Shane
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Danish expatriate Karin Adcock convinced Pandora to grant her the Australian distribution rights in 2004. "A friend of mine had told me about Pandora UK being very popular in Denmark and suggested that I take a look at it," Adcock says. She knew I was looking for something to import."
Speak to Adcock about the early days and she will tell you how hard it was launching the product in Australia. Like Enevoldsen, she too was more concerned with sales than brand building in the early days.
"It was very difficult. We knocked on many doors and got rejected by so many retailers," Adcock explains. "If we had listened to them, we would have had to pack-up the concept and send it back to Denmark but that was not an option for us."
By Christmas 2004, Pandora Charms had just four Australian accounts - and this was a multi-million-dollar international brand. The story of Pandora's Australian success is another example of how passion for a product can overcome the initial disillusionment.
"The first year we started 40 accounts and I personally opened 36 of them," Adcock says. "It was very difficult and Melbourne was the hardest place to get started. I walked the streets of Melbourne for three days from 7am to 11pm to find suitable stores, but they all said, "Nice but not for us. I got just one new account over the three days."
Ask any retailer who now stocks Pandora what they think and you will hear all about the success of that unique, little charm bracelet.
Indeed, in 2007, Australia became the third-largest market for Pandora worldwide, overtaking Holland.
Asked why he thinks Australia now falls just behind the US and Germany despite its relatively small population, Enevoldsen says he's unsure.
But that's another enigma about brands - they capture each consumer's heart to differing levels. And while company management plays an integral role in a brand's success in a given market, it's ultimately the consumers who decide whether they connect and associate with the brand.
"Creating the brand was all about awareness and we did that on all levels," Adcock says. "Although we thought we did a lot of branding awareness in the beginning, we have over the last years learned to refine our branding much further.
"We have been working with a strong marketing plan which has constantly evolved as the brand has grown from a small jewellery company with five staff in Denmark to a global company with more than 1800 staff worldwide," she said.
Was it a mistake for for Pandora Charms UK to appoint a local, independent distributor in Australia rather than a partner?
"No," Enevoldsen chuckles. "Australia is too far away."
Just as he never set out to establish a worldwide jewellery brand, nor ever imagined that it would happen, Enevoldsen never dreamt that Australia would become so important to his business.
Pandora Sale Australia less than four years old, employs over 50 staff and has many hundreds of accounts. It is far from the first jewellery brand in Australia, but it has gone a long way to setting the benchmark for new entrants.
Perhaps its success and the success of branded jewellery overall is best illustrated when one considers that retailers no longer ask, "Who is Pandora?"
They now ask, "Who is the next Pandora?"
http://www.jacejewelry.uk.com/
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