Marc Jacobs Brand Analysis

Building brand identity / spring 2019 branding assignment Debora Ferrara

d e s i g n e r f a s h i o n

Labelled as the “world’s most influential designer” (Fashion. telegraph.co.uk, 2011), Marc Jacobs became the yougest designer to win the CFDA Perris Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent in 1987 after launging his namesake brand the previous year and showcasing his first collection under the eponymous label. Marc Jacob’s career really arose once beginning to study BFA Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design in New York, where he designed and sold his first line of handknit sweaters. After his studies in 1922, Jacobs was given the title of vice president and head designer of womenswear at Perry Ellis, yet despite this, he was subsequently dismissed in 1993 “after Jacobs sent out a “grunge” collection for the label that critics loved but company hated” (Biography.com,2017). Jacob’s aim with this collection was to stay away from the clean-cut image of the Perry Ellis label and so sent out “unorthodox combintions, such as flowered; girlish dresses paired with combat boots, to achieve a dishevelled and individualistic look.”

(Nolen, n.d.). Just a year later in 1993, Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc. created their own licensing and design company “Marc Jacobs International Company, L.P.” which therefore relaunched the Marc Jacobs brand and then a year later they relased and debuted a menswear line. Four years after that, in 1997, Jacob’s opened his first boutique on New York’s Mercer Street located in Soho. As well as this, Marc Jacobs signed on as creative director for the luxury brand Louis Vuitton and strengthened their reputation by designing the company’s first line of ready-to-wear clothing and expanded their line of accessories. Up until 2001, the Marc Jacobs brand only had it’s one clothing line, howevere in this year, the brand extended and formed the “Marc by Marc Jacobs” line which supplied sportswear and “was created to offer a much more affordable alternative to the original collection.” (Shoemetro. com, n.d.). Marc Jacobs extended his brand by introducing its first watch collection in collaboration with Fossil in 2005 and just two years later in 2007, the brand further expanded their product categories by launching a children’s line: Little Marc Jacobs, their first eyewear collection courtesy of Marc by Marc Jacobs and finally their first fragrance: Daisy. In 2015 Marc by Marc Jacobs was no longer a diffusion line as it was mergered with the designers primary collection.

The company “Marc Jacobs” is nowadays a leading and well-established name within the fashion industry, having a wide presence internationally and also has a wide clothing and accessory range. The products offered by the brand lie in the premium fashion segment due to their luxury range which provides high quality, style and value towards their consumers. The company belongs to LVMH is a french based, luxury goods amalgam, it focusing on high quality products.

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Marc Jacobs is one of the most influential fashion designers oh his generation and it comes down to the fact that he does not follow the rules. He is anti establishment, anti adult, and antislick. He started off a salso being anti marketing however he has come to learn that in this day and age, marketing is key. It i salso a fact you don’t know what to expect at his fashion shows, and that is what makes the Marc Jacobs brand what is today.

For thirty years Marc Jacobs has been able to shape the boundaries of american fashion. The indefinable characteristics of his namesake label are the result of a unique, uncommonly frank and brilliantly outspoken perspective. His collections are known to bring an element of surprise as each season, every year, they change and they are considerably different to the previous. He loves to take what is deemed “everyday” and turn it into something luxurious. Possibly one of the greatest thing about his legacy is that while people seem to not know what they went untile they see it, everybody wants something with the Marc Jacobs label.

“Marc seems to have lived more than the most, seen more than the most, survived more than most, and he somehow knows exactly what to appropriate, what to sample, where to draw inspiration from.”

Anna Wintour

“One thing that is exciting about fashion is the surprise element. People don’t know what they want. They just know when they see it.”

Marc Jacobs

We create these values by focusing particularly on creating innovate trends amongst our consumers and market our products towards elite class women and men and professionals living in urban areas such as New York. I forced the intersection of pop culture and high society, always a maverick, constantly taking risks.

We don’t have a personal mission statement because we think it changes over time, however our parent group, LVMH has a group mission on it’s own official website: “preserved heritage with a dynamic engagement with modernity; making the houses ambassadors af a distinctively refined art de vivre”.

faithful

We have three imperatives that inspire excellence and in the long run constitute the pillars of our performance and our success; deliver excellence, be cultive and entrepreneuial in spirit and be creative and innovative.

Values.

Marc Jacobs remains to what has defined his brand since 1984 and that is the fact that he is able to reinvent the codes of style. The brand has always been about two simple concepts: a

commitment to quality and a love of fashion.

Marc Jacobs is original, rebellious, unpredictable, unique and authentic all at the same time.

Marc Jacobs is the founder name, this means that it allows potential of brand extensions, from clothing to such as watches and perfumes, and allows a changing brand image. Marc Jacobs is a simple and effective name. To those who have the brand knowledge, they will associate the name to quality designs, as Marc has always been dedicated to ensuring his designs are of excellent quality.

It is also internationally valid, with no threat of causing offense to other nationalities.

The Marc Jacobs is a simple logotype, easily recognised and is versatile-easily change. It is chosen a based on a typeface called Engravers Gothic Bold, it can be found in historical architecture and was used for public communication and display, all of them sources of Marc Jacobs’ inspirations. The weights of the styles of this typeface went from quite light to very heavy causing thickthin contrast issues for the interpolated instances. This kind of simplistic and minimal symbol embraces several and versatile audience’s likings. The aim was to create a neutral logo that had great clarity, and could be used on a wide variety of occasions.

v i s ua l i d e n t i t y.

The Marc Jacobs label is “Marc Jacobs”, sometimes followed by the company address, in order to reinforce the theme of genius loci, in this case the multiethnic and effervescent culture of New York City, in white or black background.

The first label for the off-shoot line was the same black background with “Marc” in white and “Jacobs” in light gray, as if faded or blacked out, in order to make it less formal and closer to younger consumer.

That didn’t work out for editorial credit purposes; magazines were stumped by the same name in two tones. It was changed into a new one where it can see a logotype’s game, such as “Jacobs by Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs.

The company wanted to play with the name of its founder in order to create curiosity and reinforce brand awareness.

The brand hangtag is clean, serious, legible and it’s very neutral. This simplicity is explained by the fact that often the garment is very particular and colorful, so the hangtag gives way to the clothes.

The hangtag can change his material depending on the garments or accessories in which it is.

The hangtag’s typeface is different from the logotype and it is explained by the gain to make it very tecnique and useful to consumers.

In the past Marc Jacobs had a strong approach to branding and packaging, in fact, his products were marketed with a consistent brand image trough the use of all-over pattern as well. Now the aesthetic is very clear, due to a general luxury minimalism as well. In some package it is possible see decorations with black ribbons and flakes: these kind of decoration is added when the product is dedicated to a romantic and dreamer woman. Otherwise Marc Jabobs company aims to mantain an excellent brand corporate image, in the packaging as well.

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“ I

t’s what I really love to do,” he said.

“I’m pending quite a bit of time, and I’m so inspired by the opportunity to being able to do that.”

“I would love to walk here and maybe there are potted plants outside and a doorman who lets you in. I’d a very particular type of floor, beautiful in those elevators. I’m not looking at Halston and the Olympic Towers — I’m not that guy.

I would like our version of that. I’d like to work on defining our world when you come in to this office. Robert and I never had the chance to do that.

Marc Jacobs

163 Mercer Street, Soho, New York

Distribution/store: Jacobs always had the passion for interiors, furniture and art and is eager to apply his personal knowledge in his store and showroom in a significant way.

The concept store is designed to create a user experience that includes the five senses in order to give to customers a 360° feeling of the brand.

- 280 stores worldwide, present in 60 cities; - Concessions in Selfridges, BookMarc, Sogo & Saks - www.marcjacobs.com - www.net-a-porter.com - www.mrporter.com - www.harveynichols.com - www.harrods.com

368 Rue Saint Honoré, Paris

M a r k e t s e c to r s .

Ready to wear: there is never a set style within the collections that label creates. However it can always see the distinct cross between street style and high fashion.

Childrenswear: Little Marc Jacobs Shoes Bags Eyewear Accessories: Marc has a collection of accessories ranging from watching and jewelry, to phone cases and scarves.

Beauty & fragrance: most fashion houses have leather goods to be identified by, Marc Jacobs house has fragrance and it has beauty. Make up is an integral part of the fashion world and that is why his beauty collection has so much success.

Marketing strategy / advertising

Marc Jacobs company has been known to use to go all out in terms of marketing. He likes to use unexpected models in his campaigns. During 12 years, the photographer Juergen Teller has collaborated in his campaigns of woman, man, perfumes and accessories. Teller expose unknown models or famous celebrities in strange and uncommon situations. For example the campaign where Victoria Beckham is inside a Marc Jacobs shopping bag. Teller’s idiosyncratic visual style and use of unusual models has been instrumental in establishing what has become the brand over the years.

Marc Jacobs advertising campaigns are raw, ecclectic and sexually suggestive. It’s a weird approach that sometimes doesn’t show the selling product.

These kind of campaigns are tought for an audience who want to be different in the way they dress but also think.

He’s used several celebrities in advertising campaign or they are frequently seen wearing pieces of the clothing line.

Victoria Beckham (most important past spokeperson) / Ben affleck (king magazine dec 2010) / Mia (marc by marc Jacobs spring campaign, 2008) / Miley cyrus / Helena bonham / Winona ryder / Alexa chang (spring 2008 campaign) / Sofia coppola / Dakota fanning.

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Marc Jacobs key competitors concentrate on the luxury brands that own the ascendancy of women’s fashion. The luxury fashion market is fragmented highly and characterized by presence of a few large global companies and many smaller independant ones.

First and foremost the Marc Jacobs competitors present within the same parent group are CĂŠline, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Givenchy. They are fashion houses that sell a similar range of products with a similar price point. Kering is one of the major competitors of LVMH and work under the same pretence, it is home to the likes of Stella McCartney, Balenciaga and Gucci, all of whom could pose a strong competitor for Marc Jacobs. As well as LVMH and Kering, there are other companies such as Richemont, home to Chloe, or Prada, Calvin Klein, Nina Ricci, Proenza Schouler who have similar aesthetics to Marc Jacobs.

high price

low quality

low price

Website/social. Brand communication is vital in the world of

fashion and this is why Marc Jacobs is so in touch with social media, naturally it drives traffic to the Marc Jacobs website. It is present on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram with more that 8 milions followers.

The website is easy to navigate due to clear headings and subheadings.

Prices are clearly visible and there is a good customer service: online store, membership option to simplify and speed up the purchasing process in order to give a good user experience to online customers.

sources https://www.biography.com/ people/marc-jacobs-594096 https://www.lvmh.com/ houses/fashion-leather-goods/ marc-jacobs/ https://studymoose.com/marcjacobs-brand-analysis-essay https://www.marcjacobs. com/press/REVIEW_WWD_ MBMJ_CHANGES.html?q=i%20

Thank you