Back in September, I was invited by my friend to join a group for our assignments in class. Although I didn’t know most people in my group, I quickly came to realize how amazing our group is. Everyone had such great work ethic, and most importantly we had a very interesting group dynamic. We all had very distinct personalities and skillsets, which I believe contributed a lot to the advantage of our team.

The video assignment in particular was my favourite part of the assignment. The first assignment scared us all, and we all spent a significant amount of time trying to research for superficial facts about our company, lululemon atheltica. We found a lot about the company’s background and yoga industry in general to create a SWOT analysis. After the first assignment, we all became quite familiar with the topic of yoga and active lifestyle of North American women. By then we were able to make intelligent assumptions to come up with our STP. The reason why I was personally excited about the last assignment was because throughout the process of all our assignments, it was genuinely interesting to have developed personal opinions about the company. How we, as a group, think lululemon could increase their marketing initiatives through media, or to continue targeting North America instead of expanding.

It’s one thing to learn concepts and memorize marketing related terms on the textbook, but for us to actually spend time critically thinking what we can recommend to a company from a marketing consultant’s position was one of the most exciting parts of the course. Honestly speaking, we were all thinking “oh no, not another SWOT analysis” in the beginning. But near the end, the fact that we were able to apply our knowledge and intuition to simulate a consultant’s role made me realize how much we have all learned compared to the beginning of Comm 296 in September.

Who doesn’t love items on discount? 

Nowadays, there are malls dedicated for these ‘discount stores’ called outlets or outlet malls. The general idea is that there are stores with same items from the same brand, but at a cheaper, discounted price. Upside to having outlet stores is that a brand can increase their sales. Their products become more ‘accessible’ and affordable to the consumers who otherwise could not afford it.

However, the reason why these outlet stores exist is due to the fact that the prices are just relatively high for a certain brand, for example, Coach. Now that the same products are available for same price, the consumers with higher income sees less value in their products when they see consumers with lower income, such as teenagers, using the same products.

Les Wexner, CEO of Limited Brands, says “the outlet business is easy money, [but] discounting yourself is the beginning of the end…it’s hard to have a dual identity. Outlet doesn’t build a brand.” I couldn’t agree more with his statement.  The reason why this is so true relates to my previous argument. Coach was initially launched as a mid-luxury brand. And as with any sort of luxury brand, most consumers purchase luxury brand items to get social validation from peers, and also to portray that they are from a different social status. Making those items at a lower price defeats its entire purpose. At the end of the day, loyal Coach customers will continue purchasing the products but ultimately, Coach depreciates its name value and place in the luxury brand industry by increasing their outlet stores.

Founded in 1984, Forever 21 has quickly became an iconic retail store for teenagers within the past few years. Although their items appeal to their target segment, there are plenty of other retail stores that offers extremely similar items. Why is it that Forever 21 became such a big retailer not only in North America, but throughout Asia, Europe and other parts of the world?

Presentation of the store

Forever 21, although the products are offered at a relatively low-mid price range, has consistent store fixtures with all their locations. These include marble floors, luxurious ceramic dishes with jewelries, and white chandeliers.

Supply Chain

Teenagers have the need to always follow the trends of their role models, peers, and celebrities : their taste is continuously changing. Because of this, Forever 21’s supply chain challenges themselves to have fast and efficient product delivery. This means having new items every week, and putting necessary “out of season” items on sale so they can get rid of old items fast, and promote the new items.

Merchandising

This store does not only offer “casual clothing”. It is a one-stop shop for any occasion that a customer needs. Forever 21 stores offer diverse range of product line, from formal dresses, casual wear, to activewear and tech accessories. This gives the customers an opportunity to match more products with their initial purpose, which ,as a result, increases sales.

Branding

It’s probably safe to say majority of teenagers in North America alone recognize a Forever 21 store even if it didn’t have the sign in front of the store. Their yellow shopping bag has been used since the initial launch of the company, which created a unique way to recognize their brand.

There are so many more other factors that leads to Forever 21’s success. It comes as no surprise that this store increased its sales by 82% from 2007 to 2011 according to Reuters, while other retailers are having difficulty expanding their sales.

Marketing and Customer Service.
Customer Service and Marketing. 
For some odd reason, these two are inseparable, and go in hand in hand. As Pamela Vaughan mentions in her blog post, these two “should go together like milk and cookies”

She outlined 7 reasons they these two MUST go together as such:

1) For Better Social Media Support

2) For Content Creation Ideas

3) For a Deeper Understanding of Buyer Personas

4) For Setting Customer Expectations

5) For Unified Messaging & Communications

6) For PR/Marketing Promotion of Customer Success & Happiness

7) For Informing Product Marketing Initiatives

These reasons without explaining further, sounds pretty basic and self-explanatory. Personally, the points that stuck out to me the most was “Deeper Understanding of Buyer Personas” and “Setting Customer Expectations”.

As a person who has worked in a retail store, I have experience with being the first hand direct contact with the customers. If I learned anything from my experience in retail is that understanding and listening to the customers is crucial to the success of any business. For example, I can be very knowledgeable about the products I’m selling, but if I don’t know what the customer’s need is there is no use. The ability to connect and understand a customer’s need is so crucial that even if I do not have the best knowledge about the products I’m trying sell, the customer will leave with a positive attitude.

Similarly, setting customer expectations also means I am creating a lifetime customer. Even if today or next week a customer might not purchase a product, giving her the best experience and customer service will encourage her to make a purchase sometime in the future.

Although my experience in retail gives a very limited perspective on the operations of the corporation side of a business, I believe a lot of the marketing done is no use without excellent customer service.

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What comes into your mind when you hear the phrase “I Love My Body“?

I translate that as “loving my body, despite the social standards or however I look.”

Ironically, the Victoria’s Secret’s campaign with the slogan “I Love My Body” includes a poster of “Victoria’s Secret Angels” (models) lined up in their new “Body by Victoria” lingerie collection. These models are about  5’10”, size two, with measurements 34-25-34. That is quite a big discrepancy between the models and the body figures of most women.

Victoria’s Secret vs. Dove

Many people who came across this advertisement expressed their disagreements. Mainly, consumers were uncomfortable at the fact that the models used for the campaign have unattainable bodies. The models also all look very similar, with same hairstyles, same body figures, same facial expressions. By using these so called ‘perfect models’, with the slogan, gives off the wrong message. These models love their bodies, whereas if an average woman compared her body with the models, she wouldn’t be able to find a reason why she should love hers. Similarly, Dove made a campaign where they used various sizes of women ranging from size 4 to 10. Dove got a lot of attention for their campaign for using the images of women we can find around us. In contrast Victoria’s Secret was criticized for using artificially maintained models to portray the idea of beauty.

So despite all the criticisms, why does Victoria’s Secret choose to continue promoting their slender models? It’s simply because it sells.  It’s visually enticing. The company stands in its place as the #1 lingerie store in the world due to their sexy image. As much as consumers are upset at their ‘ideal body figure’, Victoria’s Secret knows that if they used average women as their models, they would not earn nearly as much money as they do now. At the end, the campaign doesn’t seem to celebrate the diversity in women’s body figures; it’s just showing off their sexy models as well as their newly launched lingerie collection.