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Whose Brand Is It, Anyway?

 
DOLLARS AND SCENTS: Jennifer Lopez and Terri Williamson are in litigation over the word Glow. Both sides have years of effort and millions of dollars at stake.

 

The success of the strategy got Andy Hilfiger to thinking. Instead of getting a star to promote a product, he wondered, why not have the star launch the product? The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the time was ripe to start a sort of clearing-house for celebrities who wanted to build their own fashion companies. He felt ready to go out on his own, and his brother promised to help. In February 2001, Hilfiger and his partner, Joe Lamastra, launched MEFI (for Music Entertainment Fashion Inc.). The first celebrity they went after was Jennifer Lopez.

Hilfiger had known Lopez's manager, Benny Medina, for many years, and he was aware that Medina and Lopez were interested in doing a clothing line. It was, of course, a natural. An explosive success in music and film with broad crossover appeal, the then-30-year-old J.Lo would soon be starring in movies like The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan, and getting $12 million a picture. Her first album had gone five times platinum, and her next two debuted at No. 1 on the pop charts. At the same time, she'd become a femme fatale of fashion, setting the standard for provocative dressing at the Grammy and the Academy Awards ceremonies. Hilfiger, Medina, and Lopez started talking, and in April 2001 announced the formation of Sweetface Fashion Co., LLC, a partnership between Lopez and MEFI.

Sweetface was to be the vehicle for creating -- or licensing others to create -- a full range of fashion products that would allow Lopez's Gen-Y fans to emulate her style. There would be sportswear, eyewear, swimwear, intimate wear, just about every kind of wear. What would tie everything together would be the brand: J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez. "It has huge potential," Kal Ruttenstein, Bloomingdale's senior vice president for fashion direction, gushed to Women's Wear Daily. "Jennifer Lopez has an image that is perfect for fashion right now." Other people had the same reaction. "Our phones rang off the hook," says Hilfiger.

In March 2002, Sweetface signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the Lancaster Group, the prestige division of the giant perfume and beauty company Coty Inc., to develop and market fragrances and cosmetics under the J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez brand. The accompanying press release noted that the line would be launched in the fall of 2002 -- less than six months later. Normally, it takes 18 months to bring a new fragrance to market, but Lancaster and Sweetface both wanted it on the market in time for the holiday season, while Jennifer Lopez's star was still white-hot.

On June 27, Lancaster and Lopez threw a lavish party to launch the new fragrance at the Trump World Tower in Manhattan. Beauty magazine editors flew in from around the world to join the festivities in a private apartment on the 90th floor, overlooking the East River. Donald Trump joined Lopez and Coty CEO Bernd Beetz in greeting the 200 guests, who were treated to a sumptuous feast and each given a bottle of the new fragrance. To top it all off, a fireworks display launched from a barge on the river spelled out the name of the fragrance in glittering letters. That name was Glow.

"Are You Working With Jennifer Lopez?"

just six days earlier, oblivious to the fireworks to come, Terri Williamson had slipped into the San Miguel Room of the Albuquerque Convention Center. A breakout session on branding was already under way, and she didn't want to interrupt the speaker, a well-known expert on the subject. About 75 people were seated at round tables, listening attentively. Williamson settled into a chair in the middle of the room, pulled a pad of paper from her briefcase, and began taking notes.

In court, says Williamson, "They depicted me as a little mom-and-pop while they're holding up a product of mine they'd bought in New York. I thought, 'How can they say that if they know it's not true?' "

 

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    • Bo Burlingham

    Burlingham joined Inc. in 1983. An editor at large, he is the author of Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. The book was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2006. Burlingham is also the co-author with Norm Brodsky of The Knack; and the co-author with Jack Stack of The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome.


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