Brand Evaluation of Paul Smith - Assignment Example

?Brand Evaluation of "Paul Smith" Executive Summary This paper is focussed on a comprehensive evaluation of the brand, Paul Smith. Paul Smith is a globally renowned brand of the international fashion industry. Despite of its growth, in the marketing perspective the brand had been observed to possess few shortcomings. Thereby, the objective of the paper was to identify the limitations of the brand through an extensive study of the brand philosophy, value, image and position in the global context. With this purpose, the assistance of various branding models had been considered in this paper, i.e. brand value, brand position, and brand image. Moreover, to present comprehensive outlook of the brand’s successiveness, the paper has also implied the multidimensional approach of brand evaluation. Subsequently, the discussion of the paper initiated to suggest few strategic measures to eradicate the shortcomings of the brand. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 1.0. Introduction 4 2.0. Brand Evaluation of “Paul Smith” 5 2.1. Brand Value 6 2.2. Brand Image 7 2.3. Brand Positioning 9 2.4. Multidimensional Evaluation 10 2.4.1. Branding Vision of Paul Smith 12 2.4.2. Organisational Culture 13 2.4.3. Brand Objectives 13 2.4.4. Audit Brand Sphere 14 2.4.5. Brand Essence 14 2.4.6. Internal Implementation 15 2.4.7. Brand Resourcing 15 3.0. Conclusion 16 4.0. Recommendations 17 References 18 1.0. Introduction Evidences reveal that the concept of branding has changed drastically from that of the past. In the present era, brands are perceived to be assets. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, brand can be defined as “a trade mark, goods of a particular make….” (Clifton & Ahmad, 2009). According to many marketers and analysts, it is also referred as “a promise of satisfaction” which exists between the manufacturers, sellers, performers, and the consumers and environment at large in an unwritten form. While brand is termed as an intangible property, branding is recognised as a multidimensional process through which a marketer continuously strives to improve its products and/or services to develop the trust relationship with the customers. Thereby, brand emerges to be one of the crucial components of businesses in the highly competitive environment of the 21st century. With all its virtues, a well-developed brand rewards numerous advantages to an organisation. It reinforces a superior reputation of an organisation, assures quality-performance from its end and above all, builds customer loyalty besides their stimulated confidence on the product and/or services. This in turn facilitates shareholder values rewarding the organisation better growth and strength (Healey, 2008). Realising all these aspects of brands numerous companies have initiated to enhance their brand value, brand image and brand reputation in their targeted markets, e.g. Marks & Spencer, Wal-Mart, Gucci, D & G, and others. On the similar context, Paul Smith can also be recognised as a brand. However, in the modern context, few brands can be identified as successful while few others can be recognised as inefficient and less beneficial to the organisations. With this concern, the paper will intend to discuss the various features of branding initiatives adopted by Paul Smith. The objective of the paper is to critically examine the brand, “Paul Smith” in order to identify its successiveness in the international market. Perpetually, the paper will aim to document the various branding strategies adopted and benefits gained by the organisation, through an extensive research. 2.0. Brand Evaluation of “Paul Smith” Paul Smith is recognised as a marketer of fashion wears and accessories to the international customers of the fashion industry. The first initiation was taken by Sir Paul Smith, the owner of the organisation in 1970. However, for the first time he showcased his designs as menswear collection in Paris in the year 1976 with his own name. This initiative made the young marketer famous in the region and also rewarded the recognition of a brand to his name (Paul Smith, 2011). It is since then that Paul Smith has taken extensive effort to build up an effective brand reputation in the international fashion industry. It is worth mentioning that the brand is still famous for its menswear collection more than any other segment, such as children and women wears offered by the organisation. On the contrary, a brand image is stated to reflect the successiveness of the organisation accumulating every part of its operations. However, the branding vision of the designer can be identified to be largely different from that of the other marketers. 2.1. Brand Value Brand Value refers to the earning of the organisation from its investment in its branding strategies. But branding is termed as the creation of loyalty, trust, and reliability of the customers on the marketers of the brand. On the similar context, brand is termed as an intangible as well as unaccountable asset of an organisation. This makes it quite difficult to count the numerical value of brands. However, the brand value of an organisation can be well-defined with the assistance of market share (as it would depict the customer preference of the brand), the quality of the product (as it is a high priced and premium quality product), and the adopted marketing strategies in terms of positioning and promotional activities (Hallward, 2005). Presently, the fashion giant owns multiple showrooms and retail outlets all around the world. The organisation has most of its outlets and showrooms located in UK and Japan. For instance, the brand is shopped through more than 200 retail outlets and over 500 wholesalers in Japan (Design Museum, 2007). In total, the organisation shops in more than 35 different countries. The annual turnover of the limited UK based company stood at the figure of ?168,419,000 in 2009 which was a steep rise from that of the past. The profit earned by the company during the same period amounted to ?21,661,000 which was but a slight decline from the previous year. It also has four other subsidiaries; namely, R. Newbold And Company Limited, Paul Smith Limited, Paul Smith (Japan) Limited, Paul Smith (Holdings) Ltd (Worksmart, 2009). These facts evidently prove that the company, Paul Smith has a wide coverage in the international market in terms of expansion and also in financial terms. Thus, the market share captured by Paul Smith is fair enough to provide it a competitive stability in the international market. But in the changing scenario of fashion industry as a consequence of the change in customer preferences the company is witnessing several challenges with its unique strategy to blend classic and traditional design with the modern demands of the customers in a hilarious outlook. Despite of the contradictory fact the brand is recognised as one of the majors in the international fashion industry. This apparently signifies that the products of the brand serve with high-quality definition which is termed to be extremely important in the fashion diligence. 2.2. Brand Image The term ‘brand image’ refers to the equity of customers’ preferences over the competitors. This again makes the concept broadest and unaccountable. However, brand image can be identified effectively with the assistance of various analytical tools among which the scalar system is termed to be the most beneficial one. It is in this context, that the brand image of any corporate can be measured with due consideration to the aspects of quality, traditionalism, modernism, market segmentation, brand philosophy and the customers’ choices (Brace, 2008). On this behalf, the researchers contributed that customers’ choices in the fashion industry are changing rapidly with the effect of modernisation and globalisation. There is always a demand for uniqueness along with the consideration of affordability, comfortability and trendiness. In the past, the choices of the customers used to vary accordingly with the culture and other demographical features. Moreover, fashion brands were treated as a means to display the wealth and power in the society which is still continued in the present day scenario. But today, due to the increasing number of competitors and the up-rising level of affordability among customer groups, the preferences are tending to be clustered towards a global paradigm with similar choices. Conversely, few characteristics of the market trends can be identified as the drift of customers’ preferences to add classic and traditional trends with the modern style. Price has also become an important derivative to signify the customer choices (Kort & Et. Al., 2005). In this regard, the brand vision adopted by Sir Paul Smith tends to favour the aspects of traditionalism and at the same time modernisation in his designs. During the showcasing of his design he also provides great significance to the factors of affordability, comfortability and uniqueness of his designs. To be mentioned, the designer provides great significance to the inclusion of fun-filled colours and other features to his design as a differentiation strategy (Mowbray, 2006). Undoubtedly, the fashion brand offers a wide variety of product range comprising of menswear, women wear, children wear, shoes, wallets, fashion accessories, watches, beauty products, fragrances and many others. Moreover, the products are offered in multiple cities through numerous outlets and franchisee holders all around the world. The products are also marketed through online stores to the international customers. The prices of Paul Smith products also differ accordingly with these features. However, the price range of the brand begins from the minimum of around ?40. While Gucci, one of the competitors of the brand in the fashion industry, markets its products at the lowest of ?30. On the similar context, Prada markets its products at the lowest of ?8 (Twenga, 2011). This certain fact depicts that on an aggregate the products offered by the company are quite expensive in comparison to other competitors. This in turn shall prove to be a constraint in the affordability and the preferences of the customers to an extent. On the other hand, as the fashion industry products are termed to be luxurious by nature and are used to signify the social class and the power of the customers, prices do not have too much influence on the customers’ choices. One of the most significant features which can be termed as the strength of the brand is its quality and characteristic to blend the traditional and the modern styles of clothing in its products. Subsequently, the market of Paul Smith gets segmented to the elite class of young generation customers and the children belonging to the class. Therefore, it can be stated that the brand image of Paul Smith is quite strong with an overall perspective but comprises few shortcomings in terms of its pricing and competitive strategies with the given prospects of the changing customer preferences. 2.3. Brand Positioning Brand positioning in defined to be a broad concept determining the various characteristics of the brand from its pricing to its promotional strategies. It is considered to be one of the crucial elements to assist the brand in achieving stimulated growth along with a high level of market competency. To be precise, brand positioning is a process which efficiently aligns the values of the organisation with the customer preferences in the targeted market (Charles Darwin University, 2007). With this concern, the values of Paul Smith can be identified as to serve the customers with high-quality products with the touch of traditionalism. It also provides due consideration to the aspect of uniqueness with continuous experiments and innovative creations. Notably, the products are marketed targeting the young generation of the elite class in the society with higher affordability and liking of fashionable products (Mowbray, 2006). Despite of its efforts in the menswear and women wear sections, only the menswear section is witnessed to foster with remarkable differences. In other words, the menswear collection presented by Paul Smith is more popular than the others, such as the women collections, children collections and fashion accessories (Jones, 2010). 2.4. Multidimensional Evaluation Although there are many assessment models suggested by various researchers and marketers to evaluate the brand’s successiveness in a given environment, most of them have been recorded to fail in providing a comprehensive outlook to the phenomenon. It is in this context that the multidimensional evaluation of brands can be quite beneficial in order to analyse the efficiency and the effectiveness of brands in a comprehensive manner. In this theory, the entire process of branding is studied extensively considering its various stages, i.e. brand vision, organisational culture, brand objectives, audit brand sphere/market share, brand essence, international implementation and brand resourcing (Chernatony, 2006). Representing diagrammatically, Figure 1: Multidimensional Evaluation of Brands Source: (Download-it.org, n.d.) 2.4.1. Branding Vision of Paul Smith In Paul Smith, branding has been treated in a dissimilar manner than the other fashion designers. Since its introduction in the Paris Fashion World during the year 1976, the corporate fashion house has gained remarkable progress in its operations. For instance, when it was showcased for the first time, the brand only offered menswear fashion clothes. Later it expanded its operations in the womenswear section as well. Presently, the brand not only offers these two categories of fashion products including designer clothes, shoes, fragrances, watches and other fashion accessories but also serves the international market with children wears and various other products of the fashion industry. It offers a wide range of customised fashion products which are by them an exception to the fashion world (Ykone, 2010). However, the brand philosophy of Paul Smith is influenced largely by the thinking and the perception of its founder, Sir Paul Smith. In the words of Paul Smith, expanding business aggressively in all around the world with similar kind of features makes the brand unattractive to an extent. It is due to this reason that he decided inaugurating only few retail outlets in the targeted market rather than a lot following the trends and suggestions of the challenging marketers. He also did not find it worthy enough to increase the capital for the business as per the advices of financiers. Instead he adopted the strategy of innovation and creation to develop the branding image of his business. The sole concentration on the aspect of uniqueness certainly made the fashion giant score high as a competitive business. But on the contrary it raises questions on the efficacy of the brand which has been introduced in the market with the vision of uniqueness (Guthrie, 2008). 2.4.2. Organisational Culture Paul Smith by its origin is a UK based fashion apparel manufacturing and marketing company serving its customers for more than 30 years. With its virtues the company has been recognised as one of the leading fashion companies in the British Fashion Industry and also in the international platform. The company operates according to the regulations of the London Stock Exchange and thereby is a private limited company which also owns four different subsidiary companies. Presently, the company operates in more than 35 different countries among which the prime attention is provided in the markets of Japan and UK. One of the most important strategies of the company is innovation and creation due to which the organisation culture is also designed in a manner to support the stratagem. Another feature of the cultural aspect in Paul Smith is that the company provides a great significance to the legal aspects. The leadership trait followed by Sir Paul Smith, also provides stimulation to the organisational culture in a charismatic form. To be precise, the work culture and the overall organisational behaviour of the company, supports the brand vision, i.e. innovation, creation, tradition, modernisation and fun, to a large extent. 2.4.3. Brand Objectives The objectives of the brand, Paul Smith can be identified as largely different from the other fashion brands. For instance, the brand objective in this case tends to target the customers who seem to be less interested in the common designs and colours of fashion world with a demand for uniqueness and fusion, i.e. the blend of classic design and modern style. In other words, the objective of Paul Smith is to attract the customers in the elite group of society who tend to be interested in the unique designs which are again largely different from that of the other customers (Ykone, 2010). 2.4.4. Audit Brand Sphere The term ‘audit brand sphere’ intends to identify the market share of the brand. With reference to the above discussion, it can be stated that the brand acquires a significant position in its prospective market both in terms of financial strength and market coverage. 2.4.5. Brand Essence ‘Brand essence’ refers to as the significant level of customer preference of the brand. According to the financial data available, the brand was able to earn a profit which tended to increase with vast differences over the past few years. On the similar context, the turn over was also recorded to increase on an annual basis. Moreover, the brand after its recognition in the European market continued to expand, especially in its motherland and Japan, which again indicates that the brand has a well-built essence among its targeted customers (Worksmart, 2009). On the contrary, the brand essence can only be recognised as stronger in its menswear section which in other hand depicts that the brand essence is weaker in the other sections of Paul Smith products. Thus the brand essence is unequally scattered in the entire brand sphere (Jones, 2010). 2.4.6. Internal Implementation ‘Internal implementation’ in this context addresses the organisational structure and its significance to boost the brand essence in the practical scenario. To be mentioned in this case, the organisational structure provides a great consideration to the legal and the charismatic thinking of the participants in the branding process. On the similar context, the brand essence of Paul Smith is also quite attentive to the prospect of uniqueness and high-quality services to its elite group of customers. Therefore, it can be stated that the internal implementation of Paul Smith is quite effective. 2.4.7. Brand Resourcing Brand resourcing assists the marketers to identify the functional capability of the brand with due consideration to its objectives and essence in the targeted market and can be measured through the after sales-services and customer population. In the case of Paul Smith, the brand tends to provide insufficient after-sales service to its valuable customers in the elite class of the society. However, the sales figure of the brand is recorded to be quite impressive along with the strengthened relationship between the brand essence and organisational structure. 3.0. Conclusion Undoubtedly the brand, Paul Smith possesses several virtues in terms of its brand philosophy, essence and financial strength. For instance, it has its financial operations at a rise in the international platform. It follows a charismatic form of organisational structure which entertains the brand philosophy to bring creativity and innovation in the products. In terms of market expansion and market coverage also the brand can be recognised as quite successful covering almost every developed and few major developing markets in the world. However, all these virtues can be identified only in the menswear collection of the brand, despite of the fact that the brand also offers female wears with the similar philosophy and consideration. Moreover, the pricing strategy of the brand is also observed as a weakness for its future prospects as it tends to be higher than most of its competitors, though it is served in a wide range. Conclusively, it can be stated that although the brand is witnessing growth due to the virtues of its strong financial health, the brand lacks in overall efficiency. 4.0. Recommendations In order to eradicate these shortcomings the brand can focus on few of its strategies, especially related to the pricing structure and promotional strategies related to the other sections of the brand. In this regard, the brand should offer it products at a competitive price with lesser difference to that of the competitors. Similarly, the promotional strategies of the brand should be much more focussed on the other sections, such as the women and children sections. It would be highly beneficial for the brand executors to perform a research based on the preferences of the female and the children customers, which can be quite different from the choices of the male customers. This in turn shall assist the brand executors to design the products accurately according to the customer preferences and thus, attain a complete brand success. References Brace, I., 2008. Questionnaire Design: How to Plan, Structure and Write Survey Material for Effective Market Research. Kogan Page Publishers. Charles Darwin University, 2007. Brand Position Overview. AUQA. [Online] Available at: http://www.cdu.edu.au/teachingandlearning/AUQA/Supporting%20Documentation/SD07.pdf [Accessed March 27, 2011]. Chernatony, L. D., 2006. From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation:  The Strategic Process of Growing and Strengthening Brands. Butterworth-Heinemann. Clifton, R. & Ahmad, S., 2009. Brands and Branding. Bloomberg Press. Design Museum, 2007. Paul Smith. Design in Britain. [Online] Available at: http://designmuseum.org/design/paul-smith [Accessed March 27, 2011]. Download-it. org, No Date. Brand Evaluation. Chapter 10. [Online] Available at: http://www.download-it.org/free_files/filePages%20from%2010%20Brand%20evaluation.pdf [Accessed March 27, 2011]. Guthrie, J., 2008. English Vision of Design. Financial Times. [Online] Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b19be8b8-1086-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz1Hbps8aR7 [Accessed March 26, 2011]. Hallward, J., 2005. Understanding Brand Value A Review of Price, Performance, Equity, and Category Dynamics. White Paper. [Online] Available at: http://www.ipsos.com/asi/sites/ipsos.com.asi/files/pdf/Ipsos_ASI_WP-BrandValue.pdf [Accessed March 27, 2011]. Healey, M., 2008. What is Branding? Rockport Publishers. Jones, D., 2010. The MT Interview: Sir Paul Smith. Management Today. [Online] Available at: http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/features/1037924/MT-Interview-Sir-Paul-Smith/ [Accessed March 26, 2011]. 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[Online] Available at: http://uk.ykone.com/brands/paul-smith/article/ [Accessed March 26, 2011]. Read More