Member-only story
Have you ever heard the story of Toughskins Jeans, made by Sears? If you go back in time to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the jeans market was dominated by Levi’s 501 jeans.
Sears wasn’t doing too well in the jeans market competing against Levi’s, so they talked to their customers and discovered that durability was the most important factor in jeans selection for moms. Sears, armed with this knowledge, developed a jean that was indestructible, the Toughskins Jean.
You need to know your customers in order to be different.
Toughskins jeans were everything that Levi’s 501 jeans weren’t. Toughskins were made out a combination of, get this, Dacron Type 59 polyester, DuPont 420 nylon, and cotton.
The audience that Sears was targeting certainly wasn’t kids. My brother and I wanted to wear good old cotton Levi’s.
However, my mom was swayed by Sears’ lifetime guarantee for Toughskins. So, every year, I got my brother’s hand me down Toughskins, and he got a new pair.
The jeans were stiff as a board. I hated these jeans with a passion. They are ugly, and they didn’t look like the jeans that the other kids wore.
None of that mattered to my mom. She loved a bargain. But I wasn’t the audience…
