The grand dame of catalog marketing, Lillian Vernon, presented her first public speaking engagement since her retirement to a rapt audience of DM on Thursday. She spoke at a luncheon sponsored by the Direct Marketing Club of New York.
Never mind that Vernon repeated oft-told anecdotes and covered material already revealed in her book, in her cream-colored Chanel suit and perfectly coiffed hairdo, she emoted a star quality. And she kept them laughing with her New York-style wit.
Her timing couldn’t be better. On Monday, the company that bought Lillian Vernon Corp. last July announced that they bought Time Life Inc., the music and video direct marketing arm of Time Inc.
Interviewed on stage by business-to-business consultant Ruth Stevens, Vernon was asked what she thought of the development. “I’m a pretty good brand and I think they’re a fabulous brand,” she said. “Put the two great brands together and you’ve really got something.”
How did Vernon select the product that launched her company from her kitchen table in 1951—the now-famous belt and purse that Vernon advertised in a Seventeen Magazine space ad?
“My father was a manufacturer of bags and belts,” she said. “He used to send me out on Saturdays to find bags and belts,” she said about how she developed her merchandising talent.
“We sold $32,000 on a $500 investment,” Vernon said about that first ad. “Everybody hold up their hand who does that today.”
Asked about another famous female brand now very much in the news, Martha Stewart, Vernon quipped: “We’ve partied with her very frequently.” But she declined to offer advice to Stewart. “Martha gives advice, she doesn’t take advice.”
Vernon recalled some of the difficulties of a woman starting a business 52 years ago. “Men refused to work for a woman,” she said.
But starting a business today takes the same traits it did in the 1950s, Vernon said. “Work very hard, make yourself indispensable. Don’t spend your money just because you made it, put it back in the business,” she advised.
Her advice to women DMers? “If you have a husband that wants you home cooking dinner at 7 P.M., that’s not good,” she said. “Make him cook dinner.”
Vernon admitted that stepping away from the day-to-day operations of her company (she is now chairman of the board) is tough. Since July, she’s had a knee replaced and her recovery has preoccupied her. But she said, “It’s very hard to break the habit of putting on your hat every day and going to work.
“You have to find something that will give you a passion for living,” she said.
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