Many point to Drexler as “The Merchant Prince.” However, his
impact on business was greater than that. Drexler recognized that
while television could broadcast a brand’s message, physical stores
could go much further. They gave customers a place to step into the
brand, to smell it and touch it. The store, Drexler decided, is where he
would build brand equity. So, while Gap’s key rival, Levi’s, continued
to create the best TV commercials, Drexler built the best stores.
The result? From 1997 to 2005 The Gap more than tripled in
revenue, from $6.5 billion to $16.0 billion, while Levi Strauss & Co.
sank from $6.9 billion to $4.1 billion.^26 ,^27 ,^28 ,^29 Brand building moved
from the airwaves to the physical world, and Levi’s got caught flat-
footed. I believe the world would be a better place had LS&Co.
registered Apple-like success, as the Haas family (who own LS&Co.) is
what you hope all business owners would be: modest, committed to
the community, and generous.
Steve Jobs brought Drexler onto Apple’s board of directors in
1999, soon after his return to Apple—and two years later Apple
launched its first brick-and-mortar store in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia.^30
Apple’s stores were glitzier than Gap stores. Most experts yawned.
Brick and mortar, they said, was the past. The internet was the future.
As if Steve Jobs, of all people, didn’t understand that.
It’s difficult to remember now, but when Apple made that move
back then, most people figured the company was wrong; that Apple
was a company lurching toward irrelevance; and that by opening fancy
stores it was positioning itself for luxury with the equivalent of a
walker. How dumb was that, they thought. Couldn’t Apple see that the
tech market now revolved around commodity boxes powered by
Microsoft and Intel? That the boom was in e-commerce?