A runny mouth and a child who refuses to eat ice cream – we learned from Sandra Rosenfelder what this has to do with brands. As brand manager at Kastner & Öhler, “Austria’s most beautiful fashion house”, she works every day to make sure that the brand of one of Austria’s largest fashion suppliers can be experienced at all points of contact.
Sandra Rosenfelder, thank you very much for being with us today! We are going to start as usual: What was your favourite brand during your childhood and what is it today?
After the fact that the brand Twinni was already mentioned in this blog, I decided to go for the umbrella brand. For me when I was a child, Eskimo was THE synonym for ice cream (I was also an admitted Twinni fan… ;-)) I can still remember the eternal duel between Eskimo and Schöller very well – if a local hotel could “only” offer Schöller, I immediately lost interest, and I actually refused the ice cream. And now? There are many… But one stands out from the rest because of a particularly long-lasting relationship: Max Mara. I simply love the Italian style and also the quality of the brand. Many pieces have been with me for many years!
In your opinion, what methods work best to win over your own employees for the brand?
Talk about it, talk about it and talk about it over and over again. No, talking alone is by no means enough. Above all, you have to make the brand theme livable and tangible for each individual. But what I mean by the mantra-like introduction: you simply shouldn’t stop talking about it! Even if you can no longer listen to yourself and think that everybody else is thinking the same thing – from my own experience, I know that this is not the case! You could also say: out of sight out of mind…
In which areas of the company do you see as the greatest challenge to motivate employees when it comes to the subject of brands?
In my opinion, it is rather difficult in the divisions that are further away from the core competence of the brand. As a lifestyle company, it is relatively easy to get colleagues from marketing or sales excited about the brand. It’s a bit more difficult in fields like logistics or IT. Here, the main focus lies on other topics. Only when you break down the topic of branding to the different areas of each employee’s work, and bring them out of anonymity with concrete examples, can you really engage with the topic.
Just suppose – if you did not work for Kastner & Öhler, which brand could win over your heart?
There is no brand that comes to mind spontaneously. It would probably have to be something from a different area – but in every case, it would have to be a brand that touches me and that has values and beliefs that I would be willing to ignite my passion for.
What role does digitalization currently play in the brand sector? And how do you see this developing in the future?
Digitalization plays a very decisive role for the topic brand! In recent weeks and months, I think we have all experienced what we thought was impossible not so long ago. The shutdown and the resulting problems have given the topic of digitalization an incredible power and given it an extreme acceleration. Even though it will not immediately continue at this high rate, a decline during ” pre-Corona” times is unthinkable for me. That is why each and every one of us is called upon to put the brand in a top digital position and to be present for customers in this world in an adequate form.
