Module Brief

Fashion marketing is concerned with understanding the complex needs and wants of fashion consumers, whilst orienting both strategic and operational business activities to satisfy those demands. Fashion marketing’s particular complexity as a business philosophy arises from the diversity of fashion-related nuances, coupled with the fast-moving pace of fashion product life-cycles, all of which shape consumer needs.

The fashion industry has experienced dramatic shifts in the last decade, from globalisation to the evolution of technology and social media, which have all democratised the media landscape and changed the way customers consume and engage with brands, products and both digital and printed media. Therefore, you must have a strong understanding of the marketplace in order to drive, reach and stimulate both awareness and demand for fashion. 

In recent years, the high street has struggled to keep up with sales from online retailers, and have began to re-market and re-strategise to instigate re-growth. You will critically explore contemporary fashion companies, their products, consumers, and how they operate within the wider marketplace. You will study marketing frameworks such as SWOT and PEST analysis’, and the Marketing Mix (4 P’s: Product, Price, Place & Promotion) alongside other areas of fashion management and marketing.

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You will develop an understanding of how to apply these skills and methodologies to a fashion brand, and will demonstrate this through creating a Brand Marketing Report, based on auditing their current positioning, whilst advising on what they could improve on, or change in order to re-establish the brand. 

You will choose from one of the following brands to base your marketing report on; 
1. Topshop/Topman 
2. Ben Sherman 
3. Umbro 
4. Victoria’s Secret 
5. Abercrombie & Fitch 
6. Dolce and Gabanna 

Using this brand, you will use primary and secondary research, to develop a strategic Brand Marketing Report. Your report must be informed by your market research and should be relevant, insightful and considered, with a comprehensive evaluation of the brands current market condition including any external factors affecting success, competitor analysis and a number of other key considerations. A key part of your brand report will be to produce a creative strategy proposal with a series of recommendations, of which will naturally derive from your brand research. These recommendations could be based on advising your brand to connect with a new segment, launching brand extensions, a change of ethics, or even developing new products, or introducing or relaunching social media platforms/influencer campaigns, for example. It must include references and sources acknowledged using APA referencing.

I have decided to chose Dolce & Gabbana as I wanted to challenge myself and research into something new, whereas I'm interested in body image and Victoria Secret would of been a perfect brand to research more into this issue. I want to broaden my knowledge within the fashion industry and I feel like doing Dolce & Gabbana will help me do this. Researching about the cracks in a popular fashion brand to then looking at the strengths of one really interests me and will be interesting to see how a huge fashion house is really doing.