L’eggs is one of the few ‘‘new products’’ that has lasted over thirty years, and there are several reasons for this longevity. One of the main reasons is that L’eggs did such an excellent job of marketing when it was launched. The brand equity that was created through excellent positioning and promotion has carried over all these years. Many women still associate L’eggs with the original egg-shaped packaging, which they identify with the time in their lives when they started wearing the product. For these women, there is an emotional connection with the time when they were coming of age, were flooding into the workforce, and had high hopes for the future.
The other reason for L’eggs’s longevity is a determination on the part of L’eggs management to provide a constant solution to women’s problems and to change as conditions change. Over the years, L’eggs has been willing to do what it had to do to continue to bring customers to the L’eggs display and to be a good business partner with its retailers. This vision has resulted in many changes in packaging, distribution, and, importantly, the development of new products.
Maintaining a good partnership with retailers has been a very important part of L’eggs’s continuing success. The sales and distribution portion of the original L’eggs marketing plan, which included consignment and direct store delivery, was continued for twenty years. About ten years ago, however, the needs of retailers began to change. Retailers’ physical distribution systems became highly sophisticated, and they no longer needed direct store delivery. Rather than insisting on continuing to do things the same way, L’eggs had the flexibility to modify the L’eggs distribution plan to conform to the needs of its retailers.
To meet consumers’ needs, L’eggs eventually discontinued the plastic egg-shaped packaging. This was a change that required a lot of thought and emotion, but L’eggs management knew that it would be better for the environment. The symbol of the egg shape was maintained on most of the L’eggs packaging, but the package itself was changed to a more environmentfriendly material. The consumer understood. There is still a lot of affection for the original egg-shaped packaging, however, and to many L’eggs will always be connected to the egg.
Category management and in-line displays have replaced the original freestanding L’eggs towers to meet the changing needs of retailers and the growth of the L’eggs brand. Over the past thirty years, the L’eggs brand has grown to include many different subbrands. The number of products has also increased substantially, and large in-line displays had to be developed to hold them. In addition, supermarkets, drugstores, and mass merchants required help in managing the large variety of hosiery business that L’eggs brought to their stores. L’eggs responded by developing a sophisticated category management system for these retailers.