Kondo & Partners Consulting is a new consulting firm founded by Sho Kondo — an expert with 18 years of international experience in managing fashion brands (Balenciaga, Zara, LPP) — and three partners with industry experience.
The ambition of the new brand was to build a strong advisory position in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe in the fashion & lifestyle sector.
Kondo & Partners needed strategic support in media relations: from creating the foundations of communication to actively building an expert presence in the media. And we started practically from scratch: a new brand, no media presence, and at the same time extensive expertise and an offering that the fashion brand world should get to know and appreciate.
Challenges
How do you introduce a completely new brand in the fashion consulting niche, gain the trust of key media, and build recognition?
The main, obvious limitations in similar situations:
- No prior brand presence in the media.
- No recognized need and zero, or at most limited, awareness of the importance of professional fashion & retail consultants in Poland.
- No entities in Poland operating in such a specialized fashion & retail consulting category.
- A very narrow group of potentially interested recipients – decision-makers, managers, and directors from large companies in the fashion and lifestyle industry.
Standard practices
Strategic start: we prepared a strategic document – a one-pager, expert biographies, and a list of key messages. In addition, of course, a PR action plan.
Our strategic approach is already visible at the level of the prepared offerings. For the Kondo & Partners brand, already in the initial presentation we developed an idea for an initiative enabling us to reach not only the media but, above all, the key individuals responsible for the development of the most popular fashion brands in Poland, with an analysis relevant to them – a report on the perception of fashion brands by Poles, for the creation of which we needed to conduct a study.
First media push
We wrote and distributed material about Sho Kondo’s departure from LPP and the founding of Kondo & Partners. The result? Within the first month, this led to 15 publications, including Onet.pl, WirtualneMedia.pl, and Marketing przy Kawie.
Systematic communication: each month we prepared new topics in response to the issues that were being covered by the media:
- fashion market analyses (Shein, Temu vs. European brands)
- expert commentary on the international expansion of brands
- shopping trends and consumer behavior
LinkedIn and consultations: we continuously supported the building of the LinkedIn presence and advised on the selection of industry events.
Big Bang: why did we decide to conduct a study and produce a report?
Where did the idea for the study come from?
Where did the idea for the study come from?
We noticed that the market lacks in-depth knowledge about how consumers perceive Polish clothing brands. Most available analyses focus on sales and trends, rarely answering questions such as: whom and why do we trust, what do we perceive as “Polish,” does ecology really influence purchasing decisions, and why do some brands gain sympathy while others do not?This is precisely why we proposed that Kondo & Partners create the first report in Poland on the perception of Polish clothing brands from the consumer’s perspective. The goal was not only to obtain data, but also to create a tool for a more informed discussion about the fashion market – with investors, brands, media, and customers.
Why these questions?
We focused on a perceptual map of brands: quality, design, price, and innovation. We wanted to understand how Polish brands perform within this set and whether consumers are able to distinguish them from foreign ones.
Secondly, we asked about aspects not available in “hard” sales data: does a brand’s “Polishness” matter to customers? What makes a brand build loyalty – price, quality, or perhaps values?
Thirdly, we introduced generational segmentation to show how Gen Z and Baby Boomers choose brands differently. For many companies, this provides concrete guidance on how to build their offering, communication, and style.
What did the report deliver?
Thanks to the study and the publication of the report “Fashion & Brands: The Polish Perspective”, the Kondo & Partners brand not only gained 80 media publications and significant reach (over 16 million), but above all became a reference point in the discussion about the state of the Polish fashion market. It gained not only an advisory position but also an analytical one – an expert that not only “knows” but also “verifies.”
And this is precisely the level of narrative that attracts the attention of opinion leaders, media, and B2B clients whose attention we aimed to capture.
What did we achieve
| Month | Number of publications | Reach | AVE |
| September 2024 | 15 | 717,101 | 87,232 PLN |
| October 2024 | 16 | 250,635 | 30,936 PLN |
| November 2024 | 16 | 582,188 | 96,363 PLN |
| December 2024 | 14 | 857,929 | 560,821 PLN |
| January 2025 | 6 | 187,395 | 26,216 PLN |
| February 2025 | 80 | 16,013,864 | 600,862 PLN |
| TOTAL | 147 | 18,609,112 | 1,402,430 PLN |
Results: what did we achieve during the six-month collaboration with Kondo Partners?
- We created a missing topic: the report filled a gap in the debate about the state of Polish fashion – not from the perspective of brands, trade, or online shopping, but from the consumer’s point of view.
- By asking about the “Polishness” of a brand, we examined not only preferences but also emotions – which allowed Kondo & Partners to enter the conversation about brand values and awareness.
- We triggered a wave of publications – without a large media budget: the report appeared in 80 media outlets, from Onet to Puls Biznesu, MSN, WP Finanse, and Wirtualne Media – reaching over 16 million in reach and 600,000 AVE. All organically.
- We designed the questions to capture the attention of each target group: from investors and journalists to brand managers and end customers. Everyone found something “for themselves.”
We positioned Kondo & Partners as a source of knowledge, not just opinion: the brand demonstrated that it does not merely comment on reality – it analyzes, diagnoses, and predicts it.
