Creative Marketing Strategy - Case Study Example

Creative Marketing Strategy From a cultural definition, fashion is termed as a form of expression and it does limit itself to clothing trends but hairstyles, jewellery, accessories and body art like tattoos. Fashion has over the years transformed and it can be linked to social change.( Clarence 2002).The way in which one expresses his clothing is determined by geographical location, income, taste, preference, climate, religious background, age, sex and other factors. The dynamics of fashion is determined by national cultures and industry influence. Fashion and design have risen over the years to be a leading sector in many economies in the world. The emergence of competition in the industry among the different sectors has come up due to the fact that the labels compete on the quality of their products rather than the price. A person would buy a well known product for instance Louis vuittion or Gucci at a very high price compared to the same product without the logo. Due to this factor of attractiveness, marketing or product promotion has been a key tool to great sales for the fashion industry with different modes of advertising and marketing used. Currently, the fashion industry is a multi-billion industry that has seen a lot of investors and entrepreneurs enter the broader textile and apparel industry. The amount spent in US on fashion each year is 250 Billion USD and according to the analyses, the amount is set to double in the next ten years. This translates that number of people employed is set to increase and the annual global fashion industry revenue is also set to be rising in the near future. In today’s era of fashion industry, it is more than just availing products in the international markets, but it entails marketing, branding and shipping of products. Due to the differentiation of the world markets, uniformity in marketing may be hard, but with increase use of technology, marketing and availing goods in the market has become easier (Tungate, 2012). The problems of different trade policies, difference in trading currencies, laws and infrastructure have been reduced .The companies that have been leading in providing assistance to small scale designers and Fashionist include; council of designers of America, Editd (UK) and Nike. These organizations have helped young designers scale up the tough competition through helping them brand and market their products. Factors Influencing The Fashion Industry Economic boom or recession influences the general income of the fashion industry. During the boom, people will tend to spend more on luxury and new trends because they have more disposable income.When their disposable income becomes less, consumers tend to go for cheap brand, hence making retailers lower their prices or stay with a large stock. Difference in currency also creates problems because most currencies fluctuate over time. Political and legal structures affect the industry in a global scale. Issues of difference in trade policies, works rights and wages in different parts of the world are caused by the different legal structures. Political instability, wars and changes in regimes have an impact on profits and the stability of a state is seen as an asset for fashion retailer Availability of technological resources affects the industry because in a real sense one cannot compare the information technology that is present and in 50 years ago. This technological development is one of the factors credited with the rise of the industry with marketing ,branding , shipping becoming easy .Consumer factors like demographic changes, taste and preference, culture, religion and traditional norms influence the market of a fashion industry and the method they should use to market in order to help create awareness of the product and sensitize a specific target of people to buy the product. Fashion marketing concept is the use of techniques that rely on the customer and clothing goods and services. The concept of fashion marketing needs sufficient marketing to work for the goods and services are very expensive and the target market is the elite few. Marketing communication is the communication in product promotion which creates an attraction to the consumer towards a brand of goods, services, ideas or an individual. Marketing communication allows the fashion firms to inform, remind and persuade the consumer. The customer can also be given information about how to use the product, who to use the product, where it can be used and any changes in the product. A.I.D.A Model Of Marketing Communication AIDA is an acronym of ‘attention, interest, desire and action’ and it’s a process used by many marketers to attract buyers. (Bob & Ray, 2013) They make a buyer create them because of noticing the brand because of the attention they have sought. This can be in the form of an audio visual means. This makes the prospective customer have interest on the brand and try to explaining to them the benefits of the product and its special feature as compared to other products. The interest creates desire and it’s the duty of the marketer to explain the benefits that come with the product and try to help the customer take immediate action and buy the product. After buying the marketer can then use a gift hamper or handouts that can encourage the buyer to buy the goods gain. Digital Marketing Digital marketing is a form of product promotion that uses electronic media like the internet, podcast, mobile phone application, digital television and radio channels. Bickle, (2011) asserts that digital marketing is better than other traditional forms of marketing because the data used to reach the consumer can be used to evaluate the gap between marketing and sales . Digital marketing is important in the fashion industry because it’s easily accessible since one can get the information anywhere anytime .The cost of carrying out digital marketing is reduced because it is capital intensive as compared to the traditional methods which are labour intensive. Globalization has made more fashion firms take digital marketing an more firms have internationalized mostly in the UK and US who have offshore production units, mostly in the textile industry where China, India and Pakistan have more foreign owned industries. For instance, Nasty Gal an American based fashion forward online retailer is one of the fastest growing fashion business that has purely grown because of digital marketing techniques like Facebook, instagram, twitter and interest Techniques Of Marketing In Fashion Industry For one to get a good marketing strategy you must target customers who should act like your audience. Brand ambassadors that are within your target customer is a method used for marketing. Celebrities who are either artists or sportsmen can wear the brand in public and since they are a role model to many, people will follow their choice if brand, for instance, Nike which is a sports brand pay a lot for sports personnel who wear Nike branded sport wear. Guerrilla artwork is a good method which can be employed since it reaches a large group of people if the location is well chosen. Bus stops and sidewalks in a densely populated street can be used to portray the fashion, art or images of the products and services. Press releases can be used to pass a number of information to the target groups of a brand. This can be placed in writing press or audio version. The information can comprise of any offer or discount, change of a specific good, change of premise.The press releases should not be boring, but it should be captivating without leaving the main idea of creating awareness to the target consumer. A firm can also form a partnership with the author of an E-book because of the high sales of the books(Jay 2013) The firms pay the write to have the main character have the label as his or her clothing. This helps to reach the readers and creates an image to the readers that the brand is worth a try. Using the AIDA model of communication and digital marketing has had a positive impact on fashion marketing since when the two are employed together. For instance, during a guerrilla art work, a marketer can use the AIDA model, then tell the buyer to make an online purchase making it a form of digital sale with a physical marketer (Jay Baer 2013). Integrated marketing communication seeks to bring into use various elements and tactics of product promotion that will result to reaching the customer in different level in a well organized way. Pestle analysis can be used by the marketer to stay on a positive trend and keep check of various external factors that may affect the business and or the whole industry in order to avoid running into losses (Andrew, 2007). Key among the macro factors taken into consideration by the PESTLE analysis include Political, Economic, Social and Cultural, Technological, Legal, and Environment. The fashion firm can also use the information in launching new products to the market since the analysis gives them the market information it requires. For instance a clothing line which produces mini-dress for ladies can use the statistics it has to see whether the market can also accommodate long dresses or any other clothe design. Analysis of the Value and Luxury Market Levels Value markets are the kind of markets where people will buy goods because of an offer or because they can bargain to get the cloth for a much lesser price while the luxury market is the ones that are for the elite rich and they often buy the logo or label without considering the pricing or quantity. In value fashion markets, it is evident that the target market will always seek to buy the good that is in fashion at a lesser price and they buy in bulk. The market has in recent times not being responsive to the changes in fashion trends. Here the fashion houses are forced to adjust according to the market. Notable value fasion retailers include Primark and TJX Companies, Inc. There is a considerable increase in the size of the fashion market due to more people joining the fashion market and internationalization of fashion firms (Pahl & Mohring, 2008). The desire for men to go for the labels because of the ego that comes with the top brands like Rolex, Gucci and Prada while the ladies have had a tendency of buying more clothes than the previous years has also contributed to the growth of fashion industry. People have criticized digital marketing in that it stimulates people’s consumerist fantasies since marketers have this attitude that if your product is not good you just lie about it to convince people. Luxury consumers believe that they should be left to make a rational decision rather than having a brand voice itself (Paul & Jonathan, 2004). They prefer recommendations from other customers than having marketers tell them. Luxury market level has widely used the internet to reach a global level market and this has led to growth in sales because of the widening of the market. In this level, the information about the brand should be a priority and ethics should be upheld not to lie to the consumer about what the commodity can offer and the main issue in this level is to make a potential buyer takes immediate action and purchase the brand (Lea-Greenwood, 2013). In most cases the marketers are outsourced outside the fashion company so the main issue is to have the marketers get all the necessary information about the brand and the organization. Luxury markets in the tourism and travel as well as online shopping have been doing well in the recent times because the elite spenders who are the target group prefer strong touristic luxury shopping than visiting local stores (Bickle, 2011). They also prefer buying goods online because of the time convenience and privacy because they are home delivered under request. The best performing luxury brands currently include; Hermes, Rolex, CHANEL, Gucci, Burberry, Hennessey and Prada. For a brand that is not performing well like Liz Claiborne which was once a ladies clothes powerhouse, one can come up with a marketing plan for instance, if the jewellery sector is not doing well. The SOSTAC planning system covers all the approaches that can create ideal and comprehensive plan. The acronym SOSTAC means as follows; ‘S’ is the situation currently of the underperforming brand. ’O’ represents the objectives set by the fashion firm on how they want the brand to perform. ‘S’ is the strategy that the firm is going to use to help them achieve the set objectives. ‘T’ is the tactic of marketing that can link with the strategy. ‘C’ is controlled and the fashion firm should have the power to change, renew or monitor the brand as it picks up. For instance, Liz Claiborne can use SOSTAC to promote their performance in the market by evaluating their current position in the market. The next step should involve setting their objectives, which may include “increasing market share 10% within a 2 year or increasing sales volume by 40% within 2 years”. The next SOSTAC step should involve coming up with strategies to meet their objectives. One of the strategies can involve increasing marketing budget by 30% every year. For the SOSTAC approach to work there is an important detail that should be considered, that is the 3Ms: money, men and minutes. Money is the capital that is to be invested into the market. Men represent the labour force required for marketers the minutes represent the time frame, deadlines and schedules that the brand should have picked up. Market mix will be positioned in the situation analysis while target market comes in any stage of SOSTAC because once identified a new market under the objective section it will be easy to place a target market anywhere in your marketing plan.(smith, Jonathan ,2004) In conclusion, using digital marketing and mixing the new form of marketing with other tactics has proved to be the new and effective method and the fashion industry has full employed fashion marketing communication. AIDA model of communication is the best approach to be used by a marketer when getting a new potential customer to create interest with leads to desire and the person can then take an action of buying the goods. For the fashion business that need to come up with a good marketing plan for a brand Reference List ANDREW, G .(2007), Pestle Analysis of the Macro-Environment. London: Oxford University Press BAER, J. (2013). Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype. Newyork: Portfolio/Penguine. BICKLE, M. C. (2011). Fashion marketing: theory, principles, & practice. New York: Fairchild Books. BOB, W. L & RAY, V. (2013). Transforming Business at Intersection of Marketing and Technology . London: Wiley publishers CLARENCE, K. (2002). A Statistical Investigation of the Changing Apparel Retailing Environment in China. Journal Of Fashion Marketing and Management 7(3): 359 – 377. LEA-GREENWOOD, G. (2013). Fashion marketing communications. West Sussex, Wiley & Sons. PAHL, N., & MOHRING, W. (2008). Successful business models in the fashion retail industry: strategic audit of H&M compared to ZARA. Norderstedt, Germany, GRIN Verlag. PAUL, S & JONATHAN T. (2004). Marketing communication 4th Ed. Chartered Institute of Marketing THORP, D. (2007). Tomorrows Word; Shape the Agenda. Chartered Institute of Marketing. Available at http://www.cim.co.uk/files/tomorrowsword.pdf TUNGATE, M. (2012). Fashion brands: branding style from Armani to Zara. London, Kogan Page Ltd. Read More