Global Marketing of Uniqlo in the UK Market - Essay Example

Global Marketing of Uniqlo In UK market Contents Contents 2 Executive summary 3 Industry overview 3 Selected business/brand overview 4 Literature review of brand design 5 New market perceptions of the brand (Foreign country Vs. Home Country) 9 Global marketing strategy -Branding and advertising issues pertaining to cultural and visual aspects of the chosen brand. 10 Performance /outcomes in the new market 11 Conclusion & Recommendation 12 References 14 Abstract/Executive summary This case is mainly with the aim to understand the fashion industry in UK and the way Uniqlo has created a good market position in UK market. The company has been able to enter the new market and been able to capture a good percentage of market shares even with the competitors been present in the market. It has been able to do so because of its high quality innovative and creative design apparels. In the past two decades the fashion industry in UK have seen many changes and the most important change has been the link between the closing up link between the fashion designer and the retailers. The company has got a huge research and development team which helps it to come up with latest designs and trends for producing innovative and creative fashionable clothes for the customers. Thus the company has seen a good amount of growth over the years and has improved its business process more efficient and productive expanding it to every part of the global market. Industry overview The fashion industry in UK has been one of the most popular and creative industry sectors in the whole country among all other business sectors. The trends in the fashion world in UK have kept on changing with time and new innovative and creative designs have kept developing over the years. This close link has given chance to many new fashion designers to become popular in the market by knowing the latest trend and demand of the customers. This industry contributes to a huge amount to the total UK economy and the amount is approximately £21 billion, it also creates a huge impact in increasing the spending power of other industries and thus the nearby approximate value of its total impact to the UK economy is around £37 billion (Hollenson, 2011, pp. 56-63). This industry does employee a huge number of young people in diverse profiles thus helping the country in improving their employment status and making the economy of the country more stable. This industry in UK has got all the departments working in a very efficient manner and thus the production rate is very high and the resources are been utilised in the best possible way. The productivity rate of this industry as in whole is very high compared to other industries in UK. As a result the country’s GDP is continuously rising. Apart from other industries the fashion sector in the country has played a major impact in helping their country’s economic position rise at a constant level (Keegan and Green, 2011, pp. 45-53). The demand of latest fashion brands in the people of UK is very high as a result there is a huge opportunity for all the fashion brands and also for the new entrants to grow and build a strong business platform in the country. Selected business/brand overview Uniqlo was opened way back in 1984. It is one of the Japanese fashion brands which have seen a rapid expansion in its business over the years. By the end of 2010 the company had around 1000 stores across globally present in different countries. It mainly concentrates on providing fashionable casual wears for the youths (Kotler, Armstrong, Wong and Saunders, 2008, pp. 76-84). The company was started way back in 1949 by Yamaguchi-based Company, Ogori Shōji. It slowly entered in the market for fast retailing. It was the first company in Japan to start the concept of SPA which implies to have a speciality store outlet for its privately labelled fashionable clothes. This outlet has all the stages of business cycle starting from design to selling the clothes to the customers (Lee, 2009, pp. 69-75). This model and concept did provide the company a huge level of competitive advantage and also created a huge differentiation from its competitors. The production process been implemented is highly flexible and can be adjusted based on the requirements and also on the changing trends. This helps the company in reducing the store operations cost. Because of such highly flexible process the company is able to cope with the highly changing trend in fashion industry and enables the company to provide high quality products to the customers in the global market (Kotabe and Helson, 2007, pp. 23-27). It also helps the company to choose the right material that can be used to make particular apparel in the best possible way (De Mooij, 2009, pp. 56-64). The designers do meet the production team, retailers, merchandisers to discuss over the designs and then finalise the final design that is to be made. Literature review of brand design As proposed by Kotler (2000) a traditional definition of brand is a name that is linked with more than one item in the product range and that is also regarded as source identification of the characters of the items. AMA or American Marketing Association has defined brand in some other context as it states that brand is a term, name, design or symbol or a combination of all the stated terms that is used so as to identify the seller or a group of many sellers who produces the items. This helps not only in identification but also differentiates one seller from the rest of competitors. Keller (2003) says in this context that ‘whenever any marketer of a company takes the initiative to create a logo, new name, or symbol, at that moment he or she has developed a brand. Keller today however has identified the fact that brands are much more than this in present scenario. As the definitions have been stated by various authors it clearly illustrates that brand have a much clear and simple functions as that of the identifiers (Bamossy and Hogg, 2010, pp. 34-35). In the first scenario the focus were more on production capacity but in the later stage the focus was more on buying a space in consumers mind. The value that a brand can create comes from the ability that it possesses to gain positive, exclusive and prominent meanings in a large base of consumer minds (Richter, 2012, pp. 172-173). There are various functions that a brand performs for a customer as is stated in the diagram given below- (Doyle and Stern, 2006, p. 123) In view of Kapferer the value that a brand creates is of monetary value and comprises of all forms of intangible assets. The brands that fail to create that potential value is only because of the fact that the managers are not inclined towards maximizing the value of the shareholders. There exist four vital elements that play a major role in determining a perception towards a brand value; they are, degree of perceived quality in comparison to other competitors in the same sector, awareness towards the brand, confidence level of empathy, of significance and liking, and the attractiveness and richness of the images that conjures up together to form the brand. Urde (1999) had produced another model of brand design or building known as brand orientation that focuses on brand as one of the most important strategic resources. Brand Orientation according to Urde is an approach in which the organizational process circulates around development, designing, and brand protection as an ongoing interaction with the target consumer market and having an objective to gain a sustainable competitive advantage through these brands. This model focuses on designing a brand in a more deliberate manner where the strategic platform is formed by brand identity (Ulrich, 2008, pp. 97-98). As per the model the starting phase of brand designing is to have a clear and thorough understanding of the internal features of the identity of brand. After such an understanding the brand becomes more of strategic platform that aims at satisfying the demands of the consumers (Tielmann, 2010, pp. 162-163). The Brand Hexagon as proposed by Urde clearly integrates the brand identity and equity with the strategic direction of the company. The right side of the brand hexagon reflects the reference function of the product and its category that is analyzed in a rational way, and on the left side of the model reflects more on emotional function such as corporate and brand name that are analyzed more on emotional context (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2013, pp. 156-157). At the centre of the model lies the core values and positioning that makes up the brand meaning. The model has been stated below- (Percy, 2009, p. 56) It depends on the size of the company as to what approach its selects in its brand designing phase. The adaptation approach of brand design states that the product that fits into the taste and preference of local consumers proves to be more successful (Elliott and Percy, 2007, pp. 102-103). This approach has been argued by many companies specially those in the fashion industry to be a much better approach. On the contrary standardized approach may not be that successful mainly because of the cultural differences that exist between different countries (Allen, 2006, pp. 172-173). Some companies even utilize both of the strategies so as to maximize advantages (Peng, 2013, pp. 134-135). The company needs to decide on the various aspects of brand so as to plan an effective design. The company decides on each stage of the process involved in brand design such as product features or attributes, positioning, marketing, brand identity and distribution. The choice between the two approaches varies across the different stages of brand design however the long term goal of branding is to set up brand equity. The diagram for the process is stated below- (Pelsmacker, Geuens and Bergh, 2010, p. 117) The LOGMAN or the logical brand management is another effective model of brand design that helps to describe the key drivers that leads to success and failure of brand design. The model focuses more on developing a logical consistency of the brand in the form of certain questions such as – the perception of the brand drivers of the customers are aligned with the company’s expectations or not, does there exist any logical interaction between the various of the brand drivers of the company, does there exist any form of logical consistency between the various brand drivers of the company across the different consumer market segments, and is such logical consistency maintained over time across all perspective levels (Henry, 2011, pp. 234-236). New market perceptions of the brand (Foreign country Vs. Home Country) Customers tend to have different perception with regard to different brand of products available in the market. The perception among the customers does generally changes with respect to mainly the brands which are from foreign countries and the home country brands. The factor of country of origin used to play a very important factor for the perception among the customers as they used to prefer the home country brands more than the foreign brands. But with the increasing amount of globalisation in the business world the concept of country of origin has gone down in a huge way (Deresky, 2005, pp. 45-53). People have shifted their preferences towards good quality foreign brands also as they are able to get better quality products from the same market where they used to get the home country brand products. With the changing lifestyle among the consumers mainly the youth generation who look to create a good status symbol in the society the foreign brands get more demand as they help the consumers build a good status symbol in the society and also create a good value for the consumers (Wheeler, 2009, pp. 34-38). People in UK tend to have a fast life style and especially the youth generation looks to prefer the latest trends and brands in the market and specially the foreign brands as they help the youngsters to create a good social status in the society (Stone et al, 2005, pp. 123-125). The market demand in UK among the consumers has shifted over the years from only preferring the home country brands to the foreign brands that have entered the UK market with new innovative designs and also good quality apparels (Porter, 1985, pp. 45-47). Thus in the UK market there is huge opportunity for the foreign brands to explore and expand their business. If the brands are able to create a good brand image in the mind of the customers than they can easily attract many customers and also capture a good amount of market in UK. Global marketing strategy -Branding and advertising issues pertaining to cultural and visual aspects of the chosen brand. Uniqlo needs to adapt a good marketing strategy while entering the UK market. It has to make sure that the brand is able to create good image and also a good awareness in the minds of the customers to make sure that they can attract a good number of customers and capture a good market share. Uniqlo has looked to market its brand using the concept of digital marketing to increase its brand awareness among the customers. The company has created a good branding strategy in UK making sure that the customers are able to understand the value that the brand can create in their life. A simple website that was been linked to the retail stores of Uniqlo was been run alongside TV advertisements so that people in UK can be aware about the brand in a good way (Melewar, 2008, pp. 56-64). The website did feature an intense catwalk and also allowed the users to see wide range of variety of designs and models of apparels that were been designed by the company. The concept developed by the company was been liked by the customers in a huge way as the customers were able to buy the products very easily and that to by sitting in their home. The concept of look, like and buy did encourage a huge amount of customers to increase the sales and also name for the brand of Uniqlo. The company also had an extensive range of advertising using the medium of social media like Twitter, Facebook by conducting various events and also increasing the customer’s engagement by a huge amount. Thus the branding and advertisement strategies used by the company did help it to grow and create a good market in UK by attracting good percentage of customers (Kapferer, 2010, pp. 76-84). This helped it to create a good brand image in the mind of the customers. Performance /outcomes in the new market Uniqlo has been able to establish its position across various markets that it operates in mainly because of its diverse collection and quality of casual wears that it offers to the market. The company in UK market has a great scope in the coming years simply because of the factor that the target consumer market has demand towards such products and at the same time the purchasing power of the consumer market is relatively high. However the market of UK is highly saturated with many top fashion brands such as Perkins, Burton, Coast, Sherman, Next, Addict, Lyle & Scott, Marks & Spencer, Jaeger, Reiss, BurBerry, etc. The opportunity of the market is high but there exist a tough competition that requires Uniqlo to portray its brand design in such a format that is unique and appealing to its customer base. The global marketing strategy that the company has opted for is very effective in terms that it would help Uniqlo to get easily connected with its customers and at the cheaper cost as it uses social media as one of its marketing tools (Doole and Lowe, 2008, pp. 117-118). On the other hand as per the environmental analysis of the country the consumer market is more inclined towards new brand and more quality conscious in comparison to price. Uniqlo over the years has set up their brand on the basis of the high quality casual wears that it offers and if it maintains its standard and its performance in the new market then it has a great scope in the later year to capture a good market share. Conclusion & Recommendation Thus looking at this case it can be seen that the company has looked to grow in the global market. Starting from Japan the company has grown into many other countries and explored new markets on a continuous basis. In UK with the increasing demand of fashion brands among the youth the company had a huge opportunity to grow and expand its business in UK. It also got the benefit from the point that the consumers have looked to shift their preferences from home country to the foreign markets. The branding and the advertisements used by the company have enabled the company to create good brand awareness in the mind of the customers. Uniqlo has been able to flourish in foreign markets simply because of its quality products and constant upgradation of its designs as per the demand of the target market in which it operates. The company is recommended to focus on to developing a strong brand image mainly through associating its brand with influencing celebrities so as to attract more number of customers towards the brand or sponsor some events. The best marketing strategy is one in which the brand name is continuously highlighted so as to strike in the minds of consumers. Consumers mainly opt for those products that have strong brand awareness in the market. In order to do so the company needs to be involved in some form of fashion event sponsoring or constant change in its advertisements so that their products seem to be more appealing to the target consumer market. The scope of UK market is very high with a high purchasing power and brand conscious consumer market the only thing that needs to be done by the company is to build a strong brand image through various marketing communications platform so that can acquire desirable market share in UK. References Allen, M. 2006. Analysing the Organizational Environment. UK: Select Knowledge Limited. Bamossy , S. , and Hogg , A. 2010. Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. De Mooij, M. 2009. Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes. London: Sage Deresky, H.2005. International Management: managing across borders and cultures. London: Prentice Hall. Doole, I., and Lowe, R. 2008. International Marketing Strategy: Analysis, Development and Implementation. Canada: Cengage Learning EMEA. Doyle, P. and Stern, P. 2006. Marketing Management and Strategy. England: Financial Times/Prentice Hall. Elliott, R. and Percy, L. 2007. Strategic Brand Management. New York: Oxford University press. Henry, A. 2011. Understanding Strategic Management. New York: Oxford University Press Hollenson, S. 2011. Global Marketing. London: Pearson. Kapferer, J.N. 2010. The New Strategic Brand Management. London: Kogan Page. Keegan ,W & Green, M. 2011. Global Marketing. New Jersey: Pearson. Kotabe, M and Helson,K. 2007. Global Marketing Management. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Kotler,P. Armstrong,G. Wong,V. and Saunders ,J. 2008. Principles of Marketing: Fifth European edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Kumar, N., and Steenkamp, J. B. E. M. 2013. Brand Breakout: How Emerging Market Brands Will Go Global. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lee, K. 2009. Global Marketing Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Melewar, T.C. 2008. Facet of corporate identity communication and reputation. London: Routledge. Pelsmacker, P., Geuens,M., and Bergh, J.2010. Marketing Communication. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Peng, M. 2013. Global Strategy. Canada: Cengage Learning. Percy, E. 2009. Strategic Advertising Management . New York: Oxford University Press. Porter, M.E. 1985. Competitive Advantage. New York: Free Press. Richter, T. 2012. International Marketing Mix Management. Berlin: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH. Stone et al. 2005. Consumer Insight: How to use data and market research to get closer to your customer. London: Kogan Pages. Tielmann, V. 2010. Market Entry Strategies. USA: GRIN Verlag. Ulrich, et al. 2008. Product Design and Development. Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Wheeler, A. 2009. Designing Brand Identity, Third Edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More