Lenox Corporation Interview- Christine Bova

It’s a formidable task, overseeing product development for all of Lenox’s flatware brands, which includes Lenox, Kate Spade, Oneida, Cambridge, Hampton Forge, Reed & Barton, and Gorham. Your tenures at Oneida and Bed Bath & Beyond, as the tabletop buyer, provide a solid foundation for this position.
Prior to Oneida, where I was senior product marketing manager when Lenox acquired us, I was at Bed Bath & Beyond for 12 years, most recently as the tabletop buyer. My whole career was at BBB, where for the last four years my primary concentration was flatware. I was familiar with every brand of flatware, certainly everything I now oversee at Lenox. And while I was at BBB, I helped build Cambridge’s private label business. All of that helped me understand the flatware business from both the retail and wholesale perspectives.

There’s so much on your plate. What are the pros and cons of overseeing so many brands?
There are great synergies to be capitalized on between all the brands. The opportunities are there to go as far as we can. Every brand has its own place, its own following, its own expertise. It’s my job to make sure that each brand maintains its own identity and that we find the things each company does well and infiltrate them to make us all stronger. Differentiation is one of my biggest focuses, and a key challenge is keeping all brands distinct and differentiating brand identities so each company has a place at market.

It sounds worrisome to me, with so many complementary brands under one umbrella. Cannibalization seems inevitable.
That’s what we’re here to make sure doesn’t happen. The team behind the brands is equipped to understand their niches. We’re category experts, and many of us are also retail experts. There’s so much room to grow because we have so many brands and we can capitalize on the strengths of certain brands to expand distribution for other brands. For instance, Lenox is primarily a department store brand which we can take to a mass market because of our other brands. Our eyes are open to additional retail channels and possibilities for all our brands. Then there’s private label which Cambridge has mastered. This will help bring some of our brands to private label. There’s so much opportunity for all the brands.

How do you see each of the brands carving respective niches?
We have our top brands, Reed and Barton, Kate Spade, Lenox, and Gorham, all 18/10 design-driven brands. We’re very proud of them and they each have a different aesthetic. Lenox is a traditionalist; Reed and Barton has a sophisticated customer; Kate Spade attracts a modern audience; Gorham is an old-world supplier. They all live in the department store and above. That has its place. But we’re learning from our other brands that color, weight, and piece counts can apply to these best brands as well.

And the other brands?
Oneida probably has the most brand awareness with a huge heritage history and a strong following, customer awareness, and customer satisfaction. Oneida is innovative and classic as well as modern and can go between good and better levels. It primarily lives in department stores and specialty channels. And then we have Cambridge, which is everything to everyone with an immense library of designs. It doesn’t go the same way to market as our other brands. They show walls of new designs for customers to choose what they like and we tailor color, weight, and piece count to each customer. Cambridge goes from mass to Crate & Barrel and runs the gamut of good, better, and best. They can design to everyone’s needs. There’s generally a more modern flair, more refined handles, multi-materials, and fashion colors that keep the brand exciting. Hampton Forge was our first acquisition and gave us entry to Gen Z customers and downsizers on a budget. It’s practical and affordable and goes to mass, grocery, hardware, and Walmart. But they also do private label for Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn. So they can run the gamut, but it’s more affordable.

Are product development teams separate?
I’m responsible for the entire metals side of the business, but our design teams specialize in categories. Forecasters are dedicated to brand or category; the same with sourcing. Hampton Forge has its own team members which we retained for their expertise. Oneida has kept key team members, myself included, so everybody remained intact and brought over their expertise. Cambridge has the largest team. We bought over many of their designers; it’s an incredibly talented team with tons of flatware expertise. We also have forecasters and inventory teams. We feel confident that with everyone we have on board, we can keep relationships with customers and continue to fulfill the needs of each customer for each brand.

How do you capitalize on synergies between the brands?
By learning and gathering information, by understanding who the core customers are, what the challenges are, and how we can get to market faster. Cambridge, for example, moves quickly to market. We’re trying to understand how they do that so well. Oneida understands heritage and quality and we’re bringing that expertise to Lenox from a flatware perspective. Hampton Forge understands sourcing very well; they’re excellent at negotiating prices. So we’re taking everyone’s strengths, learning, and listening, and are open to what works to capitalize, not cannibalize, on each others’ business.

How don’t you cannibalize sales?
Every brand has its place: traditional, aesthetic, modern, private label, and price point. Every brand is treated differently by customers. We have respect for all of our brands. Customers will always look for brands, particularly Lenox and Oneida, heritage brands that have been in peoples’ homes for generations, but there are quality differences between all the brands. They’re not pitted against each other for the same business. All of these brands offer customers more robust receipts, stronger pricing, more capabilities, and a better understanding of the supplier base.

Most consumers don’t see the differentiation. They simply see forks and knives and spoons.
I see the differences. I don’t think any of our brands are super similar. There are differences in look and price, in the distribution channel, and in weight, so it all depends on what you’re looking for. We don’t come up with new patterns and then decide where they will live. We design specifically for each brand. Now, of course, certain trends exist in multiple brands under our umbrella. It’s up to us to see if all those designs make sense going forward. We don’t want duplication. Cambridge is a new acquisition and one of our near-future projects is to go through every design to make sure there’s no duplication. For instance, we have many hammered patterns so we have to make sure they sit at different levels.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patterns across all brands. Too much to manage?
The number isn’t daunting. If a design is meaningful it remains in our assortments. We’re continuing to grow the business, make our customers happy, and fill white space. We’re not looking to reduce our overall pattern count.

How do you differentiate product development among the brands?
It takes creativity and understanding the marketplace and knowing the vision of each brand in order to differentiate. As authorities in flatware, we must understand our customers’ needs and what works. But it is a challenge and we’re up for it.

Can it be too much of a good thing? Too many brands?
Over time and by learning from our customers we can create a unique enough assortment for each brand and keep retailers energized about flatware. Of course, it can be too much of a good thing, but that’s our job – to make it exciting and continually changing.

Will some brands be consolidated?
Within Hampton Forge’s four sub-brands (Skandia, Argent, Hampton Forge, and Hampton Forge Signature) there may be consolidation, but otherwise, we have no other plans.

What’s the effect of so many flatware brands having on Lenox’s dinnerware and glassware, the lion’s share of the business?
We believe we can take our dinnerware and glassware and open ourselves to additional markets because of our flatware, and because of the additional channels we’ve been able to break into. The entire Lenox umbrella will benefit from our many flatware brands. There are synergies between dinnerware and flatware and we can capitalize on that. Lenox is known for cross-merchandising. That’s something I learned from BBB; there’s a good attachment rate between products with the same aesthetic or same pattern name.

What’s the percentage of flatware sales in the company?
Flatware is a very important category for us and it continues to grow; it’s a focus category. Cambridge and Oneida are not with the same distribution.

Flatware is a finite design space. How do you keep reinventing the fork for so many different brands?
I think of flatware as jewelry for the table. You can dress it up, add color, create new silhouettes, have a more modern take, and create minimalist handles that feel like air. We’ve changed bowl shapes to be more modern and fluid. We’ve added tulip shapes to be more vintage. We take all these design elements and keep reinventing them and bringing them back to life. PVD allows us to create new colors. We play with finishes to add newness. We’re always inventive; subtle tweaks can make any pattern different. And, of course, there are different quality levels. We’re constantly gauging trends, shopping markets, and looking at everything to keep reinventing the category design-wise.

Set configurations are a game-changing development since the millennium.
That’s right. The five-piece place setting had its time but is not the biggest part of our business anymore. But with each brand, it varies. With high design patterns, a high set count doesn’t always work; there, a 20-piece set is the sweet spot. Our larger piece counts are volume drivers, with services for eight or 12. We’re offering bestselling Oneida and Hampton Forge sets in smaller piece count configurations; instead of 20-piece sets, we now have 12-piece sets. These 12-piece sets do not include teaspoons or salad forks. It’s not only to combat inflation and stainless steel challenges, but this allows customers to buy into patterns that have proven you don’t need to set your table with five pieces. It’s a new development for us which we’ve received strong responses to.

How do you make heritage brands relevant to younger consumers?
Oneida has added newness with concrete patterns, wood grains, and more modern, dramatic PVDs which is getting a lot of interest from younger demographics. Much of our newness is trending more modern. We have a team with a new directive to broaden our customer base.

It must be hard to target end consumers because with so many diverse brands that’s virtually everyone.
We have a really great in-house photo studio that creates campaigns with beautiful images. We have a strong direct platform and e-commerce customers.

What do you know about millennials that helps you sell to them?
It helps that I am one. Being part of that generation and having worked in retail has set me up to understand the customer. I do a large portion of my shopping online. I enjoy the ease of e-commerce. I understand the design aesthetic. Millennials are excited by gold flatware, minimalist, contemporary, Scandinavian looking design. We don’t think of flatware as an afterthought; we know it’s a way to add design to the table. We’ve done a great job creating reasons to buy flatware. It’s not an impulse purchase, but we’ve found ways to make it more impulsive, thanks to our designs.

Social media is increasingly important in marketing. Or is it?
We don’t lead with that but it is something I think about. We’ve done photo shoots with Oneida’s Golden Michaelangelo which feels vintage and modern at the same time. Michaelangelo has a lot of heritage but young customers like it. We do try to tell stories that what’s old is new again. Being creative is critical.

Franchise patterns, like Oneida’s Juilliard or Lenox’s Butterfly Meadow, were once a company’s lifeblood. How has the approach to franchise designs changed?
From an Oneida perspective, Michaelangelo and Juilliard still pay a lot of bills for us, but a lot of our high-volume patterns are broader in design appeal. Our core basics are timeless volume drivers with broad appeal for customers and retailers.

What are some of the big items on your to-do list?
Continuing to excite my team to be innovative so we can be the best provider to our customers is the biggest challenge, and making sure everyone on the team has retail and category expertise. It’s critical that we have the right people. This business is always changing. That’s exciting, but it’s also challenging. It keeps us going because we need to be able to pivot and be smart enough to anticipate change. We’re poised and ready to be a great flatware supplier to all of our customers. We take the end consumer and their needs to heart and continue to innovate and keep the identities of our brands distinctive and desirable. That’s the biggest challenge ahead of us.

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View the original article at Tableware Today:
https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=778837

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