Fashion marketing, strategies, research & framework - Lecture notes

Lecture notes

Last week:
  • Brands are out of touch with consumer needs
  • brands not in touch with current generational perspectives
  • slow adoption of sustainable issues
  • old school attitude towards luxury for high end brands, Dolce & Gabbana, struggling to connect with the new generation.
20/12/18 

How do consumers consume and connect with brands?

  • Advertising strategies
  • Understanding the demographics
  • understanding emerging demographics
  • Keeping and increasing footfall
  • Understanding changing and emerging trends in consumption
Much has to do with visual communication

  • The forums that demographics now link with
  • What draws a consumer in and why
  • What are the connectors?
  • Connection to visual information, for example short films/teaser campaigns
More abstract methods of advertising 

  • Celebrities
  • Guerrilla
  • Youtube campaigns
  • Subliminal advertising
Guerrilla advertising

  • Advertising a brand using financial resources
  • Fresh approach to advertising
How branding and marketing drive the fashion industry

  • Connects directly to the consumer
  • Drives price
  • Drives and captures specific demographics, whilst trying to pick up new consumers
  • Marketing incentives drive consumers, for example, vouchers, BOGOF, driving the price time for a period of time, countdowns on social media until offer on purchase expires
  • Pushes consumption by selling product through a specific window of time
  • Historically brand identity was king
  • Brand attachment locked the consumer in via aspiration
  • This is changing now with generational shifts, consumers no longer consume because a brand tells them who to be
Meeting the consumer needs

To meet consumer needs, you need to understand:
  • Who they are
  • How to reach them
  • Where they live, sometimes a north/south divide in consumer taste
  • Their age
  • What they are prepared to pay
  • Their likes and dislikes
  • Their expectations
  • If the product is desirable
  • Brands need to research and gather data on their consumer to understand them
That is why research is critical
Good research allows you to undercover all these aspects:

In primary and secondary
  • Questionnaires
  • Surveys
  • E-mails
  • Telephone calls
  • Focus groups
  • Photography
Effective research strategies

  • Keeping on top of what you're doing,
  • Keeping records of hard copy sources
  • Digital information
Examining demographic and target markets

  • age
  • Geographic location
  • Sub-culture: who is wearing what and why
  • Earning/spending power: reflection of target price points
Micro analysis of marketing strategies

  • Demographics
  • Economics
  • Social and cultural
  • Political
  • Technological
Brand analysis

  • PEST
  • 4 P's
  • Brand mapping 
Investigating brands
  • Auditing brands; investigating their current position in the market place
What can struggling brands change or improve to reestablish themselves?

  • Connecting to the consumer, do the consider their:
  • Advertising strategies
  • Their reputation
  • How to connect to their consumer - do they need to rethink their ethos 
  • Their history - are they sitting back on past glories and still expect the consumer to consume because of who the brand perceive themselves to be
  • Brand currency - brands developing a better understanding of generational/cultural shifts, how society is changing










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