Samantha Dodson's Blog

I found an article on the blog, BrandChannel , which introduces Neiman Marcus’ 2011 Annual Christmas Book. Neiman Marcus is an exclusive department store that targets individuals with a higher income. As a result, the store creates a “Fantasy Christmas Book” every year that includes items/experiences that are beyond the vast majority of individuals budgets (hence the word “fantasy”). So why would the company create a gift book that includes items that most people can’t afford? I’d say that it’s a mixture of catching the consumer’s attention and maintaining their brand image.

Victorias’s Secret (VS), a company that sells women’s wear, lingerie, and beauty products, has its own fantasy gift: a multi-million dollar bra. Despite the fact that these fantasy bras have not been purchased for years, the company continues to produce the luxurious item. Victorias Secret showcases the bra in its annual fashion show which features the company’s products in a high-profile environment. Moreover, the show consists of well-known and beautiful models that lots of women and men are drawn too. The whole package of the fashion show is used to aide the brands image of being fun, sexy and full of high quality products. So even though the multi-million dollar bra doesn’t make direct profits, it helps make indirect profits by gaining publicity as well as maintaining the brand image of Victorias Secret.

Moreover, after watching the VS fashion show, many women fantasize about being a VS model which can cause them to want to possess VS merchandise.

Urban Outfitters, a successful clothing, accessory, and apartment furnishing store, uses Social Media, to try and boost their sales in numerous ways. Firstly, each of their products has a review page that gives consumers feedback from people who bought a product. Their review pages allows positive as well as negative comments, and this is an excellent strategy that allows product owners to post positive and negative reviews, thus consumers feel reassured that they are reading uncensored reviews. Urban’s belief is: what you see is what you get. Moreover, each comment features icons like Twitter, Facebook, and Stumble It which permits individuals to share their review on these more diverse social networking websites,and this gives Urban free advertisement. Additionally, their website features their own UO blog that represents the ambience of the company as well as spotlights new trendy items. These strategies are a good way of reaching Urban’s target consumer as well as keeping their company status in their market.

Urban Outfitter Blog

UO Facebook Page