It was ten years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday: An unexpected package appeared just as I arrived home for my university’s winter holiday. Inside was a set of coal eyes, a faux carrot, a pipe cleaner, and a few buttons–a snowman kit. And a note from Warby Parker, thanking me for having mentioned my recent glasses purchase on Twitter.

I didn’t have a large Twitter following. My glasses tweet was, at best, utterly unextraordinary. Very, very few people saw it. But this brand turned a passing social media post into an opportunity to make little ol’ me feel special. And, like nearly all Warby Parker’s marketing and branding decisions, it worked.

Who is Warby Parker?

Founded in 2010, the Warby Parker brand offers affordable, quality eyewear with an option to streamline the purchasing process. Potential buyers simply select an array of frames, pay for shipping, and receive their sample glasses for a week-long test run.

Remember, this was early-2010s-era. Today’s subscription services, in which companies will bill monthly to ship you everything you could ever want (and many, many things you never wanted in the first place), were in their infancy, at most. At this point, you went to your eye doctor and tried on what was there. Or you went online to buy blindly (pun intended). It was also pre-pandemic-era, so getting something like prescription glasses delivered to your door was an interesting novelty, at the very least.

Indeed, Warby Parker hacked the direct to consumer funnel early. And they did it with style.

Warby Parker vs. the Monopoly

Warby Parker effectively removed the physical store from the equation, without sacrificing the try-on process. Why? Because glasses were expensive, and four friends didn’t like that. 

I imagine founders Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Andy Hunt and Jeff Raider’s shock when they realized two things about the eyewear industry: 

1. Luxottica owns nearly everything in the world of eyewear

2. Luxottica controls the licensing for pretty much all the rest 

This means any time you go to Lenscrafters, to your optometrist, to a classic pair of Ray-Bans or a stylish set of Chanel readers, Luxottica is there, lurking, watching you open your wallet.

The four men were still in business school when their anti-monopoly idea struck. They sat on it for over a year before the brand came into existence, positioned as a convenient solution to the ruling titans of the glasses industry. Once the company debuted, the business model spoke for itself: Warby Parker surpassed their year-one sales targets in a mere three weeks. As it turned out, people really liked paying less to skip the monopoly of buying new glasses.

The Brand is Born

Hooray! So the boys sold some glasses. Well, a lot of glasses. But there’s a reason you’ve heard of Warby Parker, and it’s not just because you can try on frames at home. No–you know Warby Parker because their branding is nigh impeccable.

Warby Parker does not employ the powerhouse marketing of industry monoliths; you’ll find no “just do it” taglines or cheery reptiles here. Instead, Warby Parker created a comprehensive brand experience in direct contrast to the Luxottica monopoly. 

Sasha Tulchin, Warby Parker’s former director of creative services, described the subtleties that went into every aspect of the brand: “The Warby Parker voice is witty, intelligent, informative, playful, delightful. We are not trite, pretentious, sarcastic, long-winded … Every time we create a piece of copy, every time we create something new for marketing—every time it’s either in our office or externally projected—we do it with these filters.”

With a name straight out of a Jack Kerouac novel and a PR team boasting “boutique vintage-inspired frames and lenses for savvy urbanites at a revolutionary price point” and “the Netflix of eyewear” in Vogue and GQ, Warby Parker launched with impressively locked-in branding. From there, consumers learned about the glasses donated to people in need with every purchase. They saw the prices and loved the styles. And they got to experience Warby Parker’s top-tier customer service.

I can personally attest to the latter. Even after a home try-on and ordering prescription lenses, my own mistake led me to buy three pairs instead of one (not an ideal financial move for a college student). I still have all three pairs, after customer service gleefully refunded me the cost of the other two. Please note my vision is horrendous, so I had spent loads extra for the top-tier, ultra-thin lenses. My undying brand loyalty did not come cheap for Warby Parker, but they bought it nonetheless.

The Bottom Line

Even if I hadn’t fallen into that unexpectedly wonderful customer service experience, Warby Parker won me over by making me feel great, all because of a seamlessly curated brand experience.

• I didn’t break the bank, but I got great glasses

• I made a purchase in the style of capitalism, but my spending meant someone in need benefitted, too

• I shared my frames on social media, and received a gracious, quirky, personal recognition from the brand itself

• I tried on my try-at-home frames for friends and family, bringing them into the previously lonely frame-selection process

The Warby Parker brand remains a success today not because of a tagline or flashy logo; not even because the frames are particularly special. It’s because every customer gets the curated brand experience, from start to finish. Their deliberate, clear brand positioning and consistency has solidified the company as one of the best branding case studies of the last 15 years.

Sorry, Luxottica: Warby Parker’s brand positioning, executed in direct opposition to your market control, is just too good. After all, I never got a snowman kit from Lenscrafters.