This month I’ve been thinking about brands and branding. I wouldn’t say it’s been bothering me, but I have been feeling rather reflective this past half year or so and I’m finding myself spending a lot of time on my personal brand and the brands in my portfolio of eyewear.
I’ve been getting a bit of attention recently. For the first time since I started this adventure nearly 22 years ago, people have been asking to buy my business. I’m on the third interested party in the past eight months.
I always have a sniff, you know, just to see what I’m worth but then I ask myself the real question which is ‘what on earth would I do?’ Gardening? Sailing? Snoozing? No, I am Tom Davies and I love my brand.
For someone like me, brand and business and life all merge into one. What I’m trying to do now is make sure I’m keeping the brands in line and making sure they are the best they can be. It’s hard. Sometimes I can get in trouble with my family for blending home and work, and sometimes I gain legendary status when I get the crossover just right.
As I type this, I’m on a plane to Austria to go skiing. I have been designing a new skiing frame over the past three years. It has been quite a slow process because I’ve been chasing the ultimate frame design but I only get one chance to update the design each year.
Last year I thought I had perfected the actual frame but my lens performance frustrated me. I set out designing a new type of lens that I had made by three factories in the US.
I have a good shot at a patent on this and I think I’ve created real wizardry. So much so, I hired a photographer to come and grab some shots of brand Tom on the slopes. This did not go down well with the family. This was a holiday not a business trip, they cried.
On the other side, I was invited to a secret Banksy sale in east London last week. Present in the room (of only 14 people) were two Hollywood A-listers who had worn my glasses in films. The family didn’t mind that kind of business chat. I’ve had quite a bit of a celebrity month to be honest.
I was chatting to a Radio 2 presenter who asked me why I’d called my brand Tom Davies. He didn’t endear himself to me because he asked if it was not rather egotistical. No free glasses for him I was thinking. I defended myself, saying that I hadn’t really thought about why I called it Tom Davies, it just seemed to be appropriate at the time.
I did try to think of a made-up brand name but I found the whole thing so personal that my own name just stuck. I was one of the first brands not to put my logo on the outside of the frame at that time; I think it was because I was too embarrassed to do it.
Thinking back to that conversation with the radio presenter, I didn’t need to justify myself to him but it’s true that I’ve been thinking about brands and branding a lot. I keep telling people that my other two brands, MD1888 and Catch London will be bigger than Tom Davies one day but, going back in time, I did once proclaim that Tom Davies was going to be the biggest independent brand in the world.
Up until last year, I’d always tell people ‘I’m just getting started’ but I don’t find myself doing that now. Twenty-two years in, I’m not ready to sell but clearly I’m not a startup business.
I think it’s worth everyone in the optical industry taking a moment to consider their own personal brand from time to time. Whether you are a retail owner or a dispenser of eyewear, branding is a critical success factor for all of us.
I’m tweaking and adjusting my business as I go along and branding is very much under the spotlight at the moment. I’m very much looking forward to testing this ski lens and smartphones take great photos these days. Now, I just need to avoid breaking any bones.
That wouldn’t be good for my brand at all.