Abstract
Sarah Calhoun, the 30-something founder of Red Ant Pants, is a former Outward Bound instructor and wilderness enthusiast. She became so frustrated with ill-fitting work pants designed without the female figure in mind that she started her own company. It now sells 70 sizes of the double-knee, double-seat work pants with their lower-rise front and higher-rise backs. By importing 12-ounce cotton canvas from India, and having it cut and sewn by a factory in Seattle, Calhoun is free to sell the premium-priced pants ($129 a pair) to her target market—women who work for a living in agriculture, the construction trades, or any other job in the outdoors.
The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
—Steve Ballmer
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Notes
- 1.
Butch Larcombe, “Queen of the Pants,” http://redantspants.com/our-story/meet-calhoun/ accessed 1/29/15, April 29, 2012; Laylee Walden, “How Sarah Calhoun Built Red Ants Pants from the Ground Up,” www.bozemandailychronicle.com/business/do-it-yourself/article_9a768ede-433f-11e4-b3fc-4f6a90bf9241.html , September 23, 2014.
- 2.
Interview with the authors, February 25, 2015.
- 3.
Andrew R. Thomas, “Analysis of Distribution Strategies of US Firms in Romania,” PhD dissertation, Academia de Estudii Economice, Bucharest, Romania, 2008, p. 27.
- 4.
The discussion of Columbia Paint & Coatings is based on an interview with H.H. “Larry” Larison that took place on October 23, 2014.
- 5.
Interview with authors, January 5, 2015.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
The 12-step process is elaborated upon in Andrew R. Thomas, Dale M. Lewison, William J. Hauser, and Linda M. Foley, Eds. Direct Marketing in Action: Cutting-Edge Strategies for Finding and Keeping the Best Customers (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006).
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Dan Sanford interview, October 9, 2014.
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© 2015 Andrew R. Thomas and Timothy J. Wilkinson
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Thomas, A.R., Wilkinson, T.J. (2015). Getting the Data and Doing Marketing Right. In: The Customer Trap. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0385-9_8
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