Warby Parker Essay

495 Words1 Page

Research Topic
The role digital media played in the success story of Warby Parker, an American e-commerce startup specialising in prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses which achieved a $1.2 billion valuation in less than 10 years.
Research Questions
Prior to the advent of Warby Parker, the eyewear market was dominated by the world’s largest eyewear company, the Italian eyeglass conglomerate Luxottica. How did Warby Parker, a startup brand founded by four business school students, take off and disrupt a monopolistic company with up to 80% market share in the United States (Denning 2016)? What does the success of Warby Parker tell us about the underlying issue of the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry? How did digital media enable Warby Parker’s direct-to-consumer business model? How did the universalised usage of the Internet and digital media facilitate the rapid growth of Warby Parker? How did Warby Parker construct its brand image and build its brand …show more content…

Warby Parker certainly holds the unicorn status. The company’s favourable outcome has long been under the spotlight, and has thereby generated a plethora of articles analysing its basis of success. However, these reviews and commentaries share a general focus on Warby Parker’s branding, marketing, and advertising techniques, with infrequent discussion on the rationale behind through the perspective of media studies. While it is recognised that Warby Parker utilised the Internet to circumvent the traditional channels of CPG supply chain, and cleverly capitalised on various social media platforms while adopting novel ideas to communicate and engage with its audience, most articles failed to explicate the theoretical grounds for the practicability of such business model, cultural branding, and strategic

Open Document