In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies—such as inability to scale and lack of competitive differentiation—by relying on their previous experience running a successful branding and marketing agency. Rather than focusing on a single brand, they conceived Pattern as a “DTC 2.0” model—a portfolio of 5 to 10 brands that shared a common theme of activities related to the home and a common mission of helping millennials enjoy daily life.
Since its founding in August 2019, Pattern had launched cookware brand Equal Parts and home organization brand Open Spaces. Although Pattern’s team still believed strongly in the benefits of a multi-brand strategy, Open Spaces’ sales and unit economics had significantly outperformed Equal Parts’ to date. Pattern’s leadership wanted to build on Open Spaces’ early momentum with new product colors and product lines, but they debated whether to act on the results of a recent customer survey indicating a positive response to an Equal Parts product redesign (Gupta, Ofek, & Kelley, 2021, p. 1).
Given that approach, here are Ling and Sine’s questions to consider that may help your analysis. These questions are to help with analysis and SHOULD NOT BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY in your paper.
Ling and Shine now had several decisions to consider.
How should they allocate resources between repositioning Equal Parts and continuing to grow Open Spaces?
How and when should they continue building Pattern’s portfolio by developing a third brand?
How much should they invest in marketing parent brand Pattern?
More broadly, did Pattern’s model represent the future of DTC brands?
These questions are intended to help inform your conclusion, make your case, and frame your action plan. You should not answer them directly in your assignment, but they may help as you work on the case. Use the evidence in the case to provide support for your recommendation.
Paper Outline to follow:
I. Overview of the case & define the problem (s)
II. Briefly state final recommendation with reasoning (just an overview as you will go in depth in sections III & IV)
III. Analyze 3 potential options to address the problem (include qualitative and quantitative decision tools & data – SWOT, Pricing Models, etcs.)
IV. State the chosen recommendation (discuss why this is the best action & what are the risks – discuss why it is still the best option) with action plan (short, medium & long term goals)
