Fashion brands – is your label showing?

March 26th, 2010

Following on from February’s Fashion Week, the experts believe 2010 will continue to be a challenging year for the UK fashion industry. With an inconclusive budget and the impending election, consumers are still reluctant to spend despite feeling a little more confident in making discretionary purchases. The crucial Easter trading weekend is in danger of turning into a washout, according to high street retailers that have been disappointed with the slow start to March.

But there are some positive brand stories on our high streets. Buoyant first-half sales were posted by department store retailer Debenhams, much of the credit going to their re-launch of the Principles label at the end of February, which CEO Rob Templeman described as ‘our best brand launch in our history!’ Debenhams bought the Principles brand in 2009 after Mosaic, the fashion chain’s owner, went into administration. The new version of the brand is under the design control of Ben de Lisi, a long-time member of the ‘Designers at Debenhams’ stable, and is tapping in to a latent brand loyalty.

Debenhams is also making a strategic move away from fashion brand concessions, preferring to control the buying and merchandising process internally, thus creating larger margins for the retailer. Another move towards this has been the introduction of a young fashion collection designed by Henry Holland.

Momentum in department store competitor John Lewis built throughout last year, with an increasing emphasis on fashion within the portfolio. The retailer has cemented its position as a key high street fashion player with the addition of a raft of younger, more premium brands including G-Star and Diesel to its mix.

Smaller fashion brand retailers including Republic, Ted Baker and H&M have outperformed the clothing market and managed to grow their market shares through 2009, despite the economic climate. While they are not the cheapest fashion retailers, and their lack of scale could make it difficult for them to compete with their larger rivals, they have been successful by delivering perceived good value through their brand points of difference including exclusive range expertise, customer service and in-store experience.

One possibly surprise winner in the recession has been Monsoon who, with 425 stores in the UK and some 600 overseas, was taken back into private ownership in 2007 by founder Peter Simon who started the business back in the early 1970s. This lends support to the argument that a clear and distinct market positioning, where you know who you target customers are and deliver to that, is a strength in a difficult market. Monsoon has always offered a colourful, slightly bohemian style clothing range influenced by eastern textiles.

And there are a number of fashion brands that are deciding to change owners for the new season. Earlier in March, French Connection announced that it is to sell the Nicole Farhi label to a private equity group based in Los Angeles for ‘up to £5m’ and close almost three-quarters of its US stores in a restructuring move designed to return it to profit in 2011. The move follows a strategic review of the business, which has already seen the closure of unprofitable stores in Japan and northern Europe. The business was originally set up in 1982 by the fashion designer Nicole Farhi and Stephen Marks, chairman and chief executive of French Connection.

Also in March, up market brand Liberty sold its flagship central London store for £41.5m, on a sale and leaseback deal, in the midst of takeover talks for the remainder of its business. And, at the other end of the price spectrum, New Look is declaring a strong trading performance that will revive their desire for a stock market flotation.

But what about new businesses; is 2010 a year to take that plunge or to retreat from the brink? Well, according to Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Theo Paphitis, 2010 could be the best time in years to start a new business! He’s certainly taking his own advice, opening a new national lingerie chain, working name DNA Lingerie, to rival the company he used to own, La Senza that is thought to be struggling through the recession.

The moral of this story? The golden marketing rules of researching your market, defining and refining your proposition and engaging with your customer apply even more in a difficult economic climate.

Posted in market analysis | 7 Comments »

How big an umbrella should brands have?

March 17th, 2010

There are many reasons why a brand that has a number of sub-brands or different brand variants needs to have an over-arching umbrella brand strategy. For one thing, it is unlikely to be economically viable to continue to individually support every part of the brand and a group strategy can achieve more competitive cut through and drive brand share.

One brand that chooses to adopt a group message is Heinz with its ‘It has to be Heinz’ umbrella campaign that has been responsible for noticeable sales growth since first being run in October 2009. And, if we are to believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Premier Foods has launched a brand campaign called ‘Great Little Ideas’, which aims to give mums hints, tips and twists on how to use ‘some of Britain’s best loved food brands’ such as Ambrosia Devon Custard, Hartley’s Jelly, Cadbury’s Mini Rolls, Mr Kipling, Batchelors, Bisto, OXO, Branston, Sharwood’s and Loyd Grossman. Here the individual brands will focus in recipes such as Ambrosia Devon Custard and bananas to make a Banana Brulee.

Another reason for a brand to adopt an umbrella strategy is that, with consumers becoming more and more individual and wanting interactive relationships with the brands they trust, there is a business reason for brands to develop a strong personality that can engage with their consumers and build brand loyalty.

In a move to build relevance for their brand and engage with its consumers, Beiersdorf has recently decided to group the marketing of all products bearing the Nivea brand under a new positioning strategy that encourages women to feel good in their own skin and carries the ‘Feel Closer’ strapline.

But an umbrella strategy does not mean that all parts of the brand have to be communicated together but rather that there is a synergy between the communications so that everything borrows from, and builds back to, the umbrella positioning.

An example of this approach, where the umbrella brand is the corporate identity, is Unilever who continue to run separate brand identity advertising but, since 2009, have included ‘signature’ corporate branding on its product brand advertising for the likes of Flora, Persil, PG Tips, Magnum, Sure, and Dove.

So, if you don’t want the stresses of finance, competition or consumer loyalty to rain on your brand, get an umbrella!

Posted in marketing marvels, marketing quests | 4 Comments »

How social media can build brands

February 24th, 2010

On the basis that marketing should be all about providing an answer to a current or potential customer’s needs or wants then it seems only natural that social media can play a role in linking those customers to brand owners for a mutually beneficial dialogue.

One of the latest uses of social media by forward-thinking companies is to inform New Product Development. But NPD through social media needs to be much more than an online focus group! Consumers are passionate about the brands they choose to buy and will interact with you about them as long as they believe that they are having an authentic conversation with the brand owner and that their views are being valued. They are talking on social media platforms about their experiences anyway and it makes sense that the conversations they have about your brand are positive and well informed.

An example of how these audiences can be engaged and their views integrated into NPD is Unilever’s experiment with men’s fragrance Lynx Twist in the UK and the USA. The company used an invite-only online community of a large number of young people for market research and discussions. But then they took the engagement idea one step further and selected an elite group of 16 to go to New York to work on developing the best ideas, leading to the launch of Lynx Twist in December 2009. Unilever have judged their trial a success and are planning to replicate the process in other categories such as savoury foods and haircare.

MyLook is the customer community site for UK retailer New Look that was launched in July 2008. So far the site has informed a number of business decisions including NPD and advertising. The choice of Kimberley Walsh, of Girls Aloud, to be the face of a recent New Look clothing range was influenced by MyLook.

These communities are a rich source of information for marketers but, as with any strategy execution, the venture has to be properly planned and funded for it to work. Interaction means a true two-way conversation and that, in turn, means constant new content to engage and interest consumers. They will not be interested in, or respond to, corporate wallpaper.

Social media has granted consumers an unprecedented power to comment on brands, positively or negatively. Brand owners can choose not to engage in two-way conversations with their audiences but they cannot stop the conversation. Those brands that listen and interact with their consumers will be the ones building brand loyalty and advocacy.

Posted in marketing marvels, marketing quests | 1 Comment »

Branding – what’s in a name?

February 12th, 2010

According to Shakespeare: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well, yes it would but how would you market it to gardeners and lovers? A name is an identifier, a shorthand designation that sets one person, product or service apart from another. And, as such, it does matter what that name is as it can either enhance the reputation of that to which it refers, or it can damage it absolutely.  Otherwise why did Marion Michael Morrison change his name to John Wayne?!

It’s the same in marketing. Your name is the first, and most important, part of your brand. A strong name helps you stand out and convey your brand values. A weak or inappropriate name can work against everything else you do to build a position for your offering. So it’s interesting to explore why some of today’s infamous brands started life with very dubious brand names:

  • Google was launched in 1996 as BackRub. It was quickly (and thankfully) renamed by founders Larry Brin and Serge Page in 1998
  • Pepsi-Cola was the brand name in 1898 for a product that had launched five years earlier as Brad’s Drink after a young American pharmacist called Caleb Bradham
  • Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web was the original name for Yahoo, founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. It was soon renamed to the acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”

And then there are those brand names that we all think are fine, only to have their powerful brand owners change them on us, usually with the intention of enhancing the brand’s global domination:

  • In 1990 Mars changed the name of its popular peanut chocolate bar from Snickers to Marathon and eight years later did the same thing with fruit chews Opal Fruits, renaming them Starburst
  • In 2001 Unilever chose to change the name of household cleaner Jif to Cif, apparently to help Hispanic and French speakers pronounce it better
  • Only last year, the UK’s biggest insurer turned its back on its Norfolk roots to change its brand name from Norwich Union to Aviva

And now we have another contender as Charmin toilet tissue is dropped in favour of Cushelle, with its big cuddly bear icon morphing into a koala! The name change is part of an agreement made during SCA Hygiene’s acquisition of Charmin from Procter & Gamble in 2007.

Changing a brand name is not a cheap exercise, not forgetting the discarded consumer goodwill for the previous incarnation. So why do it? It all comes down to getting the long-term brand strategy right in the beginning. If you are already a global player, like Unilever or Procter & Gamble, you should really be thinking of appropriate global brand names at the outset and avoiding costly rebranding exercises further down the line.

It’s true that global branding can bring cost savings by producing a single global advertising and marketing campaign for all countries. But there is also a well-respected view that global branding can be counter-productive. Advertising campaigns produced by the so-called ‘lead’ market can look very alien in other markets. Often being dumbed down so as to minimize cultural differences, these global campaigns can appear bland and not relate directly to any market, giving local brands an advantage.

Another reason given for a brand name change is to distance the brand from a negative experience. Personally, I think this is misguided. It assumes we all have very short memories and cannot tie up the two identities. In this way, not only does the new brand bring its old baggage with it, but it also risks alienating us even further as we think they may be trying to get away with something! It is better to invest the resource that would have gone into establishing a new brand in overcoming the original brand’s difficulties.

So, the lesson is that a brand name should be for life and therefore deserves careful thought and planning to avoid future costly changes. Would a rose smell as sweet if it had been called a stinker?

Posted in marketing mistakes, marketing quests | 7 Comments »

Retailers need to checkout social media

February 11th, 2010

According to a survey of 100 UK retailers by dotCommerce http://www.dotdigitalblog.com/ecommerce/464/ most retailers are failing to utilize social media to exploit the opportunities it offers to engage consumers. Nearly 60% of retailers have no social media presence at all! Even for the 42% that do use social media, only 32% with a Twitter or Facebook account are promoting this on their website and a mere 12% use more than one social media channel. For those that are using social media, Twitter is taking over from Facebook as the channel of choice. Retailers using Twitter are mainly using it for push marketing with 73% using it for announcing product updates, 62% for marketing and 58% to promote company news. It seems that neither large nor small retailers have embraced the idea of blogging with only 10% small and 6% large retailers having a blog.

It seems such a missed opportunity for retailers who are in the perfect position to identify their consumers and engage them via social media. Retailers should be engaging with customers to supply more of their needs and thereby secure a larger share of their expenditure. Farming their existing customers in this way would be a much more cost effective exercise than looking for new customers or, even worse, just waiting to see who wanders in!

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Marketing is all about product too!

January 22nd, 2010

Following the Guardian’s interview with Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz (http://tinyurl.com/ycffluw) there has been a lot of tweeting about the rights and wrongs of his strategy for Starbucks. The fact is that Starbucks ranked number 90 on Interbrand’s 2009 list of global brands (http://tinyurl.com/3e9lyp), down five places on a year ago, coinciding with a 16% decrease in brand value; so something has to be done.

Schultz’s diagnosis of the company’s problem is that growth had been seen as a strategy when, in fact, it is merely a tactic. By putting too much of the company’s focus on growth, mistakes were made that were disguised, when they should have been investigated and corrected. His solution is to go back to his original inspiration of the ‘romance of coffee-making’ and cater for the communities that Starbucks serve with an individual, non-corporate look.

The first experiment of this new look was in London’s Conduit Street that opened in November 2009 (see photos at http://tinyurl.com/ye79s8r). It looks more upmarket, with great attention to the furnishings, and the coffee counter has apparently been designed to emphasise the brand’s coffee authority. There are due to be another 100 of these individual refits across the UK by the end of 2010.

Whilst, in this new look, the corporate branding is much more recessive, even tasteful, in Seattle, USA, Starbucks has gone a stage further and is trialling three totally unbranded stores that have been designed to resemble independent local cafes. Critics have dubbed these outlets as ‘Stealth Starbucks’.

Fundamentally, I believe Starbucks has two marketing problems in the UK. Firstly, the brand needs to engage with its consumers and deliver the type of coffee experience they want. It can’t do this by refitting stores to ‘pretend’ to be a local coffee shop that will be rejected when people realise it’s really global brand Starbucks. They should look at the challenger brands that have grown up in their wake and see why consumers. In many cases, have a closer relationship with some of these.

Secondly, and most importantly for me, they need to look at their product. I am a real coffee drinker. I drink my coffee black (ideally a double espresso) and unsweetened, not frappuccinoed with fruit juices and cream! So I actually TASTE what I drink and Starbucks coffee is not good! I can only really liken the thin flavour and strange aftertaste to the comparison between real 70% cocoa chocolate and American chocolate like Hershey’s. There is no comparison.

So, if you’re listening Mr Schultz, marketing is all about the product too!

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50 but not out: targeting the (slightly) older consumer

January 21st, 2010

I went to a very interesting group discussion with a group of other, well, that was the point, what DO we call feisty, successful, purposeful women over 50? (Any thoughts please send to me on Twitter @BarbaraStopher) We’re the baby boomer generation and are pioneering what people of our age can do. In our youth, people in their late thirties / forties were ‘middle aged’, a derogatory term that conjured up a pastel twin set and a tight curl perm.

The women I met were as far from crimplene and perm solution as the weapons of mass destruction were from reaching Britain! A more trendy US term for women like us is mid-life, which at least suggests there is more to come! But are we the sort of people who want to be categorized and labeled?

The trouble is that marketing and advertising for the big brands is in the hands of relatively young people. The new IPA census (http://tinyurl.com/y9t5aau) shows that 45.2% of advertising agency employees are aged under 30, with another 37% being between 31 and 40, 12.7% between 41 and 50 and only 5.2% over 50. Perhaps that’s why I heard colleagues talking about a brand wanting to target the grey market and the immediate solutions that sprang to these naïve young minds were Saga and bingo!!

But we have to admit that we are a difficult target group to reach. We complain that there is nothing representative of us in the media or targeted to us as a niche market but then, in the same breath, we also want to be part of the crowd, shopping in the same places as everyone else and not ghettoized. Is that because we are truly rewriting the rule book or because we don’t want to admit to getting old(er)?

I have just received a newsletter update from Springwise with their top 10 business ideas for 2010 (http://tinyurl.com/ye5hx2j) and there it was again; a newly launched company called Ruby Slippers (www.rubyss.co.uk) that claims to stylishly renovate homes, combining good design with practical functionality so that the effects of ageing are invisibly catered for. Now I know that this service will be valuable for some and is targeted more at those over 65 but I’m just a bit concerned at how much ageing I and my fellow (now what was that collective term for 50+ feisty women again?) are supposed to do in the next 10-15 years?!

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What’s in a brand?

January 13th, 2010

In the Interbrand survey of global brands by value for 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/3e9lyp), it is probably not surprising that over half (51%) of the world’s biggest brands are based in the USA with Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft and General Electric staying in their same 1 – 4 slots as last year. But why should the USA dominate over half of the world’s brands when they only account for less than a quarter (23.6%) of the world’s GDP? Two other countries that punch above their weight in the brand stakes are Germany, with 11% global brands versus 6% GDP, and France, with 8% global brands versus 4.8% GDP. And what about us Brits? Where else but in the middle of the road with 4% global brands versus our 4.4.% GDP; our first entry is HSBC at number 32 with no further entries in the top 100 until Smirnoff at number 83!

So why don’t we in the UK punch above our weight? We are praised internationally for the quality of our TV advertising yet we are more keen to ridicule brands for the most irritating ads of the year as published by Marketing Magazine (http://tinyurl.com/yc5acdh). Number one of that chart was GoCompare.com with the over-inflated opera singer. This was an in-house produced ad as were the ads at position five (confused.com) and seven (WeBuyAnyCar.com), also for internet brands.

The price comparison industry is over ten tears old and visitor numbers to some of the largest sites fell by 30 per cent in the first four months of 2009; so it’s no surprise that GoCompare.com and confused.com are battling it out in the irritating jingle stakes. It’s undeniable that irritating ads stand out; GoCompare’s own consumer research boasts a 200% increase in brand awareness since the activity began in August.

But the ten million dollar question is… does awareness translate to sales? Previous annoying ads, such as Cillit Bang, created sales spikes that could not be maintained post advertising. In fact, Cillit Bang has just been voted the UK’s most disliked brand name according to a survey by branding consultants G2 (http://tinyurl.com/yesbqbb)

A poll by TellyAds.com (http://tinyurl.com/yaxwe94) for the most popular TV ads of the noughties had GoCompare.com at seventh position with the only other brand to appear on the most irritating AND most viewed top 10 lists was Churchill, the world’s most famous nodding dog. Top of the TellyAds poll was Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ad featuring a boy and a girl with dancing eyebrows. But where has the most viewed ad got Cadbury? A hostile take over bid that is being given more likelihood of success, despite warnings of up to 7,000 job cuts, with the withdrawal of Ferrero from the race.

So, what’s in a brand? A brand allows you to give your product or service a personality and there’s nothing to stop your brand being as important to your specific target audience as the giant brands are to theirs. In fact, the more specific and ‘niche’ you are, the more you can gain a competitive advantage over the big guys. These are often called challenger brands. Think of Innocent versus Tropicana or Apple versus Microsoft. The key thing is to engage with your audience and, ideally, not irritate them to death!

Posted in marketing marvels, marketing mistakes | 12 Comments »

The cost effective way for SMEs to find new business

December 14th, 2009

Many small to medium companies are experiencing flat or declining sales in these difficult times and see new business as the holy grail, the answer to all their problems. What sometimes eludes these business owners is that new business does not have to mean new customers.

In fact, it is more cost effective to your business to ‘farm’ existing customers, by providing additional product and services to someone who has already bought from you, and therefore knows the quality of your offering, than to ‘hunt’ for new customers who have no experience of what you offer. Indeed, the cost of keeping an existing customer can be as low as one fifth of the cost of finding a new one.

You can farm existing customers, by identifying more of their needs and providing a relevant solution, rather than hunting for new customers, whose needs you don’t know. So, on the understanding that it’s better to farm an existing customer, it makes sense that new products or services should be based on offering either a better solution to current customers’ problems or solutions to other problems that they have.

Business success is all about retaining and developing the right customers for your business. If you treat them right, you can make live customers into loyal customers and satisfied customers are good word of mouth advocates for your business. If you don’t, the chances are that they will lapse and you will eventually lose them. To stop live customers lapsing, do you know when they should next be likely to buy?

A piece of research in the US asked why customers stopped buying from companies? Was it price or quality? Had they changed location? 68% respondents ticked no specific reason. So they conducted further research amongst this group to try and find a reason and the main response was ‘because they didn’t keep in touch’! So regular contact with your customer base is critical

Posted in SME Business Support | No Comments »

The dangers of social media for small businesses

November 26th, 2009

There is no doubt that social networks have become far more relevant to consumers than traditional branded websites. The perception of the power base has shifted as consumers feel they have assumed control as individuals and can voice their opinions freely. In some ways this is marketing utopia as the holy grail for a brand or company has always been to identify and engage directly with their consumers. But, in the wrong hands, this new freedom can be a minefield for any company, let alone a small business that may have neither the skill nor the resource to be at the cutting edge of these fast moving developments!

As a result, companies looking to engage with social media can break some cardinal golden rules:

  1. Engagement with social networks is STILL marketing and therefore all the usual rules apply about setting your objectives and deciding the elements of your strategy – it is not good enough to just ‘put stuff out there’ and see what happens. You have to carefully think through your campaign in the same way you would any other element of your marketing activity and ensure that, whatever you decide, it is measurable against your objectives. Otherwise, what’s the point?
  2. There is a perception that, because anyone can access social media free of charge, there is no value in engaging professionals to do the work for you. That view is very short sighted as why would a small business owner be up to date with all the nuances of social media and, even if you are, is your time not better spent doing whatever your specialism is? You could apply the same logic to bookkeeping. As business owners you need to have a working knowledge of your accounts to run your business but I am sure most of you use a professional third party to do the detailed work?
  3. Consumers in social networks demand honesty and transparency. So DO NOT set up fictitious accounts pretending to be a fan of your product or service; you will be found out and it will not be to your benefit. A much better solution is to be open about who you are from the outset and engage with your customers honestly. If you handle a complaint or negative post about your brand or company well, you are more likely to convert the complainant to your business than if you either ignore or try to block them.
  4. If you set up something where you are inviting interaction or questions, say a facebook page or blog, then make sure that you or your chosen supplier are organised to monitor instantly and informed on how to reply. There is nothing worse for your company’s image than to have actual or potential consumers trying to engage with your product or service and feeling ignored over days or even forever. Better not to be on the network at all. Also remember that this is a fast-moving medium and needs to be constantly updated to make it current.
  5. If you are personally interested in social networks and have a private facebook or twitter account, think twice before you link these to your company’s social media presence. It obviously depends on who you are and what you do but would it help or hinder your professional choice of a potential supplier if you could also see what they do in their free time?!

I believe that we are only at the beginning of how the social media revolution can inspire and inform our marketing strategies and that there is an exciting future ahead for businesses and consumers alike. So, as business owners, let’s not enter the arena without remembering the tried and trusted marketing principles learned over many years of consumer engagement.

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