Case Analysis on:

LA Maison Simons: The Bra backlash

On September 17, 2018, Peter Simons, chief executive officer and president of La Maison Simons, announced that he recently had a phone call with Beverley McLachlin, Canada's former chief justice of the Supreme Courtthe longest serving and the first woman in that position.² She was upset with the company's marketing campaign, which featured a bra named after her, called the "Beverley bralette."³ She wanted Simons to apologize for inappropriately using her name and reputation without her knowledge or consent.⁴

Earlier in the month, La Maison Simons had launched the marketing campaign for a new line of bras that featured the first names of iconic Canadian women and used brief taglines describing the lives and legacies of these women, each written next to a photo of a young model wearing the bra. The campaign was meant to honour women who had made historical contributions to Canada. However, some customers considered that the focus on the bras instead sexualized and objectified women.⁵

As president of the company, Simons had allowed the release of the marketing campaign for the women's lingerie line.⁶ Shortly thereafter, Simons found himself apologizing for the marketing campaign that he described to be "in poor taste" and "inappropriate."⁷ Had, Simons forever tarnished the esteemed brand his family had worked so hard to build over the past 178 years? What, if anything, had he learned from this experience, and what should he do in the short and long term, moving forward, to restore the company's brand name?

LA MAISON SIMONS

La Maison Simons had been a family-run business since the opening of its first store in 1840 in Quebec City. In its infancy, La Maison Simons had focused on selling dry goods and various imported wares, such as clothing, accessories, novelties, and home furnishings from Europe. The founder, John Simons, made over 70 Atlantic crossings to Europe in order to find the best quality merchandise.⁸

After the 1960s, La Maison Simons focused on creating exclusive fashion brands. Twik, often considered the trendiest exclusive house brand, targeted value-conscious young women aged 16 to 25 who might otherwise shop at H&M.⁹ La Contemporaine was another popular fashion brand, this one for busy, career- oriented women aged 30 to 40. These two brands offered a variety of clothing and fashion accessories, including items such as jackets and blazers, jeans, blouses, skirts, lingerie, shoes, handbags, and coats.¹⁰

Another exclusive house brand, Le 31, offered "sophisticated and avant-garde styles" for men of all ages. The brand included items such as sportswear, jeans, coats, T-shirts, cardigans, polos, shirts, and suits. La Maison Simons also developed a housewares line, known as Simons Maison (formerly La Lingre [The Laundry]), which featured trendy home dcor and accessories for the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The line included duvet covers and comforters, bath towels, tablecloths, rugs, furniture, lighting, artwork, and furnishings.

From 1980 to 2002, La Maison Simons expanded throughout Quebec and opened five additional stores, each featuring an iconic faade and beautiful architecture. In 2010, La Maison Simons entered the digital age and began e-commerce operations across Canada. In 2012, La Maison Simons opened its seventh storethe first outside of Quebecin the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, at a cost of nearly CA$50 million.¹² The store's success in Edmonton helped La Maison Simons become sought after as an anchor tenant at major malls in cities across Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, and Toronto.¹³ As of 2019, La Maison Simons had 15 stores throughout Canada.¹⁴

In 2018, La Maison Simons was the 12th largest retailer in Canada, with $500 million in total sales.¹⁵ Of its total sales, $100 million came from e-commerce,¹⁶ making La Maison Simons the 15th largest apparel e-commerce retailer in Canada.¹⁷ In 2018, La Maison Simons accepted outside investment for the first time as part of its effort to open a new distribution centre in Quebec, which would double the store's e-commerce capacity.¹⁸ La Maison Simons had over 2,500 employees across Canada and 50 buyers "constantly travelling the world" to bring the trendiest fashions to Canada.¹⁹

Over the years, La Maison Simons had become well known for its emphasis on quality merchandise, exclusive brands, and attentive service. The company had become a popular fashion retailer with a distinguished history that resonated with Canadian consumers.²⁰ Simons explained what made La Maison Simons so special:

Fashion has been our passion since 1840! A uniquely different and inspiring fashion retailer, we are known for offering the most sought-after styles and looks from the world's design capitals and providing a level of service available nowhere else. For five generations, we have been renowned for our devotion to customer care. Today, our more than [a] dozen stores are a dazzling tribute to architecture, art, attentive service, and to a shopping experience second to none.²¹

PETER D. SIMONS

Simons was born in Quebec City in 1964 and graduated from the Honors Business Administration program at the Ivey Business School at Western University in 1986. After completing his degree, Simons began his career working for his family's retail fashion business, La Maison Simons. He worked his way up the corporate ladder until he eventually took over La Maison Simons, with his brother, and became president in 1996. Richard and Peter Simons became the fifth generation of the Simons family to run the store. As company president, Peter Simons was in charge of all expansion and construction projects and oversaw day-to-day operations of the company.²²

The organizing body for a major annual leadership forum in Montreal, the Canadian Club, provided a biography of Peter Simons, which stated, in part,

Peter is a man of action and unbridled interests who lives life with a capital L. His positive energy and inquiring mind serve him well in meeting the ever-changing needs and interests of shoppers.

He believes the company must take things one step at a time, building recognition and skills along the way. His main motivations are strength of character, hard work, tangible results, and clear goals and strategies. He puts his trust in talent and forward thinking to do more and do better. He has a flair for finding and surrounding himself with talented people and for valuing the work they do. He firmly believes that the past and present hold the keys to the future, and that success is a measure of the effort you put into achieving it.²³

Simons was a self-described art and architecture junkie. He made sure that every La Maison Simons store was uniquely designed and that it incorporated art installations and iconic architectural elements.²⁴ Simons' enthusiasm for art and his proud Quebec roots led him to donate a special fountain to Quebec City for the city's 400th anniversary in 2007.²⁵ The $4 million fountain, imported from France and known as the Fontaine de Tourny, was installed in front of the National Assembly of Quebec.²⁶ Its 43 jets and seven- metre height quickly made the fountain a major tourist attraction.²⁷ The following year, Simons was recognized as a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.²⁸

Simons's personal mission was to "perpetuate a strong family culture while meeting today's challenges and remaining mindful of both the environment and technology."²⁹ He valued courage, creativity, empathy, humanity, and accountability in everyday life, and these dimensions of leadership had become deeply intertwined with La Maison Simons's brand. His objective was always to build a quality organization that served multiple stakeholders: outside investors, employees, suppliers, and the community.³⁰

BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN

McLachlin was born in a small town in Alberta in 1943.³¹ She received her law degree from the University of Alberta in 1968 and was called to the Bar of Alberta in 1969 and of British Columbia in 1971.³² She became a tenured professor at the University of British Columbia, and in 1981, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. In 1985, she was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and four years later, she was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2000, she was officially made chief justice of Canada, on the advice of Prime Minister Jean Chrtien; she was Canada's longest-serving chief justice, serving in the position until 2017.³³ As of 2020, McLachlin was still the first and only woman in Canadian history to lead the Supreme Court of Canada.³⁴

Throughout her career, McLachlin participated in 2,094 Supreme Court of Canada judgments and wrote 442 of these. She was known as a pioneer for embracing diversity and was recognized for her leadership in Canada.³⁵ Mark Vandenbosch, then dean of Ivey Business School, stated,

Beverley is a role model in many ways. She continually broke barriers and challenged the status quo. Her forward-thinking rulings paved the way for new thinking about issues such as same-sex marriages and Indigenous rights. She challenges us to think beyond the situation at hand to the possibilities that lie ahead.³⁶

Gerard Seijts, executive director of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership at the Ivey Business School, further explained:

Our Institute has been fortunate in that all of the past honorees and speakers for the Thomas d'Aquino Lecture on Leadership are exemplars of character in leadership and Beverley is no exception: her courage, humanity, integrity and drive has, and continues to be, an example to us all. She is a much needed role model for all Canadians but in particular, and at this moment in time,

for boys and men. It is an instinctive leap to understand how she is a role model for girls and women. There is a wise and powerful expression: You can't be it, if you can't see it. This expression refers to the importance of girls and women seeing other women who have shown fierce independence, broken barriers and blazed trails. Women like Beverley allow girls to imagine themselves inhabiting any position or profession as due course within their careers, rather than an exception to the rule. However, if we are honest, in many respects, power has and still does reside with men, especially white men. Role models like Beverley serve to normalize women in roles of authority and rank, to equalize women within senior roles in the workplace, and for men to view women in positions of power as natural and, in fact, welcome.³⁷

McLachlin was a Canadian trailblazer who was revered for her courage, humanity, integrity, and drive as she helped set in place legal architecture and uphold constitutional rights for many under-represented minorities in Canada.³⁸ In 2014, her courage, drive, and humanity led her to famously stand her ground in a public dispute with the prime minister of Canada. In 2017, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed McLachlin and explored her legacy and leadership and the ways the Supreme Court of Canada had changed under her direction.³⁹ Her unwavering dedication to helping Canadians was seen in her work and personal life and further exemplified by her appearance at work right after the death of her first husband.⁴⁰

In June 2018, McLachlin was appointed to the Order of Canada. She received more than 35 honorary degrees from universities in Canada and abroad throughout her career. She also sat as a justice of Singapore's International Commercial Court and the Hong Kong Final Court of Appeal.⁴¹

THE BRA BACKLASH

La Maison Simons had always been an innovative, patriotic Canadian company. The marketing team at La Maison Simons was looking for inspiration for its new lingerie line and thought, "Why don't we look towards inspiring Canadian women that we respect and admire?"⁴² The idea was favourably received by the team and enthusiastically supported by Peter Simons. In fact, there was a long tradition of naming bras in the bra industry; many companies did it.⁴³

After several months of research and planning, on September 6, 2018, La Maison Simons released a new line of brassieres, using language like "strength and femininity" in marketing them and linking them by name to historic Canadian women who had inspired the company's writing and marketing teams.⁴⁴ Among the bras, the Elsie was named after aeronautical engineer Elsie MacGill; the Clara was named after trailblazing lawyer Clara Brett Martin; the Nellie wireless bra was named after politician and activist Nellie McClung; and the Beverley bralette was named after the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin.

Within hours of the release of the campaign, La Maison Simons's social media feed erupted with comments from angry users. One user wrote that the ads indeed had a message: "Next time you're facing a strong, competent woman, just think of how adorable she looks undressed."⁴⁵

A frequent shopper at La Maison Simons, Lysanne Larose, wrote a formal complaint letter to the company: "These are women who fought to have women recognized as human beings, who reached the highest level of the courts and in their fields, and we reduce them to seductive, cheeky underwear. . . . Let's erect monuments to these women, not a line of bras."⁴⁶

According to a story in the Montreal Gazette, La Maison Simons responded to Larose within several hours, saying that "the campaign was 'entirely developed and approved by women of all ages and every horizon' and was intended to highlight pioneering women. 'Our intention through this campaign is rather to demonstrate the force and character of women from yesterday, today and tomorrow.'"⁴⁷

Another shopper questioned, "How has the Simons brand disrespected women?" Others stated that the campaign ". . . at least cast light on these women and their accomplishments" and that the marketing campaign was not a complete failure.⁴⁸

La Maison Simons's response indicated that the company had expected to get a reaction and that it had received both positive and negative comments from shoppers. However, as major news companies began reporting the story, La Maison Simons decided to remove the historic taglines from the names of each bra in an attempt to remove the association of the bras with Canadian trailblazers.⁴⁹

Within several days of the controversial launch, McLachlin called Simons because she was "quite upset" about the marketing campaign he had approved, which used her name and reputation inappropriately and without her consent. McLachlin sought an apology for the use of the name "Beverley bralette" and the tagline underneath that identified her. She also asked La Maison Simons to become involved with a fundraising campaign for a women's emergency shelter organization in Ottawa.⁵⁰

Simons admitted that before speaking with McLachlin, he had realized that La Maison Simons had made a mistake in creating and releasing the marketing campaign. "The process of realization had already started when Ms McLachlin called me," said Simons.⁵¹ After speaking with McLachlin, Simons had no doubt about what he needed to do. He immediately discontinued the bra line and pulled it off the shelves because of criticism from shoppers about the objectification and sexualization of women. Simons feared that it would further damage La Maison Simons's brand if the campaign were not removed.⁵²

THE APOLOGY

On September 17, 2018, just over 10 days after the initial release of the bra line, Simons issued a formal apology on social media and said that the bra campaign had been "in poor taste" and "inappropriate":

As president of La Maison Simons, I allowed the use of the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin's name to market one of our products without her permission or knowledge. This initiative was in poor taste, and I offer my heartfelt and sincerest apologies for this inappropriate use of Ms McLachlin's name as well as that of the other women.⁵³

Simons further said that La Maison Simons would discontinue and destroy all materials related to the bra line and that the company would become involved with a fundraising campaign at an Ottawa women's shelter at the request of McLachlin. As Simons put it,

Since 1840, five generations of my family have aspired to build an organization that never wavers from our values of respect, empathy and responsibility to the communities we live in. Realizing my error, I have discontinued and destroyed all material related to this campaign. Our organization will be meeting to ensure that we learn from this incident.⁵⁴

Simons stressed that, to prevent controversial marketing campaigns in the future, he would do a better job to regularly meet with staff and stress the importance of privacy and naming rights. He told staff that "despite everyone having a job to do, staff should feel comfortable standing up and expressing concerns."⁵⁵

Simons appeared distraught about the entire situation and was quick to accept blame, saying the campaign represented a lack of judgment on La Maison Simons's part:

I take full responsibility. . . . I made a mistake, and I sincerely do regret it I am just trying to

make it right, because in my heart I really wanted to celebrate [the women]. These are inspiring women that have changed the history of our country.⁵⁶

THE AFTERMATH

Simons hoped that his apology would help to clear his family's name and redeem La Maison Simons's brand. Within minutes of his formal apology, users reacted on social media. One user wrote,

The marketing campaign was offensive, insulting and disrespectful of all women. The "apology" failed to recognize this. Simons brand has proven it does not respect women or have any understanding of or empathy for what women have gone through to achieve success. How would Simons survive if women were to BOYCOTT your stores?⁵⁷

Another angry user wrote,

It is unbelievable to me that ANYONE in your organization thought that naming any product after a living Judge without her approval was acceptable. The fact that it was a lingerie item is disgusting. How many levels of review and approval did this inane project go through? Where is common sense? Disrespectful, shameful.⁵⁸

Other users were appreciative of the apology and expressed continued interest in shopping at La Maison Simons. One user commented, "An error was committed and an apology was given. Case closed. I'll be shopping at Simons soon." Another user wrote, "Thank you for taking accountability and the steps towards a resolution for the people offended. I look forward to shopping at Simons!" Another user commented, "Again, Peter Simons puts the high bar on business know-how you can take all the credit in the world for what

you do well; as long as you take your responsibilities when you are in error. Congrats!"⁵⁹

WHAT'S NEXT?

Simons had angered Canadians and possibly tarnished his family's brand name. La Maison Simons was known for offering Canadians "trendsetting fashions, a totally inspiring environment, and extraordinary customer service,"⁶⁰ but it seemed that, somewhere along the way, something had gone terribly wrong.

As president and chief executive officer of La Maison Simons, what key learnings could Peter Simons take away from this situation to help prevent such a disaster in the future? Had he done enough to redeem the company's brand? What more could he do in the short and long term to restore the company's reputation? Or was it already too little too late?