David Lauren(progeny of Ralph) has been busting hump since leaving Duke University in 1993. After college he founded Swing
, a lifestyle magazine for twentysomethings. In 2002 - after the magazine folded - he went to work with Dad as a creative director and marketing VP, launching polo.com. Now David oversees advertising, marketing, and PR for the $10 billion Lauren empire. We caught up with him over the course of a month, between meetings, runways, and roadways.
Day 1, 4:34 p.m.
"I'm in my office answering e-mails regarding all the meetings I had today. One of them was about the G.I.V.E. jean - that's an acronym for Get Involved. Volunteer. Exceed. - we created for Polo Jeans. We're featuring real volunteers in the ad campaign, and we're going to give a percentage of jean sales to their organizations. We're hoping to raise half a million dollars in the next couple of months."
Day 10, 5:01 p.m.
"I've just spent three days driving some Corvettes at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix. They had me doing over 100 mph on some pretty tight turns. But it's not as much about speed as control, so I was working on cornering, turning, spinning - that kind of stuff. Every so often I'd pull into the pit and get some feedback. It builds a real sense of self-awareness, confidence, and competitiveness that's invigorating. But I haven't tried it out on the Long Island Expressway yet, because I don't own a car. Hey, I live in New York, where nobody has a car."
Day 11, 10:53 a.m.
"Right now I'm at the New York fashion show, backstage in the hair and makeup area. We're showing the Spring 2004 collection, our high-end women's line. Dresses here can go for many thousands of dollars. We just had a show for the fashion editors - Anna Wintour of Vogue is here, Time magazine, Harper's Bazaar, people from all over the world - and we have another coming up in 10 minutes. When you're at the show you never know how something will actually go over. Sometimes fashion editors come up to you and gush that it was the greatest show, but then they don't give it the press they should when the merchandise hits the stores."
Day 17, 1:32 p.m.
"I've spent the last week in the office discussing how best to advertise and market the Spring collection. After a show, people think things get easy, but that's when we go into high gear. Just this week we launched an online women's fashion magazine, runway.polo.com, that shows the hot trends on the runway. It's gotten a lot of buzz from people who love Ralph Lauren. At the same time, Ralph launched a new home collection - and just as we did for the fashion show, we created rlhome.polo.com to market it online."
Day 22, 9:37 a.m.
"We just finished a meeting about a new magazine we're planning to launch this year. I've hired an editor-in-chief and an art director, and we're hoping to put together a test issue by next summer, then talk to potential publishing partners.
All these ventures reflect a lot of what I did when I was in the magazine business - telling stories and coming up with concepts that reach consumers in different ways. When we're creating ads, we look at them as creating stories. People look at our ads and say, 'I love that dog, I love that car, where did you get them?' They want more information on the lifestyles we bring to life."
Day 26, 4:33 p.m.
"Sometimes I sit in my office and think, 'I'm in a great job, at the front of image marketing and creating one of the world's strongest brands.' What I love most is that Polo is always open to new ideas. That's the most exciting thing. The hardest part is prioritizing that. You have to say, 'Where's the money? Where's the talent? How is this going to get done?' "
Day 31, 2:57 p.m.
"Having a well-known father is exciting, but it's also a big shadow. I was very apprehensive about coming to work at Polo. Having grown up close to him, I wanted to make my own mark. The dot-com offered an opportunity to work with him, but not directly under him - a chance to spread my wings."
