Store Brand vs. Name Brand Gorceries

Hi everyone...
I found this great video from the Today show on NBC about store brand vs. name brand products and thought it was interesting b/c this is what we were talking about in class last week. Why are people more brand loyal to a particular product? Here is the link...I'm gunna send it to Kito too and see if we can watch it during class.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=28113286&#28109901

Lisa

Serina's video

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=lWTxlJTazt8

:D

Jiji's Video

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ruCq_aYnw

Lisa's Video on You Tube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgsX4BgaNk

This is the link to my marketing video on YouTube. I think I did prety well considering I filmed and edited the whole thing in 2 days! I just might be the next Spielberg!

Lisa

Hi girls!

If you want to see my video click in the link below:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bknscq47HBo

See you! ;)

Tell Customers They Are Understood

bmi's "understanding customer" strategy and campaign:

"Free petrol.

In these tough times, some good news: no fuel surcharges on all our UK and European flights. None. Whatsoever. At all. No extra charge either for baggage or pre-selecting your seat. We thought you'd be pleased."

Full page campaign on Financial Times. Very striking, indeed touching.

Jiji

Tourist Shopping Power

Last week's FT revealed that the share price of many luxury goods company had dropped significantly by around 50% since January this year. Super-rich indeed are tightening their spending on luxury brands. However at the same time I have seen all these Chinese people around me no matter in London or back in China excited about this moment when they can buy high-end designer brands with less RMB, for the currency reason its own if you like. They do take trips to Europe just to shop, and I can imagine how this will ecourage them to come more and spend more. Even looking at the students in London from other part of the world, they haven't seemed to be affected by the recession probably because their parents are not. Aisan economics will somehow be affected however they have a different system which have survived them from the storm. With the same money back to their countries, many Asian students can now buy more stuff in the UK, and very likely they will shop more because of this. Last weekend's The Guradian also mentioned the power of tourists on saving London's retailers a little from the situation for being in the busiest tourist region in the UK. After all we do need some confidence at this time, no matter where it is from and why it is there.

Jiji

Geurilla Marketing Seen this Weekend

Hi Everyone,

I was shopping in Oxford Circus this weekend and I noticed a crowd of people standing outside a small shop front where a man was yelling into a microphone at the crowd. I stopped to investigate and realized that they were giving away bags of perfume for 20 pounds each to promote the new store opening of Perfume Mania. The bags were filled with 5 or 6 full size bottles of perfume including a new fragrance called "The Devil Wears Perfume". The speaker was talking about their new store and how this would be a great holiday item to give as presents. The perfumes were packaged in bags with "The Devil Wears Prada" shoe logo and the Perfume Mania name.

I thought it was a very interesting geurilla marketing scheme. The customers never set foot in the store. There were people just waiving around 20 pound notes in exchange for their bags. I was tempted to get a bag and give them as gifts for holiday, but I decided I'd rather keep my 20 pounds and use it towards a more personal holiday gift than a random bag of perfume.

Lisa

Credit Crunch apparently isn't impacting ALL Retailers!

I was reading Drapers online, and it turns out that there are many retailers (aside from TOPSHOP!) who are also seeing rises in their sales and profits, despite the economic slump that we are experiencing these days. Drapersonline.com reports that Supergroup, who has has both Cult Clothing and Superdry, witnessed a rise in sales by over 110%, and a rise in profits by over 250% over the last couple of months!!!!!! This is pretty fabulous, considering that these time are hitting hard on other retailers. What's the secret to their success? Founder Julian Dunkerton quotes that "...[Supergroup] has filled a gap in what was an unfulfilled market...the key to this is that we are a truly vertical operation, in control of our own destiny" (draperonline.com). "Filled a gap" - sounds familiar? This is what we have been learning in marketing. It's important to identify the needs and wants of your customers, current and potential, especially during hard time like this, when customers' needs and wants are changing, and to be able to oversome this slump, companies need to be on top of what those needs and wants are. From the looks of things, Supergroup was able to identify key elements in the market's customer changes, and was able to provide the market with what it wanted, and thus fulfilled this gap!

Who else has seen a rise in profits? The one, the only....PRIMARK!!!! Primark is expected to see a rise of 18% in profits for the last year!!!!

Good job Retailers!!

Nina

Hi girls!

I found that article really interesting in vogue.com. It’s nice to know that big brands like Mango are interested and try to support new talents.

"Mango's Top Ten"

Things are hotting up for designers Peter Pilotto, Sinha-Stanic and Jean Pierre Braganza, all of whom have been selected as one of the 10 finalists in the second edition of the El Boton Mango Fashion Awards, the first Spanish event aimed at supporting new international fashion.

Competing for a prize of €300,000, the designers will have to impress five prestigious design schools - London's Central Saint Martins, Paris' Institut Francais de la Mode, Milan's Istituto Marangoni, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Barcelona's Escola Superior de Disseny - as well as Mango representatives. They will be given given €18,000 to start designing a collection, which will be presented at a final ceremony in May.

Other finalists in the event include Josh Goot, who showcased a colourfully serene collection at London Fashion Week for spring/summer 2009, and Spanish designer Silvia Garcia Presas.

Week 2 Excercise - Topshop SWOT Analysis

(Please add your points by editing the blog)

Strengths:

• hit-the-trend styles
• affordability
• accessibility - store coverage all over the country
• availability in clothes range
• numerous choices in product lines
• numerous options in collections and styles, e.g. vintage boutigues
• choices at multiple price points - for different choices of styles and qualities
• store space (especially the London Oxford flagship)
• additional serives - cafe, nail salon, etc
• established brand image and market position (in the UK)

(Jiji)

• variety of collections to appeal to a broader range of customers (current and potential)
• over 300 stores in UK and 100 overseas - increased competitive edge on the international retail market
• Charity work w/ PETA, Breast Cancer, TRAID & Starlight - providing a strong brand image and establishes a trustful relationship with its stakeholders
• Great range of awards won, making it a highly recognized High Street Retailer in Britain, and overseas

(Nina)

• New collection every week.
• Explore the brand- combining media culture and celebrities to produce products.
• Different types and styles of garments.
• Many sections- salon, nails beauty, café and a lot of fashion magazines, customers can spend whole day in the store.

(Serina)

• Internet website where garments sell out quickly making shopping accessible to every body also international customers. Here you can buy key garments for the season and see the latest trends. Also offering podcasts of new collections and behind the scene events, thus keeping up with the new technology and creating good PR and generating more sales.
• Top Shop has a lot of services that makes the customer life easy, like: Style Advisor, Membership Card, Topshop To Go, Topshop Express, Concierge, In-store

(Laura)- NA

• They offer a student discount!! This is good because a majority of their target market.
• I think the rest of you summed up the strengths pretty well.

Lisa

Weaknesses:

• difficult to manage - numerous lines of products, big store space and big number of staff
• high cost in management because of above
• customer services become difficult to maintain for big store space and numerous product lines
• store presentation (tidiness and organisation) become difficult to maintain too because of above reasons
• average quality
• accessibility takes away the exclusivity and uniqueness in styles - cloned and uniformed styles

(Jiji)

• Weak customer service - they are more focused on quantity and not quality
• Quality and price range will be problematic to allow TopShop to become a Higher-end quality retailer - appealling to more mature customers who have money to spend

(Nina)

• Quality control/management- bad.
• Some ideas and details of fashion trend come from top brands.
• The prices- too high.
• Inside display of the store- too messy, not easy to work out it.
• Customer service- doesn't work well, only one person to help whole customers, also unprofessional and unhelpful.
• Web shopping- no detail and size for accessorises, customers are difficult to get the right images of them.

(Serina)

• A store that is that big can not offer a personal care like a small boutique

(Laura) NA

• Customer Service is practically non-existent. it is completly self-service.
• The stores can be overwhelming. Their size makes it hard for a customer to see all the product, this can lead to less sales if a customer feels overwhelmed.

Lisa

Opportunities:

• targeting young consumers - very fashion-cautious group that will spend on fashion more
• regularly
• association with celebrities - creating fame and attchment to brand
• affordability and choices might make survive the recession
• International expension opportunities with its mature market position and status among consumers in the UK
  

(Jiji)

• Brand expansion - they are starting to carry Men's clothing line on their website, which allows them to enter a new customer market & potentially open Men's top shop stores
• Chartiy work provides opportunities to target a greater range of potential customers, those who wouldn't normally shop at TopShop otherwise
• Increase in popularity and strength of brand image (use of Kate Moss - world renowned model), provides expansion and recognition opportunities all across the world
• Worldwide Store Expansion = increase revenue and profits
  

(Nina)

• Website management- producing and selling the products by website, customers shopping by internet without visiting the store, also it can shipping to USA and Europe.
• It is the good stage for new fashion designers to present their works.

(Serina)

• Step to step Top Shop is getting bigger and there is a huge market to explore, China, U.S. ...
• Kate Moss is a prescriptor who catches young people attention, and they are biggest fashion consumers.
• Internet market offers many oportunities for Top Shop.
• Top Shop man.

(Laura)NA

• I think Topshop should branch out from the Kate Moss partnership and perhaps start a partnership with a new model or designer. They could give young designers a shot to design small "exclusive" collections. They would be helping the artists and bringing an exclusivity to their stores. Topshop is such a large store, that I think their customers would love to see more "exclusive" products.

Lisa

Threats:

• Competition from high street leader H&M who cooperates with top designers and fashion icons too
• Competition from new entered foreign bands that offer very fast fashion styles at even more affordable prices
• Negative impact on celebrity endorcement campaign - debate on celebrity choice

(Jiji)

• Great competition overseas with other High Street Retailers who already have a niche and status in those countries (i.e. H&M, ZARA)
• Overseas legal policies and government
• Overseas Location development might hinder the growth of the company - has to find very good shop locations in order to be accessible, to expand brand knowledge and image

(Nina)

• Many high street retailers- Wearhouse, ZARA, River Island, OASIS, Unite Benetton, Fornarina.
• Overseas market need.

(Serina)

• 
  There are so many brands that have the same level, and is hard to compete with all of them.
• Kate Moss addictions could affect the reputation of the brand.

(Laura) NA

• Topshop needs to set itself apart from other retails at their level (i.e.- OASIS, French Connection etc.)

Lisa

BBC 2 "British Style Genius"

I can't believe it's already the 3rd week on the course. I actually keep a Chinese blog, but I had to stopped updating it for a while 'cos I've been too busy! It's such a intensive course but it's good because we pick up lots of interesting things quickly. I even found myself paying so much more attention to market and cunsumer trend stories. I've been reading some Financial Times!

I've put up a couple of links on the side of the page. Trendwatching.com offers fantastic consumer trends reports that I found extremely interesting and 100% recommend.

This is this brilliant TV programme called "British Style Genuis" on BBC 2. It's a series that take a fascinating look at what makes British fashion and style so distinctive and so influential. It also sums up the modern history of British fashion. Since it's been on for a while the best way is to check out www.bbc.co.uk/britishstylegenius then you can either find out the schedules or watch them online. Actually a friends of mine recommended it to me and I've just started the episode "A Fashion Democracy - The High Steet Look", it talks about the Kate Moss and Topshop phenomenon and I found it just interesting and useful. Such a bonus for fashion students.

Nina asked me to recemmend some good libraries since I've been in London for a while, and I thought I can actually share with all of you here. British Libariry is great but you can't take books out of the building. I haven't been to the National Art Library @ V&A but I think we should check it out since I found the V&A museum (for art and design) amazing. Depending where you live your local libraries can be some use but the best ones are the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea ones. You can follow this link: http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/libraries/general/ and find the list the libraries on the right of the page. I remember the Central Library and Chelsea Library are really good, especially for fashion.

So hope you all are enjoying London and "The Marketing Game!", let's see what we come out with next Tue...

Jiji

Me & Vals

Hi girls!

This is a birth of a new blogger writer... hahahaha
Well as a begining I want to introduce myself a little before writing more things, as you know my name is Laura, I come from Spain, I’m 24 and I’ve been living in Madrid for the last 5 years. I studied Audivisual Comunication (media studies) and Advertising and Public Relations at the European University of Madrid.

Alter that basic issues I want to share with you my results af the Vals test. My primary Vals type is Innovator, and my secondary type is Experiencer.Innovator means to be successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Experiencers means to be motivated by self-expression. As young, enthusiastic, and impulsive consumers, experiencers quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are equally quick to cool.I know... that is a bit boring, but is the last official post… I promise…

hahaSee you tomorrow!! ;P

Laura

Week 1 Summary - Master Fashion Promotion

I think we'll all agree that this week was definitely an eye opener - not only in terms of what to expect in our classes and the workload that we'll have, but also the broad array of opportunities that we'll have during and after our programme to enagage and learn about Fashion. This week was all about getting to know our classmates, getting to know our teachers, and getting to know VOGUE magazine!!! haha just kidding! I learned a lot over the last week and this is just the beginning. I feel that finally I have settled myself in and now I'm ready to get into the Master Programme trance.

Please keep in Mind that this has been the first Blog that I have ever written, and I seldom wrote a journal as a girl growing up, so I must say that I'm very proud of myself for this entry!

Anyways, classmates...WELCOME TO LONDON!Let the semester begin, let the marketing game begin and lets devote our lives to the Fashion Industry, for the next 8 months if not for the rest of our entire lives!

Nina

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