CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Product 3. Place 4. Physical evidence 5. Promotion 6. People 7. Price 8. Process 9.Reference list
Zara is a fast fashion Spanish clothing brand owned by Amancio Ortega under his parent company Inditex. This company also owns brands such as Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti and Bershka. Zara is the most dominant and successful branch off Inditex as it has the largest annual net sales turnover of 13,618 million euros overshadowing all other 7 brands making it their flagship store (statistics taken from Inditex annual report, 2015). As stated by Rupal Parekh (2013). “Zara is by the far the biggest brand in the Inditex Group portfolio, which had net sales in fiscal year 2012 of 15.9 billion euros, a 16% jump.� Zara has made its fortune on creating an affordable clothing line which appeals to most ages ranging from 16-50 years old. It draws in the masses of customers simply by regurgitating high fashion luxury brands designs straight from the catwalk and bringing them to the highstreet, at a much lower price.
PRODUCT
Similar to the promotion process of an item, the
and somewhat organic lifestyle instead of directly
product must create a sense of necessity or per-
focusing on the items to promote the brands new
sonal beneficial gain in order for the consumer to
season of clothing.
consider purchasing an item. The product must
“Spanish fashion brand Zara has released its
appeal to them in a way that will leave them
spring-summer 2016 campaign with plenty of
satisfied with their social and belonging needs or
dreamy imagery. Captured by Italian-American
their self-esteem needs, a segment of a theory
photographer Mario Sorrenti, the images star
recognised by Abraham Maslow in 1948 called
models Lineisy Montero, Frederikke Sofie, Julia
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Zara women’s
Bergshoeff and Vanessa Moody posing with spar-
spring/summer 16/17 advertising campaign uses a
klers and colored powder.” (FashionGoneRouge,
soft sell approach to promote a youthful, free living
2016).
Above images taken from Zara.com
Images taken from Zara’s 2016 SS campaign promoting a lifestyle rather than the products directly.
PLACE The owner of Zara, Amancio Ortega, takes pride in making Zara a fast fashion brand with a sense of luxury. “In 2003, Inditex built a Zara in the San Antonio el Real, an 18th-century convent in Salamanca, and in a historic cinema in Elche (also in Spain). The company likes special buildings. Last year, it paid $324 million to buy space at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York, according to the company, a building best known for being the most expensive ever sold in Manhattan.� Although Zara is considerably cheap and a fast fashion brand, this is a controversial and unheard of move for Ortega to place this store in the most expensive building sold in Manhattan. This location for a retail store is typically where you would be likely to find the likes of Chanel or Louis Vuitton and although it may seem excessive for this level of brand, if the store is surrounded by high point luxury brands and in a opulent location, it is inevitable that it will draw in more customers as it will have a heightened look of sophistication.
Statistics retreived from Inditex.com
Images of Zara stores retreived from Google.com and WGSN
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE As stated by Inditex, “Inditex now makes 840 million garments a year and has around 5,900 stores in 85 countries, though that number is always changing because Inditex has in recent years opened more than a store a day, or about 500 stores a year. Right now, there are around 4,400 stores in Europe, and almost 2,000 in Spain alone. Inditex’s main rivals are way behind. Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, among others, has about 3,000 stores worldwide; H&M, based in Sweden, has 2,500 (when you include its smaller lines of stores); and Mango, based in Spain, 2,400.” Zara’s exterior design mirrors very similarly to Chanel’s logo, displaying black block minimalistic typography displayed on a white background. At a glance, this would create a luxurious feel to the brands aesthetics which you would expect to be coherently displayed instore. Zara’s interior design contrasts largely with its simple and minimalistic exterior as it conventionally is a store that displays a lot of items creating a very busy and infamously messy and unattractive interior. The interior reflects more of a fast fashion retail store as the aim is to sell a large amount of clothing at a small price to make large profit instead of a luxury brand that sells a smaller number of items in physical stores but can make the profit in the high prices and not the volume of sales. As a brand branching off Inditex, Zara is coherent with its designs mirroring its parent company with minimalistic and unadorned interiors and exteriors. “Apart from a single poster of a fashion model, nothing adorned its white walls. No flowers, no words, no ads, no fashion magazines, no style. The setting felt appropriate for the age of austerity, even if Inditex is one company in Spain that is actually thriving.”
Statistics retreived from Inditex.com
PROMOTION
Unlike any other mainstream high street brand, Zara does not include any celebrity endorsements within their campaigns, they also don’t use television adverts as a platform to market their brand. The only advertisement campaigns shown are in store and are categorized as in store promotion rather than advertisement. This marketing technique (or lack of) suggests sense of exclusivity despite being a fast fashion and mainstream brand, this is conventionally a strategy commonly used by luxury brands such as Chanel and Hermes, it also suggests that the brand is so highly regarded in the retail industry that there is not a necessity for it to be promoted as they are already highly recognized.
Image of Zara campaign taken from Zara.com
PEOPLE
The people behind the brands process are essential in making it as successful as it has been. Many as-
pects of the business reply on strong management and customer service to keep Inditex and Zara running coherently. Social media in recent years has been pioneering in promoting retail brands through their own personal accounts. Twitter, Facebook and snapchat are three of the newest platforms brands have being using and experimenting with to draw in new and larger audiences. Compared to many other fast fashion retail brands, Zara is considered quite inactive on social media,
10
they mainly use their social media platforms for customer service to problems people may have. Most the public who use social media typically use their mobiles to file complaints or get in contact with companies about their issues as it’s the most accessible platform. As shown in the facebook screenshot, due to Zara’s lack of activity on social media accounts it can cause efficiency problems compared to other brands.
SCALE IN MILLIONS
answer any enquiries or resolve any
8
6
4
2
0
TOPSHOP ZARA
FOREVER H&M 21 This graph is a direct reflection of lack of follower activity due to Zara being considerably inactive of social media. This correlates with the negative feedback left on social media platform facebook.
Zara creates on trend garments which are considered good quality in correlation with the significantly low prices, as a result of this the clothing is not durable which is
PRICE
a conventional attribute of fast fashion items. This is the typical nature of fast fashion as it’s usually only intended to last a season or the duration of a trend and the old garments are quickly replaced by the newest styles. As the editor of Tank London magazine, Masoud Golsorkhi , stated “With Zara, you know that if you don’t buy it, right then and there, within 11 days the entire stock will change. You buy it now or never. And because the prices are so low, you buy it now.” Creating low prices and on trend pieces is a successful marketing strategy of Inditex as consumers are more likely to impulse buy the items as they are cheap and satisfactory quality. The low prices also open up a larger target audience as a more youthful demographic may be less financially stable than an older audience, therefore they are more likely to buy clothing from this store as they affordable. It could be argued that a downfall of Zara’s marketing is the lack of discount for the public, while employees gain a 25% discount on Zara’s items, there is no option for student or local workers discount. Although Zara’s prices are low, a student discount promotion would increase their audience are students who are in education are most likely to be the least likely to have disposable income. Zara have a department called Zara Women but they also have a sub-brand to the womens category called Trafaluc. This is a line of clothing marketed towards teenagers and young women with younger and more colourful designs at lower prices than Zara Women. Images of Trafaluc (TRF) line taken from Zara.com
PROCESS
Zara’s focusses equally on its instore and online retailing although, like most brands, it could be predicted that Zara will move towards a more technical process. The available ways to purchase Zara items are on the internet, in store and recently they have introduced their new mobile app. Omni-channel processes create a seamless experience for customer which makes it more likely for customers to favor purchasing from this store as opposed to somewhere with a complicated buying process.
Images of Zara’s mobile app retreived from Google.com Image of Zara’s online store retreived from Zara.com
Reference list Fig 1: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/trf-c358533.html Fig 2: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/trf-c358533.html Fig 3: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/woman-c358532.html Fig 4: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/woman-c358532.html Fig 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rmz9_jagKo&t=16s Fig 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rmz9_jagKo&t=16s\ Fig 7: http://www.herworldplus.com/zara-man-exterior-marina-bay-sands Fig 8: https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/zara-opens-record-fifth-store-on-oxford-street/# 11: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/trf-c358533.html 12: http://www.zara.com/uk/en/trf-c358533.html 14:http://www.zara.com/uk/en/trf-c358533.html Parekh, R. (2013). How Zara Bloomed Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Brand Without Advertising. AdvertisingAge. https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/companies/inditex https://www.inditex.com/documents/10279/208409/Inditex_+Annual_Report_2015_ web.pdf/d3501c55-8e8f-4936-b8d8-0fc47a543c93 https://www.inditex.com/documents/10279/199088/INDITEX+1H2016+Results.pdf/90e3af68-764a-4ec0-88f3-4f1b89724239 Hanson, S. (2012) How Zara Grew Into the World’s Largest Fashion Retailer. The New York Times Newspaper. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zaragrew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html