Coach's Comeback and the Community Myth: What Brands Keep Getting Wrong About Belonging

Most brands say they want a community. What they actually want is an audience that buys things. The problem? People can tell the difference. This week Anna and Caitlin decode two things that start with C. Coach the brand and community the buzzword. And both conversations are more connected than you might think. Coach has been around since 1941, longer than most French luxury fashion houses. But by the early 2010s it was everywhere, overexposed, spread across too many categories, too many stores, too many outlet locations making bags specifically for outlet sale. The brand had lost itself. So they did something most brands are too afraid to do. They closed profitable stores. They cut nearly half their product assortment. And they made a very clear, very deliberate decision; they were going after Gen Z and giving up on millennials entirely. Because millennials already had a fixed idea of what Coach was. Gen Z did not. They just saw Y2K. The Coach Play Store concept, including the current pop up at Selfridges with a giant dinosaur slide, a photo booth inside a giant apple and a bag charm personalisation station is smart awareness marketing. But Anna and Caitlin have a few thoughts on what they would have done differently. Including one significant miss that is worth every brand paying attention to. Then there is community. The most overused word in every brand deck, every agency pitch and every marketing strategy right now. An audience watches. A community participates. Attendance is not the same as engagement. And you cannot buy belonging with a gift bag and a paid influencer list. Anna shares what actually happened when Decode Collectif built a real community activation for Lee Jeans with tattoo artist Tal Booker and why nobody asked for a gift bag all night. Because they did not want to leave. The lesson for every brand: stop designing the activation first and inviting people last. Flip it. Start with the people. Build everything around them. And then show up for them again and again. Decode Sessions explores the strategies, consumer behaviors, cultural shifts, and industry trends shaping the future of fashion, beauty, retail, and luxury brands.