Clarks: Made to Last

by Mark Palmer

  Except that they weren’t just running shoes. Like Nike’s Waffle trainers, they started as running shoes but ended up as everyday casual footwear and a fashion statement at the same time, a phenomenon that must have astonished their track-suited inventors, Blue Ribbon Sports. Blue Ribbon, the predecessor to Nike, had emerged from the northwest American state of Oregon, where Bill Bowerman, a talented running coach, reportedly poured rubber into his wife’s waffle-making machine as part of his search for a comfortable shoe for middle-distance athletes. Along the way he paid an art student $35 for the Nike swoosh, one of the most famous trademarks on earth. Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory, broke away from Blue Ribbon Sports in 1972 and went on to become a global sensation, helped by its sponsorship of a young Michael Jordan, the American basketball player who had the Nike Air Jordan trainers named after him.

  Clarks responded to the trainer revolution by developing a range of its own called ‘Clarksport’, which included two general training shoes (‘Jetter’ and ‘Jogger’); shoes for squash, tennis and badminton (‘Supreme’, ‘Spin’ and ‘Service’); shoes for golf (‘Golfer’ and ‘Golf Ace’); a shoe for sailing (‘Fastnet’) and a shoe for bowls (‘Bowler’). Most of these were made in the Minehead and Weston-super-Mare factories and at Dundalk, in Ireland, one of several factories known for its extensive research and innovative design techniques. Some Clarksport products used the new Polyveldt compound soling that was hard enough to withstand rigorous stresses and strains, but still felt comfortable for the wearer.

  On a baking hot June day in 1976, a special men’s division sales conference was convened in Street to launch Clarksport. Victor Jenkins, Clark-sport brand manager, began proceedings by saying, ‘Morning, sports, welcome to the fantastic new world of Clarksport!’ and then presented the range, using members of staff as models, who hopped on to the stage carrying accessories appropriate to the shoes they were wearing: a golf club here, a tennis or badminton racquet there. Jenkins reminded everyone that more and more people were joining sports clubs and that the sale of squash racquets was increasing by 12 per cent every year. Watched and supported by Neville Gillibrand, the men’s division marketing manager, and by Malcolm Cotton, who was overall head of Clarks men’s division, Jenkins pointed out that some Clarks retailers were expecting sports shoes to offset any downturn in the sale of more formal footwear.

  ‘We should be able to produce premium products with our 150 years’ shoemaking experience and our expertise in shoemaking in every field,’ he said, before handing over to Dr Vaughan Thomas, a leading sports consultant and director of physical education at Liverpool Polytechnic, who extolled the medical benefits of Clarksport. Many golf shoes in the past had contributed to the onset of arthritic knees, he said, by not allowing for the twist in a player’s swing. Perhaps letting the occasion get to him, Dr Thomas concluded: ‘This is unique in Britain. You are a British company doing this total deal and putting it in the right place – in a specialised shoe shop, with a total back-up behind it.’

  That was the problem. The back-up – in terms of a cohesive strategy supported at the highest level and accompanied by a proper marketing campaign – was in fact never adequately put in place, and bitter wrangles ensued about how best to sell the Clarksport range. Should they be on display in dedicated sports shops? Or should they occupy a corner in Clarks’ traditional outlets, including Peter Lord?

  ‘The research showed that people wanted to buy sports shoes from traditional shoemakers, but no one really backed the idea at board level,’ says Lance Clark, who was himself on the board:

  From the start, there was no real commitment, no desire to invest in it and make it work. Then I made the tactical error of concluding that people would buy them in existing shoe shops rather than sports outlets. The fact is that they did initially, but then they didn’t.

  This is a view largely shared by David Heeley, then manager of the Redgate factory in Bridgwater and the man who earlier had entertained Miss World. Over the course of 40 years at Clarks, he worked in almost every division of the company.

  ‘Clarksport was a real attempt to get into the trainer market, a comprehensive effort,’ says Heeley. He continues:

  But the fundamental mistake was that they were sold in our Peter Lord stores and in key independents rather than in sports shops. They just did not sit comfortably beside more traditional shoes. The other issue was that the board wanted to see a return on the investment within two years, which was impossible. Profit was demanded too soon. The sad thing to remember is that we were ahead of Reebok at one time and some of our sailing shoes were worn by the crew of Ted Heath’s Morning Cloud when they were training for the Fastnet race.

  Clarksport survived only two years before the range was withdrawn.

  ‘We just didn’t think it would come to much,’ says William Johnston, a member of the family with broad experience across the company and a specialist in forward planning.

  I thought we were already too late to get into trainers and the general feeling at a senior level was that they were part of a phase, like blue jeans. They would go away in time. We thought the same thing about credit cards.

  Even forward-planning experts can be caught on the hop, it seems.

  Johnston was the son of Priscilla, Bancroft’s sister and therefore Daniel’s first cousin. He joined the firm in 1962 after coming down from Oxford University and then went to Carnegie Mellon Business School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1974, he was elevated to the main board, and as managing director of Clarks Overseas Shoes Ltd, played a leading role in the purchase of the Hanover Shoe Company, after which, in 1978, he was appointed managing director of C. & J. Clark Retail Ltd.

  ‘The fact is that we were not far-thinking, but you have to remember that some of these things were not blindingly obvious at the time,’ says Johnston. ‘For example, we should have started importing shoes far earlier – we all know that now.’

  There was still an ongoing appetite for trying new ventures, but perhaps at the expense of addressing issues about the core business. For example, Lance Clark and Malcolm Cotton oversaw the introduction of ‘Levi’s for feet’, a canvas casual shoe imported primarily from Korea. In 1977, after many years of negotiation, Clarks obtained a licence from Levi Strauss and Co., based in San Francisco, to sell these shoes on an exclusive basis in Britain and throughout continental Europe, agreeing to pay a 5 per cent royalty on every pair sold. ‘Levi’s for feet’ had been selling successfully in America since 1975 under licence to the Brown Shoe Company, and expectations were high that the same would happen on the other side of the Atlantic. By January 1978, forecasts for estimated sales in Europe were 900,000 pairs. In addition, it was decided to produce a version of ‘Levi’s for feet’ in the Ilminster, Townsend and Shepton Mallet factories, a variant using leather uppers to distinguish them from the all-canvas model. Names for the ‘Levi’s for feet’ range included Chase, Marathon, Dude and Sneak.

  ‘This is a lot of extra business for a lot of people, and for the sake of employment the additional business is worthwhile,’ said Lance, speaking at a Clarks Ltd meeting held in the Wessex Hotel, Street, in December 1977.

  Lance reported how ‘Levi’s for feet’ had got off to such a ‘flying start that at one stage we ran out of shoes’. Sales in Holland and Germany had been strong, getting off quite literally to a flying start when a light aircraft took to the skies in Eindhoven trailing an advertising banner as it circled the city.

  In the UK, there were plans to go nationwide with the range in the spring of 1978. This campaign began with ‘Levi’s for feet’ sponsoring a Southern International speedway event at Wimbledon Stadium in southwest London on 26 April 1978 in celebration of speedway’s 50th anniversary in Britain. There were reports at the time that speedway had become second only to football as a spectator sport, and on the day a crowd of 7,000 headed for Wimbledon, including invited shoe retailers from the Greater London area, who enjoyed a buffet supper in the stadium re
staurant before the twenty-race programme began. Barry Briggs MBE, the acclaimed speedway rider from New Zealand who had won the World Individual Championship four times, was on hand to present the prizes, helped by two Penthouse Pets – centrefold models who had been photographed by Penthouse, the magazine widely regarded as a British equivalent to Playboy.

  John Aram was general manager of the ‘Levi’s for feet’ division. He told the Courier that ‘what we have got is a long-term agreement between the world’s largest maker of casual clothing, including jeans, and Europe’s largest shoemakers’. He said the range would be aimed primarily at men and children, focusing on the 14 to 24 age group.

  Reflecting on the venture, Aram says:

  ‘Levi’s for feet’ survived for nearly ten years. During that time, there was some disquiet about it, with several members of the board concerned that resources and effort were going into building up the Levi’s brand rather than Clarks, but others thought it was a way of gaining momentum, an opportunity to try something different.

  The end for ‘Levi’s for feet’ came in 1987, when the market for trainers and casual shoes suddenly dipped. If you weren’t at the epicentre of the trainer revolution you were in danger of withering at the edges. Clarks asked Levi Strauss if it would reduce the agreed 5 per cent royalty paid on each pair sold to 3 per cent. The US company refused and ‘Levi’s for feet’ was discontinued.

  Speedway, Penthouse Pets and aerial promotions may have had an element of gimmickry about them, but they were in keeping with an enlightened outlook when it came to advertising and brand management. In the 1960s, Hobson & Grey, whose clients included Procter & Gamble and General Foods, had taken over from Notley’s as Clarks’ advertising agency. The agency, which became known simply as Grey, found itself liaising with three different executives at Clarks, one representing children’s shoes, another men’s and a third women’s. The board was aware of this cumbersome chain of command, but it also felt that Grey’s was too old-fashioned, and so decided to invite other agencies to tender for the Clarks account, a process from which Collett Dickenson Pearce (CDP) emerged triumphant in September 1974.

  ‘Levi’s for feet’ were sold by Clarks in Britain and Europe under exclusive licence from Levi Strauss from 1978 to 1987.

  Robert Wallace, Clarks marketing director, who had joined in 1971 from Benton & Bowles, the advertising agency, said in an interview in 2006 that Clarks had been looking for an ‘agency [that] would if necessary get tough with the client … large firms [like Clarks] sometimes need tough handling. We did not want an agency that might reflect our own opinions back to us’.

  Collett Dickenson Pearce was a breeding ground for talent. Among those who cut their creative teeth at the agency were Charles Saatchi, David Putnam, Ridley Scott and Hugh Hudson. CDP was regarded as sharp and known for its clever slogans, such as ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’ and ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’. Suffice it to say that the worlds of Collett Dickenson Pearce and Clarks were markedly different.

  ‘Collett Dickenson Pearce arrived for their first meeting … One was in a Porsche 911, one was in a Maserati Bora and one was in a Ferrari,’ says Philip Thomas, Clarks advertising manager at the time.

  They came in and they looked the part as advertising people. They wanted to make a statement in this sleepy little town, that we’re here to help you as a business and we know what we’re doing. They strutted their stuff but also delivered. That was a key mind-set change for us. We’d gone from the Grey days to Collett Dickenson Pearce.

  Thomas says that Grey’s was in the habit of coming up with four or five creative concepts and ‘you’d be sitting there [thinking] which one do you like, not which one is right. But with Collett Dickenson Pearce they’d come down and present one concept and usually it was bloody good.’

  One of its first press campaigns featured Long John Silver, accompanied by the line ‘There’s Only One Clarks’. A television and cinema advertisement showed children running on a beach as if in Chariots of Fire, to the accompaniment of music similar to that in the film. This ended up being the subject of legal wrangling which eventually led to action in the High Court, where Mr Justice Vinelott banned the ad in April 1983, ruling that it was ‘blatant plagiarism’. On other occasions, some of the advertising became overtly raunchy, such as when, in an ad that showed how Clarks had changed over the years from making strait-laced court shoes to six-inch stilettos, models were seen wearing calf-length négligées for the former, nothing very much at all for the latter.

  One press advertisement had eight women standing in a row. The woman on the far left was wearing a knee-length skirt and conservative shoes, the woman on the far right showed a naked leg and wispy party shoes. ‘We deserve to be on every woman’s black list’ read the caption, referring to a woman’s guilty pleasures or secret desires.

  Another featured four attractive young women in leather boots astride a horse. ‘Black beauty. Also brown beauty, tan beauty and black-and-tan beauty’ read the copy. And just in case consumers still felt Clarks was rooted in a previous century, CDP came up with an advertisement featuring a group of models in silk petticoats and camiknickers kicking their legs in the air as they danced the can-can. ‘Nobody can accuse us of being narrow-minded,’ the copy said.

  Maybe not, but some thought the pendulum had swung too far the other way. ‘Mr Millward, who had twenty or so shops in the South of England, summoned Lance [Clark],’ Robert Wallace recalled many years later.

  So Lance said, ‘This is it, you’d better come and explain yourself,’ so we went to Reading and Lance took out a sketch pad and there was a church outside the window of the meeting room. I got absolutely pilloried by these very religious Millwards people … that it was disgusting and disgraceful and so on. It would encourage pornography and goodness knows what. Lance said not one word and I had to defend it and at the very end they said: ‘Well, Mr Clark, thanks for the meeting, what’s your view?’ And he said: ‘There’s my view,’ and handed over this sketch he’d done of the church. Then we left.

  Clarks also placed a growing emphasis on graphic design, engaging in the mid-1970s the services of Pentagram, one of the country’s most successful design consultancies, to revamp all its shoe boxes, look at its permanent displays in Peter Lord shops and in other outlets selling Clarks, and generally coordinate all point-of-sale communication with consumers.

  The distinctive lettering designed by Pentagram in the 1970s for the width fittings on Clarks shoe boxes.

  ‘We had to improve the whole presentation of the brand, but it wasn’t easy,’ says John McConnell, who was a partner and director of Pentagram.

  Some of those independents were dowdy places that smelled of boiled cabbage. They used to have hardboard signs on the walls and all the stock was hidden behind a curtain or stored downstairs. One of the first things we did was redesign the boxes and then we tried to persuade the shops to have the boxes on display – rather than having a shop assistant go downstairs and return ten minutes later to say she didn’t have what you wanted.

  A new design policy for children’s shoes was a high priority. Any scheme had to look modern but at the same time provide tangible links to the traditional consumer perception of Clarks. Pentagram opted for simple decorative geometric shapes in bright colours, similar to children’s coloured blocks. The Clarks logo became thicker and was shown in bright yellow on a green background. In Living by Design, published in 1978, the Pentagram partners wrote:

  The need to support the product in the retail outlets required the design of hardware, including shoe display units, footstools, mirrors, a tie-your-own-shoelaces device, in fact almost everything except the boundary of the space.

  The Clarks green boxes were smart and authoritative, with the code, style, size and width of the shoes clearly displayed at one end, making it easy for both the shop assistant and the consumer to identify what he or she was looking for. The typeface for the width fitting was chunky,
the letters enclosed in a thick square. C represented extra narrow; D was narrow; E was medium; F was wide; and G was extra wide. According to Pentagram:

  The intention is that the shoe boxes will have the additional purpose of creating a brightly coloured wall in the shop, not only promoting the shoes but also enlivening what was previously one of the least attractive aspects of most shoe shops or departments.

  Clarks understood that children did not consider shoe shopping the most exciting outing of the school holidays, and so part of Pentagram’s brief was to find novel ways of keeping youngsters amused while they had their feet measured and were fussed over by a shop assistant. This led to the introduction in the late 1970s of colourful display panels, moulded in styrene and displayed in bevelled, enamelled frames. Many of these were illustrated by Graham Percy, a New Zealand-born artist who had won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in the 1960s. He produced a series of pictorial puzzles that quietly promoted shoes while aiming to capture children’s attention. One comprised a collage of cartoon characters in which ten pairs of shoes were hidden in the background. ‘Can you find them?’ read the caption. Another encouraged children to match up footprints to a group of animals walking in desert sands.

  Reflecting on those days of branding and advertising, Robert Wallace says his biggest challenge was to make the three divisions of Clarks – children’s, men’s and women’s – ‘look as if they actually belonged to the same company’ and that he had to work hard to persuade each division head (whom he called the ‘barons’) to support the advertisements. He recalls:

  At one point, I realised that our ads were much more fashionable than our shoes ever were, but that was the idea. Lance was determined to bring the company up to date and I was there to help him. We had to set up a clear strategy for the brand and would not deviate from it. Simply put, children’s was all about a true fit; men’s was about hightech comfort and durability, and women’s was to do with comfort and style – but mainly comfort.