Ben Chan: Creating a Bench-mark

Ben Chan and Bench have become synonymous with effective imaging and marketing. He has parlayed his merchandising acumen into a veritable retail mammoth whose product lines encompass a range that belies the basic white T-shirt and underwear that remain the most potent reminders of what his retail empire is all about.

Now poised to open Bench stores in Shanghai and in SM Xiamen, it’s a Chinese homecoming of sorts for Ben, whose parents made the exodus many moons ago, leaving the province of Fujian to start a new life here in the Philippines.

Whatever one may say about the retail benchmark Ben has created, one can never disregard the manner in which Ben has turned his celebrity endorsers into effective tools of merchandising. While others may have jumped on the bandwagon, spending dollars and hard-earned cash to gain Hollywood cachet and thereby jumpstart the legitimizing of their own marketing efforts, it’s undeniably Ben who laid the groundwork for marrying contemporary image and advertising with product and brand recall.

As undisputed Popmeister of Retail, Ben looked to the advertising trends from Europe and the United States, transplanting them to fit the local market. In what was then a break from convention, Bench’s seminal TV spot had 30 seconds of Richard Gomez rowing in an open expanse of water to classical music. Never was there any overt reference to the product being sold–Richard holding the shirt or telling you to buy it; it was a holistic lifestyle, a mood that was being evoked, all used to peddle the product. It worked wonders for Bench, and Ben has never looked back.

Let me give you an idea on how effective Ben has been in this arena. Whereas before, Ben would pick out established movie stars and enhance the product image; now, the mere fact that one has been selected to endorse Bench is a passport of sorts to instant celebrity status. The Richard Gomez, Diether Ocampo and Jomari Yllana of yesteryear have now evolved into the likes of today’s Aubrey Miles, John Hall and Marc Nelson. Before Aubrey’s launching movie hit the screens, despite John and Marc having limited TV exposure and no film credits to speak of, they have become household names, in large part on the strength of their Bench connection.

It’s the uncanny knack of setting the trend and maximizing media exposure that has catapulted Ben’s retail moves to the crest of success. Besides Bench and Human (his unisex apparel chains), Ben’s empire also includes the Fix Salons, the pcx Personal Care stores, the Dimensione furniture shops, Internet cafes, and the "new kid on the block", Celio at Greenbelt 3. A medium-range men’s apparel line that hails from France, Celio is best described as a French Gap that enjoys wide success on the European continent. Given its origins, it’s attractively priced and fills a niche between Ben’s own Bench and Human stores on one hand, and the up-market fashion brand names on the other.

Getting Ben to grant me a one-on-one interview is akin to asking him to submit to open heart surgery… without the benefit of anesthesia. He’s actually painfully shy to such situations and when he proposed lunch, a few minutes before the appointed time, he informed me that friends Miguel Pastor, Lucy Gomez and Cathy Escaño would join us to keep the session on a casual footing. The pleasant surprise was that he was, in fact, very passionate and articulate about the "business"; it’s merely maintaining a comfort level that has him trying to keep the setting informal.

On the course taken that seemingly has obsessive-compulsive control and design written all over it, Ben has this to say, "It’s very difficult to measure what has happened by design and what by accident. We always have a working plan; not strict and to the letter, but a general map we are ruled by. Within this general plan, accidents and circumstances do creep in and have to be responded to.

"For example, for our next TV campaign, the storyboards presented by the agency were approved in principle. But in the heat of the Ateneo-La Salle Championship Games, we had to introduce changes in the storyboard three days before the shoot. Without disclosing the concept of our storyboard, the events of the championship game have now been integrated into the ad."

He adds, "I don’t like to describe myself as a control freak or obsessive-compulsive. I do strive for perfection and the retail business thrives on details. Which size and color of button to use or what specific shade of gray a t-shirt must have are examples of the minute details that have to be considered. I am very hands-on, so I know every product that comes out of the warehouse and is sold in the stores. Sometimes, it amazes me to recognize a Bench product that I designed five years ago when it’s worn by a customer or friend."

The Fix Salons are a relatively new development; one that has captured the imagination of the public at large. "The salons are a response to a study of the market situation. You have the really expensive salons and you have the corner salons–not many in between. I niched into the middle-range salons, where services approximate the really expensive ones. Rather than push for one name hair stylist, I programmed the salons with a standard of service that has me sending my stylists to Singapore for training. The salons cut across classes, hence our demographics consist of a very broad A to C market –the likes of Agot Isidro, Heart Evangelista, Tina Tinio, Gina Zablan, Congressional ladies and spouses mingling with office executives and housewives."

We touched on Jasper Conran in England, making the transition from clothes to home furnishings and lifestyle, and how Gap made this same concept work on a more affordable, mass consumer basis. Wondering if there were any parallels with how he developed Bench, Ben avers, "The Lifestyle Concept has always been a cornerstone to my development of Bench and, subsequently, Human and Dimensione. Dimensione was a furniture and home furnishing shop I opened at Harrison Plaza. That was inspired by the family business, Chan C. Brothers, makers of acrylic signs and accessories, of which I was head designer. Here, the lifestyle concept consisted of integrating interior with architectural and industrial design. With Bench and Human, the concept of a lifestyle store as a design philosophy became more apparent because somehow, it became an inclination for me to fulfill more personal lifestyle needs: clothing, food, accessories, scents, cosmetics and the list goes on.

"But while in our business, the image can sometimes supplant the product in the public’s mind, at its essence, the image simply focuses attention and the product has to ultimately speak for itself. Despite all the imaging one can muster, if the product is bad, the public will in due course recognize that and reject the product. In this regard, I can safely say we’ve made sure the products can stand by themselves. I am proudest of the t-shirt; how this relatively unmentioned undergarment has become a measure of good dressing. The scent lines, Icon and Wisdom, are, I feel, very good examples of a good marriage between image and product."

Of late, I had heard that Ben was now getting involved with the Metropolitan Museum, an extension of his interest and promotion of Pinoy Pop Culture that we saw last year. "There is a proposed Met shop, one of those unplanned projects that somehow fall into place. I met Ino Manalo, together with Bea Zobel, and the conversation drifted to the Met shop. They asked me to handle the shop, and as it’s for a good cause, I immediately said ‘Yes’. Originally marked to have a Pinoy Pop concept, we’ve now expanded that to include designer objects that go beyond Pinoy Pop."

Asking Ben about relaxation and leisure is like asking a lion about his favorite vegetable dishes. "I do travel a lot, but that’s to attend expositions and trade fairs where I keep abreast of what’s going on in the retail world. I’m really not a beach or resort kind of person."

Cathy concurs by exclaiming that Ben "glows in the dark"–yup, put Ben and Lucy together and you’d have a lighthouse. He regularly makes the rounds of his stores that dot our urban landscape. In the midst of shooting the ad campaign that would launch his foray into China, I’d come across Ben taking the Chinese creative team out for dinner, extending into the late hours to give them a taste of Manila. And it is a sure bet that the early call-time the next morning would find Ben ever present, going over details and supervising the shoot.

From a very basic Bench outlet that occupied a section of the Boutique Square on the mezzanine floor of Shoemart Makati, Ben has certainly come a long way. It’s a way that’s been marked with success, but not without the pitfalls and stumbles that we tend to overlook or forget. As Ben recalls, "We basically misfired with the first Fix Salon. It was going to be in the Malate area and, after spending some half a million, we realized that the risk of setting up there was too great to chance. Malate then was beginning to wane in terms of traffic and popularity. We cut our losses and set up somewhere else. That is very basic to the way I do things; you gamble, you expand, you diversify, but you always do that with both eyes open!"

If only a greater number of us had Ben’s kind of eyesight, the economy would truly be on the rebound.