Excerpt from the book… via coolhunter, gotta love the web:
If ever a company existed on faith, it is the upmarket Italian homewares manufacturer Alessi. It freely admits there is no practical reason to buy its products, unless you really need the world’s most beautiful flyswatter. Its designs are usually far more expensive than competitors that perform the same task. And sometimes they don’t even do what they are supposed to, such as the kettle that burns your hand when you lift it off the stove. When
that happens, Alessi does not cringe—instead, it celebrates. “I think it is essential for Alessi to have at least one fiasco every year,†managing director Alberto Alessi often says. And the people who bought the failure are expected to understand.
If Alessi was a major car manufacturer, it would most likely have gone out of business a long time ago, chastised by consumer researcher JD Power along the way. But when somebody buys an Alessi lemon squeezer, they are not primarily interested in how well it extracts juice from a lemon. They are buying a little piece of what Alessi is about—and its contrary attitude to business is part of its appeal.
How did the company find itself in such a privileged position? Alessi started life in 1921 as one of many metalwork businesses in the village of Omegna in the Italian Alps. Its founder, Giovanni Alessi, found a niche supplying high-quality equipment to commercial kitchens and hotels: salt-and-pepper stands, fruit bowls, bread baskets. During the second World War, Alessi produced insignia for uniforms and airplane parts, then, in the aftermath of hostilities, an enormous number of brass ladles for the U.S. Army. By the 1960s, Alessi’s stainless steel products were found in cafés throughout Italy, but nobody would think to remark on them. In 1970, Giovanni’s grandson Alberto came to the factory. He had just finished a law degree, but that was only because his father had refused to let him study architecture—and he resolved to inject some of his passion for modern design into the staid family business. He writes on the company website of his desire to produce
“multiplied art†for the masses. From the outset, he felt he had to call on outside expertise, an idea that is at the heart of the company’s success today. His first attempts at hiring designer flair, which included commissioning
Salvador Dali for a series of pressed steel artworks, were commercial flops. So Alberto, who took over management of the company with his two brothers in 1979, toned down his vision slightly, seeking instead to revitalize everyday homewares. “There is no reason to design another tray or teapot, but the search for perfection is what spurs people on to keep trying,†he says. In the early 1980s, Alessi commissioned eleven architects to sketch their own versions of a tea and coffee service, drawing on the principles of architecture. It was another expensive folly for Alberto but in 1983 Alessi had some success with its first designer kettle,
Richard Sapper’s Kettle with a Singing Whistle. Then Alessi commissioned architect Michael Graves, one of the tea-set designers, to try a kettle, too.
The result was a seminal piece for Alessi, a stainless-steel cone with rivet-shaped bumps around its base and a cute plastic bird at its spout that whistled when the water boiled. With the 1980s fascination with all things “designer†now spreading to the kitchen, too, the Kettle with a Bird-Shaped Whistle became an inspirational
must-have, and Alessi went on to sell over a million such kettles. Alessi’s expanding range of designer kettles, minimalist trays, clocks, and ashtrays were now on every young professional’s wedding list—and in serious danger of becoming a one-hit wonder. Alessi’s stainless steel products were found in cafés throughout Italy, but nobody would think to remark on them. In 1970, Giovanni’s grandson Alberto came to the factory. He had just finished a law degree, but that was only because his father had refused to let him study architecture—and he resolved to inject some of his passion for modern design into the staid family business. He writes on the company website of his desire to produce “multiplied art†for the masses.
From the outset, he felt he had to call on outside expertise, an idea that is at the heart of the company’s success today. His first attempts at hiring designer flair, which included commissioning Salvador Dali for a series of pressed steel artworks, were commercial flops. So Alberto, who took over management of the company with his two brothers in 1979, toned down his vision slightly, seeking instead to revitalize everyday homewares. “There is no reason to design another tray or teapot, but the search for perfection is what spurs people on to keep trying,†he says. In the early 1980s, Alessi commissioned eleven architects to sketch their own versions of a tea and coffee service, drawing on the principles of architecture. It was another expensive folly for Alberto but in 1983 Alessi had some success with its first designer kettle, Richard Sapper’s Kettle with a Singing Whistle. Then Alessi commissioned architect Michael Graves, one of the tea-set designers, to try a kettle, too.
The result was a seminal piece for Alessi, a stainless-steel cone with rivet-shaped bumps around its base and a cute plastic bird at its spout that whistled when the water boiled. With the 1980s fascination with all things “designer†now spreading to the kitchen, too, the Kettle with a Bird-Shaped Whistle became an inspirational
must-have, and Alessi went on to sell over a million such kettles. Alessi’s expanding range of designer kettles, minimalist trays, clocks, and ashtrays were now on every young professional’s wedding list—and in serious danger of becoming a one-hit wonder. Alessi’s response was to reestablish the brand as a risk-taking leader in design, not just as a manufacturer of luxury goods. It continued to experiment through premier designers such as Philippe Starck, whose lemon squeezer, 1990’s Juicy Salif, looked like a stainless-steel spider from outer space. It sold millions.
Starck’s attempt at a kettle, the Hot Bertaa, was just as sensational, but for the wrong reasons: to look as amazing as it did—basically a cone with a shaft that was both a handle and a spout—it had to have complicated innards to channel the steam properly. But in practice it sputtered out boiling water when you tried to pour yourself a cup. Alberto Alessi called it one of the most important flops of the decade. “The kettle was much criticized,†Alessi said in 2001, “but it was never a stupid project. I like fiascos because they are the only moment when there is a flash of light that can help you see where the border between success and failure is. It is a precious experience in the development of new projects.†In the early 1990s, Alessi opened its doors to young designers, soliciting proposals (it receives several hundred a year) and tip-offs on new talent from established names. It also diversified into plastic products that emphasized quirkiness and fun, and were much
cheaper than the stainless-steel lines, much to the chagrin of longtime Alessi fans. Nutcrackers shaped like squirrels, bottle-openers with grinning cat’s teeth, and flyswatters: designer chic for the mainstream. “Even in the area of ordinary household products, people require some art and poetry to add to their lives,†says Alessi.
Alessi now has revenues estimated at $100 million and a catalogue of two thousand-odd products, adding three hundred and dropping eighty each year. Flexibility on the production line means a design can be profitable in runs of two thousand. The plastic range has helped Alessi to double its turnover every five years since the 1980s; Alessandro Mendini’s 1994 Anna G corkscrew—with womanly arms and a smiling face—sold close to a million units in eight years. Alessi has also collaborated with other companies to produce, among other things, a range of bathroom fittings, watches, and electrical appliances. Thanks in part to Alessi’s success, though, every other manufacturer of homewares has realized the importance of aesthetics. The
discount retailer Target brought this home when it commissioned Michael Graves to design, as part of a range of homewares, a kettle that looked a lot like his Alessi model but retailed for $30. It was a cheeky move, but Target was forgetting something: who went to Target to buy a kettle they didn’t really need? By Emily Ross & Angus Holland – exclusive extract from 100 Great Businesses & the minds behind them. Buy online
http://www.thecoolhunter.net/books/100-GREAT-BUSINESSES-AND-THE-MINDS-BEHIND-THEM/
