The holiday season looms near, and what better time to think of one of the ultimate gift destinations, Tiffany (NYSE:TIF)? When it comes to branding, Tiffany's is top drawer -- just think of that eloquent blue box that surely shows up under many a tree. That's why the contents of its holiday catalog this year startled me.
My roommate and I both tend to get Tiffany catalogs at a rather frequent rate, despite the fact that neither she nor I really have the budget for, say, the Tiffany Jazz diamond drop pendant with earrings to match (er, $2,450 and $4,500 respectively, youch!). However, we do enjoy paging through and occasionally coveting some of the silver jewelry that's generally more within a price range that doesn't make one laugh, hyperventilate, or feel queasy.
This year, though, my roommate was appalled to note that there seemed to be a glut of items that not only said "Tiffany" in the metaphorical sense -- they literallysaid "Tiffany." The conversation began when she showed me a page of jewelry featuring titanium that she thought would be cool "if it didn't have that on it."
Okay, I'm sure you're wondering what "that" is. Although I know that the "Return to Tiffany" line has been around for quite some time, it seems that Tiffany has added a whole new, rather expansive collection of items called the 1837 Collection. They feature "T & Co." on each and every item -- and that's everything from pendants to bracelets to rings to earrings to cufflinks. (I contacted Tiffany's customer service to ask if perhaps these items could be monogrammed or were available without T & Co., but no, these come as-is.)
The prevalence of the collection in the catalog jumped out at us -- out of 207 total items, about a quarter of them bore the Tiffany name in one shape or form (not counting watches), and 17 pages out of a total of 52 featured these items (that's one out of every three pages).
Now, granted, Tiffany does have a great, aspirational brand, but I have to wonder if many women would rather not have the name splashed all over their jewelry. Personally -- and maybe my roommate and I are just snarky -- the whole thing reminded us of our high school days, when the girls just had to wear items that proclaimed status brands in obvious ways -- LeSportsac bags, Guess (NYSE:GES) jeans, or Benetton tops.
To my way of thinking, Tiffany doesn't need to make its customers into walking, talking ads. Or does it? I know that the company still posts solid results -- Fool contributor Stephen Simpson covered them recently -- but it's got lots of rivals that want a piece of its action, like Blue Nile (NASDAQ:NILE), RedEnvelope (NASDAQ:REDE), and even Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) (read all about Wal-Mart's recent foray into high-priced engagement rings here).
In Tiffany's last conference call, the 1837 Collection as noted above was described as a new collection, but one that had been doing well on a preliminary basis. Sure, lots of people will want to visibly proclaim that they're draped with baubles from Tiffany -- but something about the sheer amount of items in this collection made me wonder if Tiffany is losing its way, just a little bit. The power of Tiffany is wrapped up in that blue box -- one might think it doesn't need such a glut of brand awareness.
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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.
