Ann Taylor Brand Analysis - Term Paper Example

? Ann Taylor Brand Analysis Brand Knowledge Structure The brand chosen for this assignment is Ann Taylor, which is an American group of specialty clothing stores for modern female professionals. Modern marketers today tend to use customer based brand equity model to evaluate their brand performance as customer is the key factor that creates value for a brand. According to an opinion, “customer based brand equity is the differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand” (Kotler, Keller, Koshy and Jha, 252). The theorists add that the brand possesses positive customer based brand equity when consumers respond more favorably to the way the brand is marketed, and it has negative customer based brand equity when consumers react less favorably to the brand’s marketing operations. The Ann Taylor brand was created in 1954 and today it has become a well established brand. According to Keller, Sternthal and Tybout, in case of established brands, managers must reassess their points of parity and points of difference from time to time. When customers think about Ann Taylor, they first consider the long term and the admirable market operations of the brand. In order to analyze the brand image of AT, a survey was conducted among 6 women professional from different age groups (between 30 and 39). From the survey responses, it is obvious that old brand image of Ann Taylor including poor fit, the traditional style, comes to customers’ mind when they think of AT despite the restructuring efforts of the company. All the five respondents said that they owned an Ann Taylor product. In addition, most of the participants said that they gave great emphasis on company’s reputation while choosing a clothing brand. The survey also indicated that poor quality and style are the main reasons why customers are reluctant to buy AT products. Misconceptions like ‘AT still follows a conventional business pattern’ also have adversely affected the brand’s reputation and thereby sales volume. Nowadays, AT deploys celebrities and initiates advertisement campaigns to change its brand image and associations so as to make consumers enlightened on particular product characteristics and quality. This advantage assists Ann Taylor to raise sales only on the strength of its brand image despite its product features. Although these brand-related or non-product related associations have to be emphasized, the company must make sure that such associations do not reduce the market demand of its products. In short, American women customers tend to choose Ann Taylor brand mainly because of the reputation the brand has in the US clothing market. Brand Elements Brand position, brand promise, brand personality, brand story, and brand associations are the important elements associated with a brand. Ann Taylor brand specifically works for addressing the clothing needs of middle class professional women. This brand equally serves the interests of every woman whether she is a trainee in a small firm or a top executive at a multinational corporation. High quality is the most important feature that the brand offers to its customers. The brand is well known for its repute across the New York market for more than a half century. The company’s long success history adds value to its brand credibility which in turn assists the brand to maintain customer loyalty. While analyzing the brand association, it seems that the Ann Taylor makes efficient use of its logos, packaging, and slogans. Ann Taylor’s Heidi Klum featured Holiday 2010 campaign attained great public attention and it assisted the company to change its brand image to some extent. However, Ann Taylor’s logo is not much recognized in the market and people do not easily recognize AT products among other brands despite its long years’ service history. In short, these brand elements have reinforced the point of difference, which represents the outcomes of product differentiation. While analyzing the external market environment of Ann Taylor, it seems that this brand has an array of competitive advantages over its competitors. For instance, it has numerous potential suppliers and hence it possesses a greater degree of bargaining power over its suppliers. Point of Parity and Point of Difference The Ann Taylor brand is well positioned in the US clothing market for reputed career women. Banana Republic and J. Crew are the potential competitors of Ann Taylor. Under this category of product, rich and professional target audience, online factory store, a wide variety of clothing collection, store credit card facilities, and professional clothing designs are some of the major points of parity. The Ann Taylor is strongly associated with the category as it possesses most of these features and offers some other common facilities to customers. Evidently, Ann Taylor’s competitors including J. Crew are hardly associated with the category. The main point of difference of Ann Taylor is that it specifically operates to meet the needs of professional women. To illustrate, the middle class women professionals would always look for professionally designed and attractive clothes at minimum rate. In addition, Ann Taylor’s promotion code, wedding and swimwear collection, and less advertising practices are some other major points of difference of the brand. Although the brand’s points of difference are not much unique, its long and strong corporate history assists the company to neutralize the competitor points of difference. In addition, Ann Taylor always tries to keep an emotional connection with its customers and this strategy has aided the company to attain potential advantages over its competitors. Marketing Mix Analysis The Ann Taylor’s well structured marketing mix has greatly assisted the brand to reinforce the points of differences identified above. As discussed earlier, the brand offers a wide variety of professional and high quality clothing products for reputed women. The company has over 900 stores across the United States and the brand serves the interests of a notable percent of women professional in the country. In addition, the brand’s rigid pricing policy (price to sales ratio is 0.69) extremely benefits the company to retain its highly reputed customers. As part of promotion, the company periodically conducts advertising campaigns; and such practices have played a significant role in lifting the company to its current position. Recent trends of AT ad campaigns show that the brand relies on famous celebrities including Naomi Watts and Heidi Klum to make its products easily recognizable to professional women customers. The brand’s value proposition is clear and this strength contributes to its market reputation. Likewise, the price captures the value associated with the brand and the Ann Taylor products are sold through the appropriate channels. It must be noted that AT does not sell its products through resalers or discount stores because the company is highly concerned about its brand image. Ann Taylor makes effective use of web based selling activities in order to take advantages of the growing significance of internet in modern day to day life. Although it enjoys reputation in the US clothing industry, many of the young professionals still do not know about the brand or they do not believe that the brand’s quality is good. Brand Mantra The company needs its brand to be recognized in the market in terms of supreme quality and classy modern style. In fact, there exists a gap between this desired image and actual performance of the Ann Taylor brand. Recently, some product quality issues have adversely affected the brand’s good will, especially as the company deals with professional clothing items. The quality issues including ‘easy damageability’ were pointed out by customers through the Ann Taylor’s product review columns. However, uncompromised quality seems to be the higher priority purpose or ‘brand ideal” that the Ann Taylor strives to achieve. Obviously, an effective brand mantra would cater the current operational requirements of the Ann Taylor. The brand mantra “Modern, sophisticated, but fun & quality collection for professionals” would provide the company with a compelling point of difference to capture market concentration. Although Ann Taylor is currently one of the leading brands for reputed career women in the United States, it would be thrown out of the market unless the company improves its market operations. It is recommendable for the company to introduce more products under this brand that would meet the rapidly changing tastes and preferences of modern women. Furthermore, the company has to transform from its conventional business approaches to modern supply chain operations. Firstly, it must change the current targeted audience and give specific focus to younger professionals by educating them about the brand characteristics, assets, and the new brand image. It is also advisable for the company to consider professional service firms like PWC and E&Y, and also accountants and lawyers that can afford AT clothing. Such a strategy may assist the company to bring AT to the mainstream of the professional world. Similarly, the application of modernized promotion strategies including e-promotion policies may add value to Ann Taylor’s operational efficiency. Recently published marketing surveys show that social networking sites such as facebook and twitter can be efficiently used to promote brand image. Hence, Ann Taylor may depend upon internet based services to make its products recognized in the US professional clothing market. In total, it is obvious that the Ann Taylor brand has positive customer based brand equity. Works Cited Kotler, Philip, Keller, Kevin Lane, Koshy, Abraham & Jha, Mithileshwar. Marketing Management. India: Pearson Education India, 1972. Print. Keller, Kevin Lane, Sternthal, Brian & Tybout, Alice. “Three questions you need to ask about your brand.” Harvard Business Review. (2002): 1-8. Read More