, we will revolutionize the way in which we interact with consumers”
Daniel Grieder, Chief Executive Officer of HUGO BOSS AG.
CLAIM 5 is based on five pillars, one of them being “Boost Brands.” This aims to increase brand relevance by revamping its two main brands, BOSS and HUGO, from logos to marketing, to new designs in retail and digital.
The BOSS brand will focus on becoming a lifestyle brand with premium/affordable luxury suits with a twist, while HUGO will cater to young and trend-setting customers with authentic and unconventional streetwear designs.
Design: Consistency is key
Until now, the three brands – HUGO, BOSS, and the parent company Hugo Boss – had their own logos. The company’s logo consisted of a sans-serif typeface with spaced letters, BOSS used a serif font with the company name in sans serif underneath, and HUGO used a red humanist sans serif.
The new branding brings consistency to the brand architecture by replacing the different logos with a unique heavy sans design. The HUGO and BOSS trademarks are now taken directly from the parent company logo.
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HUGO will maintain its signature red color, and BOSS will add the color camel to its black and white branding and the new slogan: “Be your own Boss”. The newest BOSS store in Japan was the first retail store to use the new branding.
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My Final Opinion
To be honest, Hugo Boss is not one of the brands that I really care about or hope to see during fashion week (I love the Chanel and Moschino runway shows), but I think the idea of unifying its brands was a good move to give them the same relevance and a contemporary look.
And yes, Hugo Boss is 3 years late to the sans serif party, but listen, it’s not like before the redesign, HUGO and BOSS had unique and iconic wordmarks, so the change doesn’t hit me as hard as it did with YSL or Burberry.
But well… That’s my F opinion. What’s yours?