Fashion Branding
"Clothing is primarily a means of communicating, not personal identity, but social identity" as, said by Noesjirwan and Crawford (1982) who defines clothing as a ‘code’ (McCracken and Roth 1989) or symbolic representation. Clothing has been spoken by many theoriest in the past and they refer clothing as a code, a language, which allows a message to be created and (selectively) understood (Hollander, 1978; Holman, 1980; McCracken and Roth, 1989). Compliance towards a brand today showcases the social strata of the individual or the social group they belong to. "If I'm wearing a white T-shirt and sneakers, that label [Armani] will fill in the rest of the information about me. I want to give out the right impression", says a customer in a London shop selecting her tenth pair of Armani jeans (Financial Times, 1995). This statement by an individual showcases the importance of branding. Today if we talk in any industry branding is playing a vital role. International brand development or entry technique is employed by creation of brand that is recognized as a social brand. Consumers’ perception today, among the young youth as said by Belk et al., (1981) is "consumption-based stereotypes", which means creating a perception about a persons wealth by what they own and not knowing the person. It could be termed as unanimous judgements about the person without actually knowing the person. This paper will look into the academic literature available in consumption pattern in fashion brands and would further elaborate in the entry techniques in developing or emerging nation. This paper would also highlight the importance of building brand equity and maintenance of the same. In a put shell this paper would deal with the relations...
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...in focus of these brand managers is the short-term financial gain rather than long-term customer relation and profitability. Branding, unlike brand, is a clearly defined and established research area, still it lacks in conceptualisation similarities (Blumenthal, 2004; Bridson and Evans, 2004). de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo (1998) say the available branding literature has been failed in developing the boundaries and brand construct that would allow for methodological, epistemological, semantical and formal sets of criteria. de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo (1998) through their research study proposed a model which lays the foundation for brand theory, thus support in defining construct and boundaries of brand. In order to set boundaries of the construct of brand twelve themes were proposed by them which, in the branding literature, were categorized as vital propositions.
People are often deceived by some famous brands, which they will buy as useless commodities to feel they are distinctive. People require brands to experience the feeling of being special. People spend their money to have something from famous brands, like a bag from Coach or Louis Vuitton which they think they need, yet all that is just people’s wants. Steve McKevitt claims that people give more thought on features or brands when they need to buy a product, “It might even be the case that you do need a phone to carry out your work and a car to get around in, but what brand it is and, to a large extent, what features it has are really just want” (McKevitt, 145), which that means people care about brands more than their needs. Having shoes from Louis Vuitton or shoes that cost $30 it is designed for the same use.
The adoption of a brand by a non-target market does not always have such positive results. Since the 1990s, luxury brand Burberry has been dealing with its association with “chavs,” in Great Britain. The chavs are a lower class group associated with rowdiness, hooliganism, and crime. They adopted the famous Burberry checkered pattern as part of their uniform. This resulted in a decrease in brand loyalty of Burberry’s upper-class English customers. In response, the company discontinued production of the checkered caps and reduced reliance on their famous trademark plaid design (Fitch 2009).
In every given business, the name itself portrays different meanings. This serves as the reference point and sometimes the basis of customers on what to expect within the company. Since personality affects product image (Langmeyer & Shank, 1994), the presence of brand helps in the realization of this concept. Traditionally, brand is a symbolic manifestation of all the information connected with a company, product, or service (Nilson, 2003; Olin, 2003). A brand is typically composed of a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, and icons (Gillooley & Varley, 2001; Laforet & Saunders, 1994)). It is believed that a brand puts an impression to the consumer on what to expect to the product or service being offered (Mere, 1995). In other application, brand may be referred as trademark, which is legally appropriate term. The brand is the most powerful weapon in the market (LePla & Parker, 1999). Brands possess personality in which people associate their experience. Oftentimes, they are related to the core values the company executes.
Something people might frequently worry about is self-identity, and how to express who they are. When looking for an outlet to do this, the easiest way to show what kind of person someone is, clothes are usually the first choice: a black t-shirt with a cynical saying, or maybe some skinny black jeans. Whether the advertising agencies created the personalities that come with clothes or took advantage of what was already there, clothes are often sold as something more than just clothes. Companies must ask how to convince consumers to buy their product instead of the competitors’, regardless of price difference. Particularly Levi’s jeans, a 150+-year-old American business, has been trying different approaches to packaging the type of consumers that buy their jeans.
This psychology of brand tribes explains why consumers choose the more expensive name brand compared to the off-brand that could very well be the same product with the same experience. Coca-Cola sold the youth lifestyle of peace and acceptance in the 60s. Disney understood that they were selling the American dream and a place for families that was a real-life utopia. Ikea’s brand idea is democracy in that consumers can put together their own furniture. Starbucks has branded themselves as a community center. Most young consumers go to Starbucks to meet up with a friend or relative, do homework, and simply hang out and use the free, reliable wifi; the coffee is just a byproduct. Companies have furthered their success by paying celebrities to model their clothes until they are such a household name where they no longer need to advertise to achieve success. Companies like Coca-Cola don’t need to tell consumers about their refreshing soft drink for most people already know, instead, they market the experience and life-changing moment of drinking their
Burberry seems to overcome several risks which decayed brand value so far and successfully revitalized the brand. However, it seems to centralize its effort on promoting product neglecting after sales relationship which would be essential for repeat purchases (The Economist, 2014). rather than delivering sophisticated experience. 럭셔리는 경험전달이 중요한데 위험함. Even though, Burberry has gathered everything Britishness to promote its brand identity, its home market consumers do not seem to fancy Burberry. Which makes it worse is the fact that it outsource its production from countries like China. These can severely harm its brand identity and subsequently brand value. As many people use luxury brands to represent their social statuses or identities, maintaining brand consistency should be of great importance to companies’ brand management and marketing
Ever since popular brands came out, many people changed their lifestyle. In “The Cult You’re In”, Kalle Lasn discussed how brands have changed people's identity and it’s not good for them. People are what they buy, and brands logo has become their identity. In “The Man behind Abercrombie and Fitch” Benoit Denizet-Lewis is kind of exposing Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, discussing how his company is affecting consumers. Denizet-Lewis’s review of the business practice of A&F support Lasn’s assertions about the “cult”-like nature of consumer culture in the U.S. because they both talk about how advertisers influence consumers, people change themselves to fit in by losing their identity and consumers don’t think for themselves.
From this I want to argue that the world of consumption has a great influence on the way people create their identities. I shall explore important features of the nature and function of fashion, as it’s relevance offers models and materials for constructing identity. I then want to further my argument on whether consumption is seen as a passive process reflecting producer interests or an active process representing consumer interests, as this can determine how ones identity, or lack of, is perceived.
Branding is very important aspects of any business because it gives identity to company and its products for example every person is different and have unique personalities similarly companies differentiate their products through branding. The brand I have selected to analyses for this assignment is GoCompare.com. I have selected this company because it has always displayed very catchy adverts on television and it will be interesting to analysis the brand using theoretical models. Gocompare.com was first launched back in November 2006 by Hayley Parsons. The main difference from competitors was to display more detailed quotes rather than just prices stacked together. It found big success in very short time and in 2013 it is estimated to worth over 450 million express, 2013.
The practice of brand management is a key component of marketing and performs an integral function by motivating the wants and needs of consumers. It is known that marketing can shape consumer needs and wants, however, consumers today appear to be more knowledgeable about the information regarding products. Consumers lead busy lives and have therefore gone to the internet as one of the many channels to learn about products in order to make informed decisions. This paper will discuss the argument that marketing should reflect the needs and wants of consumers rather than shaping these attributes. Due to the speed and ease of obtaining information, consumers do not take at face value strong marketing efforts that appear to be overly aggressive and push a brand rather than just being informative. Brand managers have to be aware of these changing dynamics and carefully craft brand management practices to meet the demands of consumers.
Secondly, some light has been thrown on the previous researches by various authors on the similar topics by providing with a summarised form of the same. It helps in better understanding of the ongoing concepts and perceptions on the concept of brand and its importance.
A brand identifies a seller’s product from a competitor’s product. There are three main purposes for branding product identification, which is the most important purpose, repeat sales, and new-product sales. Branding has a lot of terms that marketers use there is brand equity, global brand, and brand loyalty. Marketers also have different brand strategies that they use for different products or customers. It all depends on the consumer for them to decide which strategy they will use. The different strategies are generic products, manufacturer’s brands, private brands, individual brands, family brands, and co-branding. The branding purposes and the branding strategy make up the importance of branding.
Product is the core of marketing, which including tangible goods like food or drinks or intangible services, as it is the major way to embody customers requirements; and, branding is directly associated with it. In fact, branding is all about decisio ns of products, like brand names or trademarks. Stork (2007) asserted that a brand is a unique business identity which represents the personality, quality or origin of products. And, such a product which added value by branding would appear in every activity of marketing, namely, branding is actually react on the whole marketing system directly and indirectly.
Every company seeks to create its own brand - a unique and effective image. Purpose of brand is attracting and retaining customers in its market share. Branding in marketing is a complex technology, aimed at making advantageous position a brand from the competition. Facilitating the search for the necessary goods to the buyer, branding in marketing becomes more effective if the consumer product features meet market requirements. It is especially necessary to identify the goods, for a case of unprepared buyer which can not assess the competitive characteristics (for example, high-tech products). The development of technology has had a huge impact on human society. It is reflected in the fact that we are surrounded by complex technical devices that we use every day and sometimes we have no idea of how this thing is located within. Here the brand comes to help the consumer that stands out from all those product characteristics that are important to the consumer and facilitates the understanding of the product.
Branding on consumer purchase decisions. In order to comply with this a questionnaire was prepared and survey has been conducted among 100 respondents and data revealed that brands have strong influence on purchase decision.