SOCIOLOGY AND TREND IRINA IONESCU Class: IDbm5a815 Hand in: 15.10.2015 Type: Replacing Assignment Speciality: Branding & Marketing Management
What you will read about:
Cool Haunting Trend reasearch and qualification Trend forecasting
PLUS
Cool Hunting
Trend research and qualification
Trend forecasting
Traditional forecasters
Idea
THE TREND:
In today’s era of fast-moving technology and workaholic people, time means money and more and more human beings are trading homemade food with fast-food or other substitutes. This, results a permanent growth in weight for all nations. Since it is not invented a magic weight-loss potion, this growing is not going to stop anywhere soon and the consumers demands have already been changed; but what are retailers doing about this ? ZARA, by being one of the world’s biggest women clothing retailer have been shutting down stores in U.S.A. instead of creating a wider scale of sizes in order to meet the market requests.
The plus size trend is more and more “in” due to the research made on this topic. Young women around the world want to be fashionable even though they don’t fit the worldwide and well-known fashion retailers. The problem for ZARA (as the chosen company) is the image built through years.
Trend research and communication:
Why:
The company wants to keep the products on people that have measurements from 34 to 42 (EUR) instead of touching the most profitable niche in nowadays fashion industry - the plus size niche. Many companies had a massive growth in profit after entering the plus-size market.
Title of the trend?
What trend analysis tools and sources of information did you use?
PLUS
http://nymag.com/thecut/2012/11/sorry-middle-america-youre-too-fat-for-zara.html http://www.businessinsider.com/why-zara-is-having-trouble-breaking-into-the-us-market-2012-8?IR=T https://www.pinterest.com/ivyhaver/plus-size-fashion-trends/ http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a18375/plus-sized-models/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2834932/How-define-plus-size-Five-models-share-view-means-fall-debated-bodytype-category.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus-size_clothing
Extent of the trend CAMPAIGN: #WeExistAlso
Why:
Nowadays, fashion displays collections on skinny to zero sized models, but in recent times the trends have dramatically changed. This type of campaign needs to be launched in order to ensure every woman that is beautiful, This campaign has been launched to make every woman feel good and proud about herself. Women can be sexy no matter the size they fit into. Moreover, the aim of this campaign is not to prove that plus size women are more beautiful, rather it was just a way to say that beauty has nothing to do with size but we need the perfect clothes to highlight the beauty.
Who is your customer / segment? ZARA by being one of the largest international fashion companies, welcomes shoppers in 87 countries to its network of 1.996 stores in upscale locations in the world’s largest cities. The retailer’s international footprint proves that national borders are no hindrance to a shared fashion culture. The secret to its success is the special fondness for fashion that a wide range of people, cultures and generations are sharing. ZARA consumers are young, value conscious and highly sensitive to the latest fashion trends in the industry. ZARA’s main target group is women, and their primary age group is from 25 to 40. They are looking for the woman that likes
to be fashionable, the everyday woman that wants to go well dressed to office. The trend is based on research of the U.S.A. market in order to connect ZARA with their demands regarding the women size issue. As a result of the research, the trend is there and it needs to be exploited by the company in order to add more value and grow the profit by simply adding a new department such as ZARA+. This new brand extension can combine design and business all together in order to solve a big problem for ZARA, an ongoing and growing trend in nowadays market.
What form of communication did you choose, and why? ZARA is a brand that is using advertising “just because”. The company is well-known and they rely on it. But they are combining both traditional and modern media in order to advertise some of the products. Therefore, #WeExistAlso campaign can be promoted both offline and online. Offline - billboards with images from the campaign can be set up; - lookbooks and other paper commercials will be added the new campaign and placed in-store; Online - social media channels (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) promoting photos and interviews with the models used and the first clients impressions; - the models used can also promote the campaign on their social media channels; - ZARA’s website will also have #WeExistAlso campaign.
How will you introduce / sell this trend presentation to your customer? The campaign can be introduced by creating a brand book and with placing billboards in strategic points (such as center of cities, above ZARA shops, etc.) The trend will be sold due to the statistics that prove the increase and the need of it and also because of the main concept: plus size exists also.
Where and how will the trend be manifested? The PLUS trend has already been seen in various companies, from childrenswear, men and women in fashion. H&M has established a plus-size exclusively online collection in 2011 and it can be found also in stores at the moment. Due to the this ongoing growth, the trend will keep developing for other retailers. For ZARA, the next step is to get feedbacks from the customers and use it to improve the collections/products by keeping in mind that skinny design don’t fit plus size the same way.
How and why can this trend create business for your customers ? How it will bring business: The trend will be introduced at first on the social media channels in order to evaluate the reviews and opinions. There will be provided samples to bloggers and models such as: Gabi Gregg - Gabifresh, Chasity - Garner Style, Jay Miranda, Sakina - Saks in the city, Georgina - Cupcakes clothes, Olivia Campbell - model, Whitney Thompson - model, Chloe Marshall model, etc. The platform used for this campaign will be mainly Instagram due to its +200.000.000 users and because of their Click2buy option. Why it will bring business: ZARA is placed among the first fashion brands with high quality and middle to low cost products. In the USA market ZARA started shutting down stores rather than improving the business and following the nowadays trend. Many reviews were made by customers that the sizes don’t fit and they are actually created smaller than written on the label. A survey was created in order to establish what is the opinion of people about ZARA. After analyzing the 33 responses gathered we can easily see that most of them think that the brand needs a change in this matter.
Thank you for your time and consideration of my assignment.