Creating a Company Brand
For this task,
I will be creating a company brand, the company goal is to sell street wear
brand clothing products to consumers, the company target audience are mostly
students and customers who follows up with fashion trends. I first started of
with researching on branding, as branding is the components which represents
every individual companies and their products. Per the Business Dictionary the
definition of branding is “The process involved in creating a unique name and
image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising
campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and
differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal
customers.” (Business Dictionary) This connotes that when customers hear or
sees a branding name or logo image the mentally picture of who the company
represents and what products they sale branding can be influenced by the
elements, words, and creativity that surround it.
How much is the industry worth in the UK?
According to the
UK fashion industry statistics:
“General data
Population: 64.5
mio
Labor force:
33.0 mio
Unemployment
rate: 6.3%
GDP per capita
(PPS): 46,297 dollars
Market share of
the fashion industry: 6 percent
Domestic market
value of the fashion industry: 66 billion pounds
Employment in
fashion-related industries: 555,000
·
Retail
sale of clothing: 414,000
·
Retail
sale of footwear and leather goods: 59,000
·
Wholesale
of clothing and footwear: 43,000
·
Manufacture
of wearing apparel: 34,000
·
Manufacture
of footwear: 5,000” (UK fashion industry statistics)
I was able to
retrieve more information on UK’s fashion industry statistic and, according to
Trischi (2016), the UK Fashion Industry Statistics were:
·
“£57.7
billion – was spent on clothing, footwear & accessories in 2015, forecasted
to grow at a rate of 12.89% between 2015 to 2020 (Planet Retail, 2015)
·
£26
billion – the direct contribution to the UK economy (GDP) from the UK fashion
industry, up from £21 billion in 2009 (Oxford Economics, 2014)
·
£12.4
billion – how much the clothing and footwear market is forecasted to make in
2020 (Verdict Retail, 2015)
·
£10.3
billion – men’s and women’s footwear sales in 2015, increased by 6.5% over
previous year (Mintel, 2015)
·
£32.2
billion – British luxury goods industry sales contribution in 2013, valuing the
sector at 2.2% of the UK’s GDP, with £51.1 billion projected sales of British
luxury goods by 2019. (Frontier Economics for Walpole, August 2015)
·
£2.7
billion – “premium lifestyle” market worth, which is predicted to grow by 6.6%
p.a (per annum) between 2014 and 2020 (PwC, 2015)
·
£8.5
billion – Next PLC market value, making it the largest fashion company in the
United Kingdom, followed by Marks & Spencer & the Arcadia Group
(Fashionunited.uk, 2015)” (Trischi, 20/07/2016)
Local competitors
As my company is
clothing business which will be located at Nottingham so therefore I considered
looking into local clothing companies in Nottingham and according to this
article “Four of the best independent clothing shops in Nottingham” by Stewart
Thorpe (2016) on of the four best local clothing shops were:
- Stick & Ribbon, Bridlesmith Walk
- Cow, Carlton Street
- Wild Clothing, Broad Street
- Braderie, Pelham Street
According to Stewart
Thorpe (2016),
“Stick &
Ribbon don’t just sell clothes, they offer honest fashion advice to women and
hold private evenings that mix shopping and styling with fizz, top tips on
creating outfits, consultations on body proportions and advice on which colours
best suit. “We wanted to talk it back to basics to make it a pleasure to shop
again with honest advice to make shoppers feel special and not forced into
buying something,” says shop merchandiser Mandy Bailey.”
As Stewart
Thorpe mentions, “The store is fast approaching it’s three year anniversary on
Bridlesmith Walk and is currently running an ‘up to 50%’ sale.”
As Stewart
Thorpe (2016) also mentions that Cow, Carlton Street is “A favourite amongst
the city’s student population Cow is a men and women’s vintage clothing and
accessory retailer with stores in Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham. Manager
Keighan Kelly says: ‘I would describe our clothing as wearable vintage from the
80s and 90s. We don’t really do stereotypical. It is rare that people come here
for fancy dresses. Everything’s second hand or from the company collection
which uses fashionable but salvaged fabrics.”
Wild Clothing,
Broad Street has been running for the longest time as Stewart Thorpe (2016)
mentioned, “Nottingham’s longest running vintage clothing store has been
trading from Broad Street, opposite Rough Trade, since 1983. The Hockley store
sells retro pieces with a hint of Americana and rock-band grunge but it’s not
all vintage. There’s also new clothing from Stussy, Pop Boutique, Footwear,
Basics and other brands. Owner Robin Pounder says: ‘We sell a mixture of new
and vintage clothing both for males and females. The majority of people are
looking for something different that come here, something that can’t be bought
from another shop at a good price. There were a lot of independent companies
when we started, especially in this area and I feel that it is most important
that Nottingham, and all towns, retain a healthy percentage of independent
businesses.’”
Lastly, Braderie,
Pelham Street is another vintage clothing store similar to previous companies I
have looked at and according to Stewart Thorpe (2016), “Braderie have shops in
Leamington Spa and Birmingham but it’s Nottingham that’s home to the retailer’s
flagship store. The shop refreshes its stock twice a week and sources its wears
from all over the world. Store manager Gemma Caseley-Kirk says: ‘We stock a
good selection of vintage items that follow the seasons’ trends. Some people
won’t buy an entire outfit from us but they’ll buy items to go with an outfit.
We’re very 70s, 80s and 90s, we go on what is most popular.’”
Structure of the Company
Although I don’t know how my company is going to
be structure in future an what it holds but for now I have decided to use a
typical medium sized clothing company organisation chart. 
As you can see from
the chart, it is composed of 5 main divisions, they are Administration Center,
Research & Development Center,
Production Center, Financial Center, and Quality Control Center and all of the
5 main divisions are supervised under the general manager.
What would be your USP/Sales Strategy?
Firstly, my
sales strategy would be using social medial to advertise and promote the
company as with the use of social media such as; Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram to keep the consumers updated so they know about the new products and
brand of the company. I believe that in today’s economy, many businesses use
social media to promote businesses, websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
and Instagram are being used to reach consumers in way new way to advertise
what the company offers. With the use of social networking sites, it is now easier
for businesses as not only they can reach large numbers of consumers who can
follow the business company but with the use of social media it makes the
business grow and reach a much wider audience from all around the world.
According to
Diane Seltzer, “Amazon uses its Facebook page to advertise all kinds of deals
and giveaways and, in the past, the company was known to build excitement for
Black Friday by hosting a countdown on its page. One of the advantages that
Amazon has over other retailers is that the company has software in place that
lets shoppers announce their purchases or wish lists to their entire social
media network, reports NBC News.” (Diane Seltzer).
Therefore, this
tells us that social media is gradually growing as many businesses are using
social media to promote their business.
I also believe
using seasonal holidays sales, black Friday event as well as boxing day would
be a good sales strategy as most of the existing company tends to offer huge
discounts and sales on different ranges of products in stores during the event.
This helps a lot of businesses maximize their profit and income in just a day
as a lot of consumers tends to go buy the products in a cheaper price which
keeps the consumers happy as well as keeping the business growing, while
business companies make a huge profit from Black Friday as well as from
seasonal holiday. Therefore, I believe that this is a good sales strategy as it
is a great way to attract new customers and offers good deals satisfying the
consumers’ needs.
I also think
that using promotional code is also a great way to interact with the customers
and attract new customers offering better deals to new customers so in future
the new customers will be loyal to company in long run.
Costing Strategy
The costing strategy I will be using would be Psychology
Pricing strategy and Penetration strategy. According to April Maguire, “Psychology pricing refers
to techniques that marketers use to encourage customers to respond on emotional
levels rather than logical ones. For example, setting the price of a watch at
$199 is proven to attract more consumers than setting it at $200, even though
the true difference here is quite small. One explanation for this trend is that
consumers tend to put more attention on the first number on a price tag than
the last. The goal of psychology pricing is to increase demand by creating an
illusion of enhanced value for the consumer.” Therefore, I believe this would
be a good costing strategy as many company tends to use this and I for myself
have fell into that trap and many people still doesn’t realise it and tends to
make the same mistake as I did and end up buying the product and I believe this
strategy works very well passively.
I also believe
that using the Penetration strategy would be a good costing strategy as April
Maguire mentioned, “Penetration strategies aim to attract buyers by offering
lower prices on goods and services. While many new companies use this technique
to draw attention away from their competition, penetration pricing does tend to
result in an initial loss of income for the business. Over time, however, the
increase in awareness can drive profits and help small businesses to stand out
from the crowd. In the long run, after sufficiently penetrating a market,
companies often wind up raising their prices to better reflect the state of
their position within the market.” Therefore, I believe this is a great
strategy specifically for new local business companies as it is a good way to
attract new customers and giving a good first impression to the customers and
having a better image of the company and more likely to gain loyal customers
throughout the process.
Theme of your brand
The theme for my
brand will be about History to Present. The reason why I choose this theme is
because I want to bring back the old culture that is fading away from Nepal and
bring that to the present I also want to raise more awareness of my country let
people the existing of my country. My target is to change Nepalese old culture
clothes to a lot more fashionable urban wear for today’s generations to wear as
well as attracting newer customers as well as spreading words about Nepali
culture just buy wearing the product and attracting Nepalese customers living
in UK.
Values of your company
- Respect
- Loyalty
- Supportive
- Quality
- Teamwork
- Empathy
- Passion
Types of logo
The logo that I
will be developing will be a Dynamic logo as; dynamic branding is an identity
that can be changed over time, but will still have the basic element which will
always stay the same. Whether it is the word-mark, text or word itself,
colours, or shape the brand is still going to recognizable. Dynamic branding is
a way of giving your identity a fresh look without completely changing the
identity of the company and you can always go back to it and tweak it. While on
the other hand if I had done, my logo using the traditional branding technique
I wouldn’t have be able to change my logo and every element in the logo would
have been kept the same.
Link to my “Creating a Company Brand” Module:
MMc501
https://www.behance.net/gallery/48597311/Module-MMc501-Professional-Practice
Reference
Business Dictionary: “The process
involved in creating a unique name”
Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.html
UK fashion industry statistics: “Domestic
market value of the”
Available at: https://fashionunited.uk/uk-fashion-industry-statistics
Trischi, 2016, (July): “£57.7 billion –
was spent on”
Available at: https://fabacus.com/overture-scm-plm/uk-fashion-industry-stats/
Stewart Thorpe, 2016, (June): “Four of
the best independent clothing”
Available at: http://www.nottinghampost.com/four-of-the-best-independent-clothing-shops-in-nottingham/story-29448363-detail/story.html
Diane Seltzer, “Amazon uses its Facebook
page to advertise”
April Maguire: “Psychology pricing refers to techniques that”
Available at: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/pricing-strategy/6-different-pricing-strategies-which-is-right-for-your-business/
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