To Build a Strong Brand within the Fashion Industry - Literature review Example

? To Build a Strong Brand within the Fashion Industry: A Multiple Case Study Approach Contents Literature Review 4 Introduction to Brands 4 Benefits of Branding 5 Types of Brands 6 Brand Awareness 7 Brand Equity 7 Brand image 8 Brand Extension 9 Brand management strategy 9 Brand Name 10 Building brands 10 Quality 11 Positioning 13 Repositioning 14 Communications 14 Long-term perspective 16 Internal marketing 16 Co-Branding 17 Summary 19 I do not expect too much, I just hope your researcher do the revision where I highlighted. And this is last revision. That is all. 19 References 20 Bibliography 23 Literature Review Introduction to Brands A brand can be defined as a sign, term, symbol or design or combination of all these used by the marketers to differentiate the goods or services from that of the competitors. From the customers’ point of view brand can be viewed as a sign, term, symbol or design or combination of all these used by the customers to differentiate the offerings that off the customers. The term brand plays an extremely important role in the consumer buying behaviour. Therefore a lot of companies round the globe (if not all) have intensively engaged themselves in developing a strong brand. Building a strong brand not only helps the company to satisfy the target market segment but also helps the company to develop a unique differentiated image in the mind of the consumers. When people hear the word “Nike”, “BMW” or “Coca cola” Brand is the word that comes to the mind. The study has been conducted in lieu to analyze strong brand building exercises with the Fashion Industry (Rossiter and Percy, 1987, p. 319). The fashion industry usually refers to individuals or companies that engage in the manufacturing, designing and distribution of goods (apparel and textile). In the modern context fashion industry is often termed as Fast Fashion due to the momentum gained by the companies belonging to the specific industry. Also the entry of brands such as Top Shop, H & M, and Zara has acted as an active catalyst in the growth of the global fashion industry. Also here it needs to be mentioned that companies dealing with sports goods such as Reebok, Adidas, Puma, Nike, etc. are also a member of the global fashion industry. Based on the above information this can be avowed that the building a strong brand in the global fashion industry is absolutely essential for the success. Strong brand provides intangible value to the companies those results in the enhanced productivity, profitability and better relationship with the customers. (Pride, and Farrel, 2011, p. 351) This is probably the reason due to which many of the marketing gurus believe often say that product are manufactured in the factories, but brand are built in the minds’ of the customers. Reason Building strong brand in the fashion industry benefits the marketers in several ways such as reducing the issues related to the price sensitivity, increasing market share revenue, and brand equity and customer loyalty (Admedia, 2007, p.1) Benefits of Branding Branding helps both the buyers and the sellers. From the perspective of a buyer branding helps the buyers to identify the products that the buyers like or dislike; it helps the buyers to identify the desired marketer; Branding helps the buyers to properly evaluate the quality of the products; Branding helps the buyers to reduce the risks related to purchase (Stafford and Faber, 2005, p. 139). From the perspective of the sellers branding helps the sellers to differentiate the offerings from that of the competitors; Branding also helps the sellers in market segmentation via creation of tailored made images, e.g. contact lenses is to Fast track; Brand helps the companies to reduce price competition that in leads to reduction of chances of price wars; Branding helps the marketers to launch new product that may carry the name of one or more products. This technique is well known as brand extension. This helps the company to reduce the risks related to introduction a new product; successfully brand building exercises helps the company to increase brand loyalty; Branding also help the marketers to charge premium prices for a particular brand (Ries, and Trout, 2006, p. 201). A part from the core benefits successful brands also help the companies to deliver added value Such added values help the brand to differentiate the products from that of the competitors. I practices properly brands can help the customers recognize the added value which may lead the customers to make the final purchase. A consumer may be looking for assurance of quality under probable circumstances where the customers are not sure about the final purchase decision. Hence brands like Adidas can provide the much required assurance of guarantee. Alternatively, a consumer could be looking for brands that can matchup to the lifestyle. Brands like Nike or Timberland could very well live up to that expectation (Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2006, p. 381). Types of Brands There are various ways to classify different forms of brands. However the two main types of brand include manufacturer brand and private label brand the manufacturer brands are made by the producers themselves. The producers are responsible for the marketing the brand. The brand is also owned by the producer. By developing the brand the manufacturer can earn extensive distribution network. This can be using channel partners like retailer that may want to sell the branded products. Also this helps the marketers to build customer loyalty (Kotler and Keller, 2006. p. 191). Own label brands are made and owned by the businesses that mainly operate as distribution partners like the retailers. Often the retailers use product come under the own or private label brand. However, this needs to be mentioned that most of the time the retailers mix the private label and manufacturer brands. Major retailers like Tesco, Sainsbury, and Asda are prime examples of this. Own label branding if practiced well can actually offer the customers excellent value propositions. Own label branding can provide additional bargaining power to the customers in case of price and term negotiation with manufacturer brand (Keller, 1994, p. 201). Brand Awareness Brand Awareness is the ability of the customers to recognize or recall the brand within a given product category in sufficient detail to make purchase decision. This also means that the consumers can propose, recommend and choose the brand. The objectives of most of the promotional campaigns in case of new products are to create or maintain brand preference. Brand awareness is often related to brand recall. However brand awareness can also be created through brand recognition. For example, when an individual is able to identify a show made by Nike it may be said that brand awareness is achieved. By this is not achieved through brand recall, rather it is a result of brand recognition (Hagus and Jackson, 1994, p.202). Netherlands Institute of Public Opinion (NIPO) conducted an extensive study to assess the relationship between recognition and recall. The results actually showed that the average correlation between recall and recognition was very high. The conclusion drawn from the study was that recall stems from recognition, as 99% of 3, 632 cases of recall also had recorded recognition. The study also reported that interesting ads doubled the recall scores and increased the recall share of recognition. Creative ads were far more effective in creating perceptions and recall than size of the advertisement (Arnold, 1992, p. 109). Brand Equity Different brands vary in the power and value enjoyed at the market place. Some brands are largely unknown to the consumers while others have very high level of awareness. Some of the brands are quite acceptable to the consumers while others are highly preferred from among the acceptable ones. And finally there are those brands that command a high degree of loyalty among the consumers. According to Chan Su Park Brand equity is thee added value bestowed on the product by the brand name. David Aaker once said that brands posses equity since the brands have high degree of awareness; many loyal customers; a high status for perceived excellence or the variety of brand relations. Both H & M and Zara has been able to unique value proposition and value for money by building strong brands by utilizing factors such as communication, positioning, pricing and quality. H & M has put special emphasis on co-branding. The branding strategy of both the business entities speaks for themselves as Zara and H & M respectively holds the two top spots in the fashion industry (Cheverton, 2006, p. 201). Brand equity helps the companies to gain high degree of competitive advantage. This helps the companies to enjoy low marketing costs as the awareness and loyalty are high. Consumers expect the retailers to provide bands having high degree of brand equity. This gives the companies extra leverage. High level of awareness and loyalty offers insulation against the increasing competition in the market place (Kapferer, 2008, p. 203). Brand image Brand image refers to the beliefs that customers hold about a certain brand. Brands images are important to develop as negative brand image may be quite difficult to shake off. For example the personality of Nescafe could be tagged as young, upper middle class, professionally qualified and confident. The image of Pepsi could be young, rebel, cool and extrovert. Consumer loyalty is associated with positive brand image (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000, p. 171). Brand Extension Brand extension can be defined as the use of successful brand name to launch modified or new products. Brand extension helps the marketers to reduce the risk of launching a brand new product. Even though the product is new, still people are likely to be aware of the brand. This helps the product to be become a lot more acceptable to customers. One of the best examples of brand extension could Virgin or Tata group. Both the companies have been able achieve conglomerate diversification by providing extreme diverse range of products under the same brand name (Hines, 2004, p. 121). Brand management strategy Brand management is the effective use of the marketing tactics. There is a need to influence the perceptions of the target market segment to ensure that the consumers see what the company wants the consumers to see. The brand management strategy is based on two major factors: Added Value and differentiation. A company looks to distinguish offerings of the company from that of the competitors. This shows that the brand strategy has important competitive parameters. Another important factor is added value (Knapp, 2000, p. 121). This pin points the fact that a brand has the ability to offer something extra to the customers than just a product or service. The added value of a brand is mostly developed on the foundation of differentiation (Haig, 2011, p. 393). The added value however refers to both functional and non functional values. Both material and immaterial dedifferentiation can help the company achieve differentiation. However, it is believed that immaterial differentiation is often more useful than the other one. An effective immaterial differentiation strategy has two benefits. At first, using such strategies would mean that the competitors would find it literally impossible to copy to imitate. Secondly, the consumers would usually feel that a sense of more involvement across the brand (Aaker, 2004, p. 309). A number of tools can be used to implement the brand management strategy such as the brand name, brand design and advertisement. Brand building plays a major role in influencing the consumer buying behaviour. Strong brand assists the marketers to differentiate the offerings from the competitors. It also assists the buyers by reducing the risk involved in the final purchase decision. From the fashion industry it can be said that the existence of brands such as Top Shop, H & M, and Zara has made the industry extremely competitive (Cooper, 2003, p. 179). Brand Name In brand management brand name strategies could be monolithic, dualithic, multilithic. Monolithic means one brand in different product classes. Dualithic means two brand names for the same goods. A multilithic brand refers to brand that have own name. Marketers should ensure choosing a good brand name. Brand name should always be selected cautiously as the brand names express a lot of information. Some of the criteria for choosing a good brand name are: easy for the customers to spell and remember; reflect major product benefits; should lead to distinctiveness; single and multiple words; Availability; Avoid negative nuance; should stick to several legal restrictions imposed by the federal and legal agencies. Good brand name should always bring to mind positive relations; should be easy to remember and pronounce; propose product benefits; not disobey existing listed brand names (Burgemeister, 2003, p. 192). Building brands Many marketing specialists have recognized some major factors needs to be considered in case of brand building exercises (Davis, 2009, p. 131) .(I already read this book, it is nothing about saying brand. I am so surprised for this!!) Quality Quality is one of the most important parameters (important for what?). This is strongly related to the core benefits promised by the marketers. The consumers expect to get the core benefits. Therefore quality must be delivered consistently (anything related to the brand? I need you say the reasons that why quality is important to build strong brand! Not talk about production!). One of the key determinants of quality in fashion is design. When some talks about design the two names that come to the mind is Zara and H&M. Zara has over two hundred designers. That is the reason perhaps Zara is often called the fashion imitator. The design feature of Zara is probably one of the key differentials that enable the company to get competitive advantage over others. Several market research reports have suggested that consumers have opined Zara as ‘beautiful and fashionable’. Add to this Zara has also adopted premium pricing strategy. All in all the terrific combination of quality, trendy fashion at an reasonable price is one of the key differentiation factor that results in a strong brand like Zara (Roberts, 2010, p.2). (This seems to me design is more to do with product range than brand. you should clarify why you think design is very important for branding as well) Zara delivers a wide range of products. Zara produces almost 11,000 different set of products every year. Zara spends round about two to four weeks in designing and placing a new finished product in the stores. Zara also believes in disruptive innovation. If a product does not sell quite well in the market then Zara withdraws the product from the market. This does not hamper the business strategy of the company as the company provides a wide range of products. However, it needs to be added that Zara believes more innovation and shorter life cycles of a product. Such unique product strategy of Zara helps Zara to become a strong brand (Churchill, 2009, p. 131). (Does this state or analysis or discuss anything related to quality what make strong brand? If yes, tell me!!!!! This stated how zara design production, my topic is about build strong brand!!!) On the other hand, the motto of H & M is “fashion and quality at the best price”. However sometimes consumers do sometimes wonder that how exactly H & M is able to make the perfect balance. However, the actions of the company clearly show that there is very little contradiction in the positioning statement of the company. It is an equation that the company most certainly adds up. H & M understands the customers can be satisfied only if the customers get great value for money. Therefore H & M ensures that offerings are not only fashionable but also durable. H & M has one of the most unique product strategies. The company does not sell fur. It only sells leather from buffalo and cows, pigs, etc (Cowan, 2005, p. 67). In store feedbacks and suggestions from the consumers is sent to the designers almost every day. This ensures that the fashion requests and the offerings of Zara are well in alignment (Kothari, 2007, p. 35). In store feedbacks and suggestions from the consumers is sent to the designers almost every day. This ensures that the fashion requests and the offerings of Zara are well in alignment (Kothari, 2007, p. 35). (You tell me here does researcher state or analysis or discuss anything related to build strong brand? this is about building strong brand!! not production or competitive here, even you talk about those thing but you need to related to the brand!!! do you see anything about brand here? Can you find word of brand here?!!Tell me!!!! Nothing!!!) (Here the researcher used almost 600 words!!! Are you kidding me????!!!!)( I do not need case or example analysis, I need the researcher finds some theories or arguments or models to explain why quality is directly important to build strong brand!!! this is literature review, not case study!!!) (Do you or your researcher really know how to write a literature review???!!!even 2:2 standard, you must related to you topic directly!!!) Positioning Positioning is creating a unique image in the minds of the customers’ so that the customers can dedifferentiate the offering of the company from that of the competitors. Positioning can be achieved via several means such as brand name, packaging, service standards, brand image. Zara has positioned them as company set to make the fashion trends main stream i.e. to ‘democratize fashion’. The company mainly uses price quality approach to position itself as a fashion outlet that provides high fashion of great quality at a reasonable price (Wenderoth, 209, p. 359). The positioning statement of H & M says “fashion and quality at the best price”. From such positioning statement it can be interpreted that like Zara H & M also uses price quality positioning (Jobber, 2012, p. 101).( you tell me anything theories or arguments or models to be related building strong brand? any directly relating? Let me tell you that you even can not find the word---brand here!! What do you want to say about this?!!) Repositioning Repositioning happens when the brand looks to change the position in the market position to mirror a change in the taste preference in the market. Repositioning can be done by a company in a case when the company is looking to target a new market segment to expand reach. Companies can also go for a repositioning to rejuvenate a product that is not doing well is the market. One of the key examples could be Ralph Lauren in China. Ralph Lauren had been sold in Hong Kong through distributors. However in 2010 Ralph Lauren decided to go for forward integration as Ralph Lauren bought the license from the distributors. Such strategy was deployed by Ralph Lauren to positioning itself in the same league as Prada, Armani, etc. (could be for what? The researcher even not finishes this part!! What is your researcher doing? Did he really focus on my order?!!! Or just kidding my studying career??!!! And your QAD said this is fine??!!! Are you serious??!!)(Kolb, 2008, p. 92). Communications Communications plays an important role in the building brand. Brand positioning is all about customer perception. Therefore each and every element of the promotional mix should be used to sustain customer perceptions. High street fashion giant, Zara however, only spends approximately 0.3% of the total revenue on ads. This is very low as compared to the other competitors that spend 3 to 4%. Rather Zara looks to deliver value to the customers by concentrating on design pricing and efficient supply chain management (Belch and Michael, 2005, p. 325). On the other hand the collections of H & M are always focused on the customers. Company has many different concepts too satisfy the customers of different ages and tastes. Colours, themes, quality, shape makes a great new collection. Before the launch of the new collections, H & M tries to analyze the demands and needs of the customers. The company tries to strike the right balance between current fashion, modern basic and high street fashion to satisfy the needs of different market segments. H & M maintains very close contact with the media and the customers. H & m communicates frequently with the financial markets and the media. Before the launch of new collections the upcoming collections are promoted through newspapers, magazines and social media. Also propagating posters are exhibited across different cities to promote the offerings. Each year H & M starts number of major campaigns that are usually supplemented with some smaller campaigns. This stimulates interest in the new collections. These campaigns are exciting recurring invitation (Handy, 1996, p. 191). (This is my literature review, and the researcher does such more like case study or essay or assignment, but not a literature review of a thesis. What can I say? This order is so bad luck to be located with this researcher. He totally does not know how to write a normal literature review. He just wants to give 4000 words, that is all. What do you think? Have a look at the example what I give to you please. You will know what exactly literature review is.) Long-term perspective It refers to the need to invest on the brand for a long period of time. Marketers should keep mind that creating brand awareness and customer loyalty takes time. All the major high street fashion companies understand the importance of investing on a long term basis when to build brand. Due to the increase in the number of competitors the players belonging to the fashion industry needs to invest in building brand on a long term basis to get sustained competitive advantage. Looking ahead to the future it must be mentioned that due to the recent economic down turn the people have become selective in the purchase decisions. Therefore pricing is going to play a critical role in brand building. Also with the rise in the digital medium people are looking to in home and search as well as buy products online. It also provides the companies to reach the customers directly. Therefore both H & M and Zara may have to focus on digital branding to increase sales and market share. The digital branding activities may include banner ads, PPC ads, Social media marketing, e-mail marketing, etc (Brown, 2009, p. 209). Internal marketing At last but not the least the management should make sure that the brand is marketed internally. This means that the business on a whole should be crystal clear about the brand values. This is even more important for the service industry. The significance of internal marketing in the fashion industry is immense; especially for major companies like Zara and H & M. As both the companies have setup the business on global basis, it is important for both the companies to understand the culture of respective countries (Muller, 2011, p. 135). Also the employees need to understand the core value and policies of the organization. Hence both the companies spend considerable amount of time to make the employees a part of the organizational culture. Also both the companies provide a large amount of products to the customers. Therefore, the organizations also make sure that the product knowledge of the employees is of high standards. All in all both the companies believe that the employees are the product (Zarrela, 2010, p. 45). Co-Branding Co branding can be defined as the strategy where two business entities pair names and resources to launch a new product. It is believed that co branding first time occurred in 1959. Since 2004, there have been a number of cases of co-branding. This includes Valentino for GAP, McCartney for GAP, Marni for H&M, Karl Lagerfeld for H & M, Jason Wu for Target, and Mary Katrantzou for Topshop, and Missoni for Target (Frank, 1964, p. 401). Co-branding has witnessed more than 30% of growth since the last decade or so. Brands have embraced the concept of co branding for various reasons. But one thing is absolutely crystal clear that co-branding provides long term sustained benefits to the brand. There are common motivating factors for co-branding. One of the main motivating factors is the objective to reinforce brand equity. According to Aaker co-branding provides the scope of brand extension. However, the concept of co-branding actually decreases the risks involved in brand extension. Co-branding also improves the consumer perception of brand equity. Brands usually like to strengthen customer focused brand equity as this helps the customers to respond to the brand favourably based on the quality and the overall identity of the brand. Here it is to be mentioned that brand equity helps a firm to create brand value. Another advantage of adopting co0branding strategy is to obtain operational benefits. Companies can actually learn new tricks of the trade from partners involved in co-branding. Also the companies can make the fullest possible utilization of the resources. Say, a premium brand may use a fast fashion brand retailer to distribute the products and learn about the business model of the retailer. This can help the company to gain forward integration in future. Also the co-branding strategies attract a lot of media attention. This can be very intelligently transferred in to positive publicity and create buzz. Many marketers actually believe that it is one of the most important motives to go for co-branding. Co-branding products also reinforce the brand values to help the marketers reach new target market segments (Eisenberg, 2002, p.1). Some of the characteristics of the co-branded products are relevant ads, clear functionality, brand fit, product fit, and product involvement and brand orientation. Among the several advantages of co-branding there are certain draw backs also. Co-branding can actually harm the brand equity. Many brands are actually concerned that the consumers may actually perceive negative associations if there have been any negative experience with the brand (Sorce, 2006, p. 1). Since 2004, key strategy of H & M has been the partnership or co-branding with various luxury fashion designers. The first H & M collaboration was done with designer Karl Lagerfeld in 2004. It happened to be one of the most important collaborations that increased the organic monthly sales of the company by 24%. Since then it has become an inseparable part of the branding strategy (Kotler, 2001, p. 25). Summary Brand plays an extremely important role in the consumer buying behaviour. Strong brand provides intangible value to the companies that result in the enhanced productivity, profitability and better relationship with the customers. The entry of brands such as Top Shop, H & M, and Zara has acted as an active catalyst in the growth of the global fashion industry. Design is one of the key determinants of accomplishment for a brand in the fashion industry. Zara has over two hundred designers. In store feedbacks and suggestions from the consumers is sent to the designers almost every day. Before the launch of new collections the upcoming collections are promoted through newspapers, magazines and social media. Since the last decade there has been a considerable amount of growth in co-branding in the fashion industry. I do not expect too much, I just hope your researcher do the revision where I highlighted. And this is last revision. That is all. References Aaker, D. A. 2004. Brand Portfolio Strategy. Free Press: US. Aaker, D. and Joachimsthaler, E. 2000. Brand Leadership. Free Press: US. Admedia, 2007. Advertising Agencies. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed on April 2nd, 2013]. Arnold, D. 1992. The Handbook of Brand Management, Century Business: UK Belch, G and Michael, G.2005. 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