Staff at Chic New York Hotels and Restaurants Outfitted in Lacoste

Like other companies, Lacoste sponsors professional athletes, including tennis star Andy Roddick (the company is reportedly paying Roddick more than $5 million annually to wear the brand while competing.) But in a twist, the brand also recently began outfitting non-celebrities, including the wait staff, bus boys and valets at the Hamptons location of Nobu — the upscale Japanese restaurant chain co-owned by Robert De Niro — in clothing featuring the Lacoste logo, an open-jawed crocodile.

“As a consumer, you’re sitting there and Lacoste is all around you,” said Charlie Walk, a partner at RJW Collective, a marketing agency based in Manhattan that works with Lacoste. “But it’s not in your face screaming to you that there’s a branded moment here in the middle of your meal — it’s an elegantly disruptive activation.”

Employees at the Soho House and two Hotel Gansevoort locations — all in Manhattan — also are wearing clothing provided free by Lacoste. Outfitting concierges and waiters is representative of a broader effort to reinvigorate Lacoste, which some may associate with a bygone preppy era.

“It’s an iconic brand with a ton of history, but in the last few years I think it lost touch with the next generation,” said Mr. Walk. “It felt kind of stagnant — you respected the croc but you weren’t really sure who it was touching, how it was connecting with you.”

Source:  NY Times

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