Missguided Brand Book by Charlotte Dudley-Smith

MISSGUIDED BRAND BOOK

M This brand book shows the guidelines of Missguidedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s communication. At all times it is necessary to adhere to these rules during the design and marketing process in order to maintain the brand identity of Missguided.

CONTENTS Contents

The Missguided Brand 04 1.1 Who Are We? 05 1.2 Our mission 06 1.3 Our vision 06 1.4 Our values 06

5.0 Our Consumer

22 23

6.0 Sustainability

2.0 Brand Positioning 08

7.0

Communication Guidelines

3.0

8.0

Strategies

9.0

Brand Touchpoints

1.0

The Missguided Brand Guidelines

09 3.1 Our Logo 10 3.2 Our Fonts 12 3.3 Our Colour Scheme 13 3.4 Our Image Guidelines 14 3.5 Our Tone of Voice 17 3.6 Our Store Requirements 18 3.6.1 Concessions 19

4.0 Our Products 20

5.1

Our babes

29 9.1 Website 30 9.2 Social Media 31 9.3 Blog 32 9.4 Advertisements 33 9.5 App 34 9.6 Direct Marketing 35 9.7 Stores 36

WHO ARE WE? We are Missguided. A UK based multi-channel retailer equipping the women of the world with rapid fashion since 2009. We have grown an extensive amount since the website was first launched and our success has allowed us to collaborate with celebrities, brands and influencers to provide empowerment and ultra-cool clothes in the world of fast fashion- or rapid fashion, as we believe we do it better. Our big boss Nitin Passi, formed Missguided by himself with a loan of just £50,000. He used £3000 of the loan to set up the website, the very first selling channel for Missguided and used £5000 to buy stock. Within the first year of trading he reached a £100,000 turnover. Due to the growth and success of the brand, more employees were hired and we are growing internationally, just as Nitin dreamt of. The ultimate dream is to go global; to be a household name, recognised by all. Nitin has big plans for us and as a team these goals can be achieved as we are Missguided and this is who we are.

Our mission

Our vision

As a brand we have one mission. We want to empower females across the world to be confident in their own bodies and to be who they want to be. With the clothes we provide and the attitude we give, we believe this is possible.

As a brand, our vision is to go global. We want Missguided to be a household name with stores and concessions around the world; a vision we are only just getting started on.

We think forward. Providing affordable new trends at the click of a button before our competitors have the chance to produce them. We are bold. Creating statement pieces for individuality, expression and self creation. Everything we create is from the heart. For our customers. Because we are Missguided.

By doing so, our mission and values can be projected to women across the world as they are equipped with not only the best fashion, but rapid fashion. Supplying them with confidence and empowerment when they chose to shop with us. We have grown hugely in the last 10 years and believe this is a goal that is achievable with the determination and hard work our Missguided team offers.

Our values As a brand we believe real is better. Therefore we have decided to abolish photo retouching from our brand. Our mission is to empower so what better way to do so than by showing our models as real as they are. Blemishes, stretch marks and other ‘imperfections’ are natural, so why should they be edited out? Not only does this empower our models but it should encourage our buyers that these are natural features that have no reason to be disguised. You can be yourself in Missguided. (However if you can’t be yourself, you can definitely be confident which we believe is just as good).

Brand Positioning

High offering of empowerment

Although comparing Missguided against our competitors in terms of quality and price is pretty straight forward, it would not be fully relevant to us as a brand. We want to compare ourselves to other fashion suppliers to see how we equate in terms of the variety of products we offer and also the level of empowerment we can give to our consumers as these relate to our brand mission and values. We believe we offer a lot with our different product ranges providing for different body types, and also encouraging a good amount of empowerment through not only the styles we sell but the movements we create, for example #Babesofmissguided.

As a brand we understand empowerment doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t follow through from a vast product range. Although we believe that we do a good job of helping empower women in comparison to our competitors, each day there is a new way we can support them and better our offerings. In terms of our product range, there are developments we can look into for the future such as a maternity range and adaptive clothing to make dressing even easier and Missguided more inclusive.

Small product range

Vast product range

Low offering of empowerment

MISSGUIDED BRAND GUIDELINES

How to use:

The old:

The new:

When using the new logo, clear space surrounding it should be equivalent at least half the size of the logo that is shown. This ensures the logo is clear and readable against any surrounding text or images. The logo can be any size. The font should only be black or white.

Our Logo The original handwritten logo has been updated and designed to follow the growth and power Missguided now has as a brand. The new bold font indicates the strength the brand now has in the fashion sector and can be recognised more easily internationally as the brand expands further across the globe. The old logo should not be shown on any Missguided branding to avoid confusion. Our new logo is our new image and persona; we want to project this to our consumers so they can see a development and growth in our company, showing we are bigger and better than before.

Our Badge

How to use:

There is no requirement for clear space surrounding the graphic. The badge can be any size. There is more flexibility with the colour of the badge, however it should only ever be shown in one of the three primary colours against a contrasting primary colour as the background.

M M

The Missguided badge has been created as a support graphic to the main Missguided logo. This is a fun and flexible element that can also be recognised internationally.

M M

How not to use:

Secondary colours should not be used as we want the badge to be consistent and more easily recognised to the Missguided brand. The badge should not be stretched or squished causing it to be distorted. The Missguided â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Mâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; should not change font.

M 11

How to use:

Steelfish should only be used for the Missguided logo and for titles within the brand book. It should not be used anywhere else as it is a personal font and specifically recognised for our logo. This requirement will ensure the font is not overused.

How to use:

Our Fonts

Steelfish

ABCDEFG abcdefghi

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 12

1234567890 !£$@#()

Arial should always be used for main body text, for example on printed invoices which customers receive with their order or on the Missguided website. The font can be any size but should be suitable and visually pleasing to the document.

Arial

ABCD

abcdef ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

1234567890 !£$@#()

As the brand image is important at Missguided, we like our marketing campaigns and branding to follow our house style.

0G =0

=2 5G

25 5

B= C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0 C=0 M=94 Y=0 K=0

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100 C=26 M=0 Y=11 K=0

R= 2

2 B=

The secondary colours that can be used for the Missguided branding are blue and two different shades of pink. These can be used alongside the three primary colours so the brand is still recognisable but will help certain elements of marketing or branding stand out. These should not be over used as we want the three primary colours to be the main focus of recognition.

Colour Palette

The three primary colours of the Missguided are pink, black and white. These do not have to be used together, but at least one should be present on any Missguided branding. These will be the three colours that will be instantly recognised by consumers alongside the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s font and logo, all which tie together to form the Missguided brand, image and attitude.

R=246 G=184 B=188 C=0 M=37 Y=18 K=0

C=4 M=23 Y=13 K=0 R=243 G=210 B=210

Our Images To remain consistent across our website we have chosen to use the classic white background for all our images to follow in each photoshoot. This ensures each image looks related when put next to another regardless of which product range it is from.

Website requirements:

Images must have a white background. Only high quality images should be used in our marketing. Blurry photos should not be used as we want to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the product through our best photos. Limited photo editing: no retouching of the models, they should be left natural. Colour enhancement is allowed but should be limited; it should not give false representations of the products we sell. This should be done through Adobe Photoshop. Images should be taken and uploaded as a portrait photo. Mixture of shots should be taken. Descriptions should be written in our brand language.

Lookbooks offer a lot more flexibility with the guidelines. Whilst previewing our new products and styling opportunities, we also want to showcase the lifestyle and adventure you can have when you wear Missguided.

Lookbook requirements:

Lookbook background must contrast from the classic white background shown on our website. This makes a more interesting and exciting campaign for our consumers to view clothes from. Only high quality images should be used. Blurry photos should not be used. Limited photo editing: no retouching of the models, they should be left natural. Colour enhancement is allowed. This should be done through Adobe Photoshop.

Tone of Voice We want Missguided to be seen as a fun and relatable brand. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take ourselves too seriously and that can be inferred through the words and visuals we send out to our babes both online and offline. We want the quotes that are posted on our Instagram and around our stores and concessions to be relatable and humorous. We want our consumers to agree with them, laugh and feel like they are connecting with the brand on a more personal level. The quotes we use are targeting our specified demographic to ensure they connect with our girls. They should always encourage them to interact with us and share our words with their friends; making us feel more like a friend than a business.

Missguided have a specific brand vocabulary that we follow. It is in keeping with the younger age bracket in our target demographic, however will still be relatable and understood by those in towards the top age of our demographic. It is fun and sometimes humorous and gives a taste of what the brand personality is like.

Some of our vocabulary

Insta: Social media site, Instagram Pics: Abbreviation of pictures Babes: Our Missguided girls and buyers; super cool girls; the best you can get BC: Abbreviation of because RN: Abbreviation of right now Babe Zine: Our Missguided blog Bestie: Best friend AF: As f*** Inspo: Abbreviation of inspiration Fave: Abbreviation of favourite

Our Stores Over the past couple of years we have opened two of our own Missguided stores which are both in the UK (Bluewater, Kent and Westfield Stratford City, London to be specific). These are two perfect examples of how the Missguided stores should be when we expand. We have created an ultra-cool space for our consumers to get lost in. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an experience, not just a shop. Its instagrammable, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relatable with quotes dotted around the store and our mannequins display some real female empowerment.The space is bright and vibrant making it exciting, whilst still incorporating our Missguided primary colours to ensure it is recognisable and in keeping with our brand.

Requirements:

Mannequins should all be female always be dressed and styled with the new products from the week. Primary colours should be used. Latest styles released should be at the front of the store for passers-by to see. The Missguided brand logo must be displayed behind the till. Products must be sectioned around the store in terms of their release date.

Concessions Due to our growth, we are lucky to have concessions in both the UK and US. We want our Missguided concessions to be a luxury environment with affordable prices. They should represent us as a brand and give consumers an insight in to what our own stores are like, for example our primary colours should be used throughout. Our Missguided concession in Selfridges, Birmingham opened in 2016. This has opened our customer base up to a slightly different demographic and allowed a larger audience to see and access the products we sell as the majority of brands in Selfridges are designer and we are not.

Requirements:.

Mannequins should all be female always be dressed and styled with the lastest clothing the concession has recieved. Primary colours should be used. Must have at least three Missguided quotes displayed in the concession. The Missguided brand badge should be shown on the concession coat hangers. Rails containing clothing must be colour coordinated.

Products Our products are created and designed by in-house talent to provide our babes with the fashion they need. Whilst focusing on our aim of empowerment, we ensure our products are affordable and in reach to make self-love and confidence easier to find. Our products are available through our website and also through Asos, who are a stockist of ours. Our products range from UK size 4 to 24 making our fashion more inclusive. We drop up to 1000 brand new styles each week, proving Missguided surpasses the idea of fast fashion- we have created rapid fashion.

We sell a range of clothing, footwear and accessories, but also sell further ranges which include: Plus â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Curveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Petite Tall Beauty Activewear Wedding Peace + Love Lingerie Sleepwear Swim Due to growing as a company, we have the opportunity to collaborate with brands, influencers and celebrities to create exclusive ranges for our fashion babes. Our first collaboration began on our fifth birthday with Nicole Scherzinger in 2014 which increased sales by 35% proving the popularity and demand for our collaborations. Since then we have we have collaborated with over 10 more individuals and brands to equip our followers with the best and most stylish clothing to give them confidence and individuality.

Our Consumer Our Missguided girls are 16-34 year old style conscious consumers. They scout for the best and most recent fashion trends at affordable prices, taking inspiration from celebrities, bloggers and friends. They live for adventure; a party. They are bold, wild and hunt for an adventure.

@pattyeffinmayo

#babesofmissguided

@nyane

Our Missguided babes are a diverse collective of talent and empowering women. They are the dreamers, believers, thinkers and do-ers who represent all areas of creative expression. They are the unstoppable females, babes our consumers aspire to be, are inspired by and females of the future who embody our brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s philosophy each with their own story to tell. The #babesofmissguided connects our consumers with the brand on a more personal level. The movement is designed to empower women; showing to girls all over the world that they can be who they want to be and they can wear what they want to wear. Our babes can do anything and we want to champion unstoppable females in any way we can. We will empower as we are Missguided.

@shelbykinsxo

@stefneyv

When our babes use our hashtag they enter our gang and we have their permission for their image to feature on our social platforms and advertising. Not only does this allow us to see their cool styling options, but it empowers the individual, gaining them more visibility from the world and enters them into our babe movement.

Our results: gender pay gap mean (average) the difference in mean hourly pay between all men and women

45.2% median (middle) the difference in median hourly pay between all men and women

46.3% 24

Sustainability Ethics

As a brand, we believe sourcing ethically is important. We do as much as we can to try and meet our beliefs and to avoid acts that contribute to modern slavery. To abolish this in our company, we have created a team that is dedicated to researching and understanding our supply chain in Missguided. They will understand what supplying ethically means, how operations work within the company and have specialised training and guidance where necessary.

These roles only have a higher salary due to its position or seniority. However this is something we are keen to tackle and we are committed to improving.

We are already starting to make a difference, as a company we are: • Extending our ‘positive role models’ programme, which will help to inspire students to look into and consider a career in the technology and the fashion industry • Promoting equality and providing equal opportunities to both male and female Gender Pay Gap members of our population through We aim to inspire and empower women and the use of our Leadership and Talent are proud to say that 81% of our colleagues Development initiatives are female. We can easily say that our Missguided men and women doing the same • Launching a Leadership Council which will have representation to mirror our or similar roles are paid equally. gender split As a company our median salary is lower • Define and enhance our people policies making them more beneficial and family for women that it is for men; purely because friendly. we have fewer women in higher paid roles.

lower

2.0%

lower middle

12.6%

Pay quartiles

87.4%

98.0%

40.8%

19.2%

80.8% 80.8% upper middle

Female

These are calculated by ordering the hourly rates of pay for each team member across the company from lowest to highest and splitting that list into 4 equal-sized groups and calculating the percentage of males and females in each group. At Missguided we are dedicated to helping our colleagues follow their chosen career path. There are many opportunities to realise their ambitions and for them to excel and be the best they can be. We want to help make this happen and we will continue working closely with our colleagues to make dreams a reality.

59.2% Male

upper 25

Communication Guidelines Our communication guidelines will demonstrate how we communicate with our Missguided babes. Although we love our casual and fun approach when contacting our following, there are some requirements we like our team to follow to ensure our brand is consistent and maintains our bubbly approach with the public.

Social Media

All posts and responses made on behalf of the brand should be concise and to the point. Although we want to be fun, posts shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be lengthy as readers are likely to lose interest and not read the full message. When responding to fun comments from consumers, a friend-like approach should be taken. These comments are most likely to be posted on our Instagram uploads so our replies will be seen by everyone who views the comment section. They should be appropriate, not containing any bad or offensive language. If we are to receive any rude or aggressive messages that are posted publically, it is important to respond to them in a calm but formal tone, apologising for what has happened. They should be advised to contact the brand over direct message on the social platform that is being used and the situation will then be dealt with privately.

We want every customers experience to be the same, yet unique to them. No customer should be prioritised over another. Time should be dedicated writing the responding email to provide them with an enjoyable experience with our brand to encourage trust and make them want to interact with us again. To ensure customers are not waiting too long for a response from us; the response time for replying to consumers should be within 48 hours. This shows we are serious about our consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opinions and want to hear what they have to say, whether it be positive or negative. This contributes to good customer service, making the customers experience with us more enjoyable and positive. Complaints should be answered in a formal tone. They should be taken seriously and answered in an informative manner to ensure our consumers are supplied with the answers they need and a solution is given. We want our consumers to be satisfied with the way we have handled the situation.

Strategies To increase the interaction and visibility we have with our babes we use several strategies to ensure we are on their screens at the most important times (and the not so important times too).

Instagram

As previously stated, Instagram is one of our main platforms for communicating with our following. We currently have 2.9 million followers (as of April 2018), which means each post is equally as important as each other as our posts are consumed by a wide and rapidly growing audience. To maintain interest from those who follow us there should be at least 4 to 6 posts uploaded every 24 hours. These can be a variety of posts, from our products to competitions to pictures of our #babesofmissguided to encourage interactivity and visibility of our brand. Frequency shows we are active

and constantly updating our followers with the latest trends, products and sometimes celeb gossip. Up to 4 competitions should take place each month, one a week at most. These will generate a lot of buzz and excitement from users of the platform and cause them to follow our Missguided as a form of entry validation. Only one post about each competition should be uploaded and the image uploaded should be relevant to the competition taking place. Instagram stories are another strategy we use to keep our followers updated and for our name to be fresh on their feed. There is no limit to how many Instagram stories our account can upload in 24 hours however each story should be exciting and want the viewer to swipe up for the product to follow through to our account to see more.

Alicia Roddy- @Lissyroddyy

Lydia- @Fashioninflux Social Influencers

To target new customers we work with social influencers to supply them with the best fashion at no cost, in return for them sharing us with their consumers. The strategy works two ways; they either approach us and we see if they can offer us high audience consumption, or we approach them as they successfully meet our criteria. What we want from them is new customers who hopefully become loyal to us and we are sure no influencer would complain about some new pieces for their wardrobe at a set budget every couple of months.

Student Discount

As a large percentage of our customers are students it is vital that we offer a 10% student discount all year round to those who are still in education. We understand that affordable clothing is of great importance to our babes, so we ensure we are going the extra mile in making sure they can fund their shopping with us. Many of our competitors also offer a student discount of 10% or higher, so to better ourselves we regularly increase our discount to 30% for several days.

Kates Beauty Station

Nadia Walker- @Nadiaanya__

MISSGUIDED BRAND TOUCHPOINTS

Website

As a brand, our website is the no.1 place for consumers to access us and receive any important information they may need answers to. When Missguided was set up, e-commerce was our only selling platform so it is important that we continue to dedicate time to improving and designing new initiatives to better ourselves in this area. We need the Missguided world to be one they feel like they can trust and are happy to buy from. The use of colours, visuals and words should contribute to this and should be a space that our girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; minds can get lost in and be a platform where they can create themselves. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to navigate round, quick to view products and has the option for consumers to save products to a wish list which they can return to. It is important to speak in the Missguided brand language throughout the website to ensure it remains relatable and consistent with the other platforms we use. It should be a true representation of who we are as a brand along with our beliefs and missions through displaying our aim of empowerment.

Social Media

We have accounts on every social platform you can think of. We want our babes to have quick and easy access to us, should they want to contact us or simply browse our postings. Instagram is our largest social account with 2.9 million followers, with Facebook just behind with over 1.2 million likers. Our social platforms are areas for us to share our lifestyle and to empower. We make our accounts relatable, as thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we want to be as a brand. We share our products, our Missguided babes, styling inspiration and humorous quotes all of which should be of some interest to our consumers. Each feed must be interesting and post frequently to maintain a flow of consumers connecting their accounts to ours.

A few places you can find us: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/missguidedcouk https://www.facebook.com/Missguidedcouk/ https://www.instagram.com/missguided/

Blog

Our blog, Babe Zine, allows consumers of the brand to see a different area of our brand. We share blogs on different topics such as the latest fashion trends, style options and collaborations we have; our Missguided babes and who is new to our team; culture to help with everyday life; beauty, to show case the latest looks and guides; music to share our favourite new tunes and interviews with artists and lastly and insight into our world, the Missguided world. This is a fun and alternative platform for contacting our consumers and helps to reach the rising blogging audience. It is an extension to our website which we understand not everyone will visit but we hope to set targets to increase the number of consumers who read our content in the future. Our blog is an extra area to gain style inspiration and broaden fashion-lovers knowledge in various topics that we are also passionate about as a brand. Allowing them into our world at Missguided gives our babes the opportunity to meet the team behind all the hard work and feel connected to us on a closer level. The house style on the blog should be consistent with the Missguided branding and display the personality of the brand. Our brand language should always be used when writing on the blog to remain relatable with those who are reading it.