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Contents Page 4-5 Executive Summary 6-7 Chosen Brand 8-9 Brand Identity 10-11 Brand Consumer 12-13 Brand Positioning 14-15 Communications Mix 16 Bibliography
Executive Summary
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Urban Outfitters is a high street brand, owned by the company; Urban Inc. and founded by Richard Hayne in 1976, who was a college student, studying Anthropology, when he came up with the idea of creating a vintage style and affordable clothing brand for other college students. It is based at the higher end of high street fashion with competitors such as Topshop and River Island. The brand aims their clothes, accessories and home decorations at people aged 18 to 28, often females, as fashion is seen as a relatively feminine interest. their prices also aim at this target market, by selling high quality, yet affordable products. The typical consumer is often someone who works in the fashion and business industry or has a high interest in fashion. The brand has competitors such as Topshop, who also aim towards the same market. Urban Outfitters uses a wide range of techniques to advertise their brand, such as; social media and online advertisements and promotions, which is effective especially, when communicating to their specific target consumer, as social media is heavily used by that age group. I used primary data such as asking questions at an urban outfitters store and secondary data like internet and book research, to collect information for this report.
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Chosen Brand
Urban Outfitters, Inc., incorporated on August 06, 1976, is a lifestyle retail company. The Company runs through two segments: Retail and Wholesale. The Company’s Retail aspect consists of its Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain and Bhldn brands, all of which were founded by Richard Haynes. The merchandise is sold to its customers through retail stores, Websites, mobile applications, catalogs and customer contact centers. Its Wholesale segment consists of the Free People wholesale division that primarily designs, develops, advertises and sells young women’s contemporary casual apparel and shoes through individual and chain specialty and department stores. The Company’s Retail segment includes Urban Outfitters, which targets young adults aged 18 to 28 through its merchandise mix, and store and Website environment. The segment’s Urban Outfitters has product offering, including men’s and women’s fashion apparel, intimates, footwear, beauty and accessories, home goods, sports and active wear and gear, electronics, as well as a range of apartment wares and gifts. Its apartment wares range from rugs, pillows and shower curtains to books, candles and novelties. The Company’s Anthropologie Group consists of the Anthropologie, Bhldn and Terrain brands. The Anthropologie brand’s products include women’s casual apparel and accessories, intimates, shoes, beauty, home furnishings, and a range of gifts and decorative items. The home furnishings range
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from furniture, rugs, lighting and antiques to table-top items, bedding and gifts. The Bhldn brand offers a collection of quality wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, party dresses, assorted jewellery, headpieces, footwear, lingerie and decorations. Terrain’s product offering includes lifestyle home and garden products combined with antiques, live plants, flowers, wellness products and accessories. As of January 31, 2016, the Company operated 218 Anthropologie Group stores, of which 197 were located in the United States, 12 were located in Canada and nine were located in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Urban_Outfitters Accessed November 2016.
The Company’s free people retail stores primarily offer private-label branded merchandise targeted to young contemporary women aged 25 to 30. Free People offers a merchandise mix of casual women’s apparel, intimates, shoes, accessories, activewear, home products and gifts. The Company’s Wholesale aspect includes Free People branded tops, bottoms, sweaters, dresses, intimates, shoes and activewear, which are sold through department and specialty stores around the world, and through its Free People stores. The Company distributes its Free People products in certain department stores using a shop-within-shop sales model. Free People wholesale sales and showroom facilities are located in
New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and London. http://www.reuters.com/ finance/stocks/companyProfile?rpc=66&symbol=URBN.O. Accessed November 2016
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Brand Identity Urban Outfitters’ identity is consistent throughout their stores and has been described as “hipster”, “stylish”, “irreverent” and “bohemian”. The brand often stock vintagestyle and “indie” clothing, which often display odd phrases, for example; T-shirts decorated with words such as “Jive Turkey” or “Atari”. When a consumer looks at a product from urban Outfitters they can tell that it is from that brand just by looking at the quality of the fabric, the style and the shape of the garment. Urban Outfitters also keep a constant aesthetic throughout their stores and online, with old- style wooden flooring and wooden frames decorating the store front.
Outfitters created a special “secondary” logo for their 2011 spring/summer campaign which took the brand back to its more natural and original routes. The design was directly painted onto shop windows rather than hung up or displayed in the windows.
The typeface for Urban outfitters is clear cut, featuring a box lettered font which fits in well with the contemporary style of the brand. This font can be seen on the shop front and is displayed on their unique paper packaging and bags. Urban
Doyle. C (2011) defines brand identity as “a group of various elements of a brand that can be seen externally. These can be a logo, packaging or even a slogan”
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“we stock our stores with what we and our customers love, We are inspired by art, music and fashion, which influences the clothes in which we sell. Urban Outfitters in.c 2016.
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Brand Consumer When researching Urban Outfitter’s brand consumer, i used primary research to do so. I asked staff members at a local store what they thought the target customer was. They mostly have female customers, which could be due to the fact that fashion is usually seen as a female interest rather than male. ‘We mostly look to appeal to young women with our fashion brand and hope to ispire their fashion to be original and unique in their own way’ Urban Outfitters inc. 2016.
Doyle.C describes the target market as a particular audience which a product or service aims for.
11 The average age for a consumer in Urban Outfitters is between 18-28, usually female and most likely work in business or fashion marketing/ advertising professions. They have a disposable income of £1000 a month or more, according to YouGov (2015). Typically Urban Outfitters would aim to appeal to females of an average age of early 20s, this would be the target market that the brand would aim their products towards.
Maggie Gyllanhaal ‘The Girl who has not realised that quirky is sexy, is an Urban Outfitters customer.’
Katy Perry ‘Our (Urban Outfitters) Customer is from traditional homes and advantage but this offers them the benefit of rebellion.’
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Brand Positioning
Brand Positioning describes how a brand is different from its competitors, and where, or how, it sits in a particular market. Urban Outfitters has competitors such as Topshop, who price their products in a similar price range and aim their clothing at the same consumer. Urban Outfitters, however, stands out from its competitors with its edgy and alternative look in the stores and with their clothing, which gives it an advantage against other brands looking to appeal to the same consumer. To stand out, brands must be unique and different from their competitors, Urban Outfitters does this well with its vintage style look about the store and online and through its often abstract window displays. As well as being a modern brand, Urban Outfitters has an old- style look, which appeals to people looking for a quirky or alternative style, this works well for the brand as it makes it stand out from its competitors by offering different styles and trends and a different variation of fashion.
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Communications Mix
Mary-Kate Olsen “The Urban customer, we always talk about, is the upscale homeless person, who has a slight degree of angst.�
There are a number of ways a brand can communicate to the consumer, including advertising through; TV, print, billboard, radio, online banners and paid advertising on social media. The main form of advertising for any brand is the store front. This is the first thing a potential consumer will see, so the layout, colours and slogans used to present the brand are important to consider. Brands are also able to display their promotions and offers going on in the store through shop window advertising which can also attract customers into the
store. Urban Outfitters mostly use social media to advertise, such as small adverts on websites like Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, which are direct links to the website. Through these adverts they advertise any promotions or sales they have on and promote any new collections they may have in store and online. Social media is a modern and effective way of advertising and allows the brand to connect with consumers consistantly, allowing them to browse their online collections easily and directly advertise seasonal offers and sales. This is a particularly good form of advertisement to use for Urban Outfitter’s target consumer as the age group that the brand aims towards are in the top percentage of people who most use social media.
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Moore 2012; states that fashion promotion is growing fast in the industry. It has to adapt fast in the way we all communicate. Promotion and communication happens elsewhere such as loyalty and promotional schemes and store discounts. Many brands, including Urban Outfitters have seasonal sales or discounts throughout the year such as Christmas sales or sales after summer, where consumers can buy the trend that has just passed. Currently Urban Outfitters do not offer a loyalty scheme but they do offer direct sales whereby staff note down the customers email to email them direct offers and promotions. This promotional technique of direct sales is also used by many other brands such as Missguided or NewLook. Celebrity Endorsement is defined as using celebrities to promote the brand, possibly by giving a wellknown celebrity the product for them to talk about on social media or using a celebrity face to create an image or look for the brand. Urban Outfitters do not have a celebrity face currently, however they have many celebrities talking about their brand online, such as Katy Perry and Mary- Kate Olsen. Urban Outfitters sponsored the Northside festival stationed near New York. This would be a form of promotion for Urban Outfitters as they would have donated money to the festival in order to have their name and logo posted around the festival site. This is also appropriate for Urban Outfitters as the style and look they aim for is often inspired by festivals, in particular the famous Coachella festival in America
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Bibliography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Outfitters http://www.cityam.com/211149/urban-outfitters-sales-have-risen-last-earnings-share-ahead-expectations Urban Outfitters INC 2015. http://urbn.com/people/anthropologie.html https://yougov.co.uk/profileslite#/urban_Outfitters/demographics http://www.missatlaplaya.com/2012/04/urban-outfitters-and-anthropologie-things-you-maybe-didnt-knowabout-them/ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/bright-sparks-urban-outfitters-6293036.html http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/index.jsp http://www.urbn.com/who-we-are http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?rpc=66&symbol=URBN.O http://www.celebuzz.com/photos/the-11-celebrities-who-embody-urban-outfitters-descriptions-of-its-customers/justinbieber-splash/ Google Images https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hayne Doyle. c. (2011) A dictionary of marketing. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore. G. (2012) Basics Fashion Management 02: Fashion Promotion: Building a brand through marketing and Communication. URBN INC: Urban Outfitters (2016) Availible at: http:// identitydesigned. com/urban-outfitters/