TraphouseTattooer Strategy Manual by Jessica Martin

STRATEGY MANUAL Jessica Martin William Edwards Callum Wright Georgia Torr

CONTENTS 1 Introduction.... 5 Client Brief 2 The Client.... 9 2.1 Initial Client Contact.... 12 2.2 Client Interview.... 15 2.3 Client Brief.... 16 Market Reseach 3.1 Target Consumer.... 22 3.2 Current Market Data.... 24 3.3 Emerging Markets.... 26 3.4 Competitor Analysis.... 28 3.5 Brand Differentiation Strategy.... 31 4 Rationale.... 34

Communication Strategy 5.Brand Identity.... 38 6 Consumer Engagement....43 6.1 Building Brand Loyalty.... 43 6.2 POS and Bags....44 6.3 Product Drops....45 6.4 Taglines....46 7.1 Advertising Concept....50 7.2 Photoshoot.... 50 7.3 Campaign Images...52. 8 Brand Collaboration.... 58 9 Target Consumer.... 60 9.1 Marketing Mix.... 62 9.2 Platform Identification....63 10 References....64 11 Appendices....66

INTRODUCTION

This project has been set to challenge us creatively, professionally, and academically to allow us to apply our prior-gained knowledge of the fashion industry to a real-life client. Our team is made up of Jessica, Will, Georgia, and Callum. The general aim was to create a branding and communication plan whilst working with a live client to fit their needs. Within this document, we have rounded up all of our research and work in a visually yet informing manner to present everything we have achieved. The strategy manual starts with a client brief to introduce TRAPHOUSE, then continues onto the market research segment, and finally finishes with the communication strategy. Each of us has contributed to various parts of the project in order for it to be a success, and this is evidenced strongly throughout the following manual.

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CLIE BRI

ENT IEF

the client

@Traphousetattooer is a tattoo artist we found on Instagram. He has a following of around 37,000 people which demonstrates his high profile and talent. Because of the nature of his work, he prefers to be known as a ‘tattooer’ rather than ‘tattoo artist’ as he thinks of it more as labour than an art form. Traphouse is originally from London, although there is no singular base for his work. He’s known for travelling, especially to the USA to be able to tattoo people all around the world. This allows for a much greater audience and definitely helps to increase his social network following. ‘The Peoples Champion’ is what Traphouse refers to himself as. This is because he stands strongly to help the less fortunate, for example, his prices are kept low to make his work affordable. The real identity of Traphouse is unknown because of his criminal past. He is faced with judgement daily so we decided to help him increase his business whilst improving the negative connotations of him.

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INITIAL CLIENT C O N TA C T To initially reach out to our client, we messaged him on Instagram. We simply explained who we were and a vague description of our project aims. Straight away he seemed very keen to get involved and find out more information. The message was as follows;

“

Hey! My name is Jessica Martin and I’m a BA (Hons) Fashion Management and Communication student at Sheffield Hallam University. We have been given a student project to collaborate with an Artist/Designer to explore their vision and philosophy. Furthermore, the project looks into future collections and we could explore where your brand could progress to i.e instead of putting art on people, putting it on clothing. It would be great if we could arrange to speak to you and learn a bit more about the origins of your style. Thank you very much for your time, let me know if you have any questions.” Jess Martin .

”

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CLIENT INTERVIEW

Whilst trying to retrieve information by using a questionnaire, Traphouse said he’d rather discuss over a webcam call, so he can explain his answers thoroughly. Initially, Jessica asked him what he was wearing as he blocked out his camera (hiding his identity). He answered by saying he was wearing Louis Vuitton with Nike, Adidas, and Stone Island; describing his style as “sports luxe”. Traphouse then went on to tell us how he mainly wants to get away from the ‘intimidating’ image he created by wearing balaclavas to hide his identity. Balaclavas are too aggressive and not how he wants to portray himself to a consumer. Another main point he made was that the idea of a pop-up shop or launch party for the clothing collection interests him, as it makes the brand more exclusive, just like his tattoos. The final main point he made was how he told us that he believes he has no competitors. It was then our job to search the market to find someone who we could research as a possible competitor.

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CLIENT BRIEF Our client, TRAPHOUSE, has asked us to create a communicative strategy focusing on building his brand to reach the fashion industry and changing consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; negative opinions on him and his business. After speaking to our client, he gave us a lot of creative liberties to allow us to meet his targets. We plan to create a fashion brand relating directly to his tattoo and music business so far. The fashion collection must match his style but not appear too intimidating. From this, we will create an extensive market research report to demonstrate our thorough understanding of the current market. TRAPHOUSE specifically asked us to prioritise his brand image, but also focus on making his fashion brand exclusive and limited. Together, we decided pop-up shops and launch parties would help increase exclusivity whilst allowing consumers to enjoy themselves and therefore create a positive opinion of the TRAPHOUSE brand.

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MARKET RESEARCH 20

H 21

TA R G E T C O N S U M E R 22

As a group, we organised numerous surveys and research to collect the right data for us to work out our target consumer accurately. A survey conducting research into the psychographics of the consumer was carried out by using SurveyMonkey. We used Instagram stories to ask followers to get in touch if they’ve got at least one tattoo and once they did, we gave them the link to our questionnaire. We had 37 responses in total. The first question asked for the participants’ age, followed by “Other than tattoos, what else would you consider yourself interested in? (Please tick as many as apply)” which included several choices and the option to add your own. The top three other interests were fashion, music and raves/ festivals which really fits in with our client, as Traphouse is already moving into the music industry and we’re taking him into fashion. The third question asked “Which clothing brands are you interested in and/or buy from regularly? (Tick all that apply)” with several answer choices from different styles of fashion. The top three were Topshop/Topman, Zara, and Champion so the demographics of these brands will also apply to the Traphouse clothing too. Participants were also asked for their favourite music genre and the two most popular answers were R’n’B and Hip-Hop. From this genre of music, we can assume that further psychographics would include how consumers would be fans of artists such as Drake, Beyonce, and The Weeknd. As the brand gets bigger, collaborating with these artists would be a huge marketing campaign and could potentially reach a wider consumer range. (SEE APPENDIX 1, PAGE 66)

To predict an accurate age for demographics, we wanted a representative sample of participants to gather information from. We went through the first 50 Instagram followers of @Traphousetattooer we found and noted down their age in a tally chart. The mode age was 20, the median was 21 and the mean is 20.06. Participants from the survey were also asked to give their ages. There was an anomaly of 51 but the rest were in the range of 18 and 26. The mode as 20 and median as 22 with a mean number of 20.58. From our data analysis, we can conclude that the target demographic is the early ’20s but a good age range would be 18-21 as this was where the majority of our participants fell into. Traphouse famously keeps his prices affordable which is intended to be carried on for the apparel line too, suggesting that the income of our target consumer could be of a working-class salary. Obviously, the higher income families will be able to afford it too, but it means the products will be more available to a wider group of consumers, instead of restricting who can buy it. Furthermore, most 18-21 year-olds aren’t on a high enough salary to buy from luxury brands so the lower prices are essential to meet the target market.

From looking at Maslowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hierarchy of needs, our target consumer needs to feel accepted into a social group when buying from The Trapsuit Collection, and also needs to fulfil their own creative actualisation to really form a strong consumer bond. The social acceptance will occur as everyone buying the garments will have a mutual love for tattoos and/or Traphouse himself. Similarly, the self-actualisation will be from the expression of the consumers love for the brand and the art of tattoos. Although the brand will meet these higher needs, the first step of the hierarchy is physiological. This means that the clothing needs to meet its required function and fit appropriately to size in order for a basic profit and customer base. For the collection, the garments will be made to match the measurements of UK sizes to get an accurate fit.

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current market d ata Current market data & Market size TRAPHOUSE’s current following on Instagram is 37.8K and is growing every day, he engages with his fans constantly which allows the clothing brand to take off with a similar if not more impactful way with his fans. His current market is within the tattoo industry and our research shows that out of the 50 people we recorded that follow him, 31 of them are aged between 18-21, 6 aged between 22-25, 2 people aged 25+ and 3 being aged under 18. The Pop-Up shop Market is growing for upcoming brands and also for celebrities/ Public figures to sell merchandise tied to them as a brand. Current statistics show numerous campaigns marking a noise and catching the attention of the public. Yeezy ‘Life Of Pablo’ was established in 21 cities around the world for fans to purchase exclusive products for a limited amount of time, this created an urge, impulse-buy effect on the public. The stores collectively generated $1 million USD in two days (thestorefront.com, 2016.). Pop up stores are revolutionising the way the public shop causing the traditional brick-and-mortars to re-evaluate their marketing strategies. With statistics in 2017 showing The UK‘s pop-up industry is guessed to be worth £2.3 billion, accounting for around 0.76 per cent of total retail turnover, according to EE‘s Britain’s Pop-Up Retail Economy report (retailgazette.co.uk, 2017.). This benefits Traphouse tattooer as with his current business, people all around the world want tattoos from him, but in order to get one they need to find the nearest city he’s in at the time and commute or wait for him to be in their city and by providing pop up shops to the countries and cities he’s visiting, this will allow his tattooing business and clothing business to work in harmony.

Market growth rates Starting a pop-up shop creates an opportunity for Traphouse as he can reach a greater audience, statistics show that in 2017, 44 per cent of customers with retail visited pop-up shops (retailgazette.co.uk, 2017.) and the statistic is growing as we speak. This will allow his fans to engage with him in person and not just on social media, even if they’re not interested in a tattoo they can buy merchandise with his designs on. Streetwear is impactful to the fashion industry, growing to a worth of $75 billion in 2014, half the size of the sportswear industry at $150 billion. The sportswear industry is now estimated at $174 billion (businessoffashion.com), growing annually alongside streetwear that is collaborating with high-end fashion to create ‘Luxury Streetwear’ which has taken off massively since 2017. Trends are evolving so much luxury designers such as Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Vetements have been collaborating with streetwear brands such as Supreme, Tommy Hilfiger and Gosha Rubchinskiy.

Identification of opportunities in local and national markets MEWT looked into the brand store locations of brands such as Supreme, Bape, Yeezy, The Basement and Palace who all have the similar ‘limited item concept’ and these were the results. As you can see there are massive markets within the United States, Japan, China and the UK, these countries would be targets for the ‘Traphouse Pop-Up Store’ because Traphouse tattooer already visits various areas around the UK and the United States and these markets heavily endorse in edgy streetwear brands. Countries that niche markets are arising from such as Africa, Singapore, Copenhagen, Germany and the Nederlands could be potential places to invest in as they are less saturated and mainstream and more edgy and unique which the Traphouse brand certainly will be.

GERMANY USA - 3 UK - 1 FRANCE - 1 JAPAN - 1

AUSTRALIA

COPENHAGEN

SINGAPORE AFRICA NEDERLANDS

USA

JAPAN - 14 USA 2 UK - 1 FRANCE- 1 CHINA - 11

UK - 1 USA - 1 JAPAN - 1

CHINA

FRANCE UK JAPAN USA - 14 UK - 1 NEDERLANDS - 1 GERMANY - 1 SINGAPORE - 1 AUSTRALIA - 2 AFRICA - 1

UK - 1 COPENHAGEN - 1

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emerging markets Biggest emerging markets: China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Indonesia. Companies such as Amazon are now selling fashion and sportswear in Brazil, something the company hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t done before. In the Middle East GQ launches with controversial cover of a gay man, controversial as it is against their laws. Conde Nast re launches Vogue in Greece. In terms of our client TRAPHOUSE TATTOOER I believe mature markets would benefit the brand such as cities like Singapore and Shanghai are cities the brand could appeal to, essentially creating pop-up stores around the cities. As their style of tattoos is minimal also I feel the brand would fit into this market more effectively than cities such as Brazil or India. Looking into the tattoo industry, a decade ago there were only 300 tattoo parlours in Britain now there are over 1,500, as you can see the growth of the industry has massively increased. Tattoos have gone mainstream over the last decade as more and more people are wanting them, as its becoming more accepted in society and within the workplace. Furthermore, the global tattoo industry is worth over 50 billion, however, shops run on foot traffic and word of mouth. On average around 70% of world growth will come from emerging markets, such as those listed above. For example, the fashion industry is worth 900 billion dollars a year. Brands are making clothes for all age groups, in all shapes and sizes. France, Italy, UK, and the USA are all major fashion markets of the world and host the largest number of fashion shows across the globe. Stores such as Zara and Marks and Spencer have the most renowned names for big high-street brands. Multinational retail stores have gained profits in emerging market countries such as Brazil for example, because of increased spending power. Also, Indian retail stores are up and coming as the Indian consumers are all about price, quality, and comfort. The market gives customers all the benefits they need such as those listed above which is why India is seeing such a big growth in their market. Singapore is an emerging market valued at more than 1.9 billion dollars, more recognized for its womenswear stores their CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate is high compared to many other countries.

Market growth in fashion has increased by 3% each year. In 2025 itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expected to increase by 5% each year. However, in mature markets, it will decrease and the acceleration in sales will increase with emerging markets. Emerging markets will have grown three times faster than already mature markets. As you can see from the graph shown, the trend is following on to luxury clothing brands increasing year by year. The worlds top 600 cities are expected to create two-thirds of global economic growth. In 2015 its expected there will be 60 megacities, where GDP will exceed 250 billion dollars. Megacities such as Moscow and Shanghai are large, however emerging markets have more than 400 of these cities and are expected to account for 50 per cent of global GDP growth by 2025. Puente, Harbin, and Luanda are among 100 cities that are currently the fastest growing. All of these cities together within 15 years will be generating wealth equivalent to the whole of the United States economy today. Emerging markets will add 100 billion dollars to the women fashion market. Mid-market fashion will grow a lot higher and faster than luxury fashion as growth is still heavily dependant on mature markets in this area.

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competitor a n a ly s i s Direct competitors: When it comes to analysing the brands that would be TRAPHOUSE’s competitors the main thing to compare would be branded exclusivity, campaigns that involve pop-up shops and rare clothing sales and then the pricing of the products. Two brands that would be possible main competitors would be Stussy and Illustrated People. Illustrated People is a brand that can relate to TRAPHOUSE because of its reasonable/cheap pricing and because of the designs they use on their products. The brand has quite edgy but simple graphics on the majority of their clothing items. This is very similar to TRAPHOUSE’s tattoo designs which we are merging into surreal graphics and printing onto clothing. Their pricing of clothing is pretty much affordable by most people ranging items like hoodies at £20-£50. This is how TRAPHOUSE’s clothing would be priced also; this is because of how he includes very reasonable pricing within his tattooing business. Stussy is a very popular brand that is well known for its pop-up shops and exclusivity of some products within the brand. With TRAPHOUSE being a very exclusive person the idea of his clothing being sold via the selling technique of pop-up events is the main vision for the brand. This makes the clothing that is sold at the events rather rare and could be a one-time-only chance for consumers to grab specific designs. This completely links back to his tattoo career as he doesn’t have his own tattoo shop and only works in the area he is in at that current time, making his tattoos hard to get and very exclusive. These comparisons of the brands show how they can be seen as direct competitors when it comes to the clothing side of TRAPHOUSE as a brand. These brands may all share the same type of consumer because of the similarities and will be competing to get sales and maintain/improve the popularity of the brand.

Product Offer & Price Point: The idea of having TRAPHOUSE’s tattoo designs merged and printed onto clothing offers consumers such as his fans and people interested in tattoos the ability to purchase and have his tattoo ideas without going through the time and pain of getting a tattoo if they don’t want one but still love his designs. It also offers his fans to own more from him, to feel like they are supporting and dedicated to TRAPHOUSE more rather than just getting a tattoo, more options are created. The types of clothing expected from the brand are casual street wear, things like hoodies, t-shirts, joggers and jumpers. This is because these clothing items are the types of products that TRAPHOUSE himself wears. It makes his actual clothing items relate to him as a brand. The pricing of the clothing will be very reasonable and affordable. This is mainly because of the way he prices his tattoos when travelling and putting his artwork into the skin of others. He knows tattoos can be overpriced and disagrees with how much artists usually charge. This is all keeping his clothing linked to him as a person and as a brand. Priced can be expected to be around £15-£20 for t-shirts and then £20-£30 for other items such as the hoodies. USP: The unique selling point of the clothing will be the fact of the exclusivity of getting and owning these clothing items. The clothing will all be sold at pop-up shops to keep relevant to how he lives his life with his tattoo career, always travelling that rarity of getting his designs. The designs will all be screen printed onto the clothing items which means that every single print will never be the exact same as another just because of the technique of screen printing. This makes every product feel more personal to the consumer knowing it’s the only item exactly like that in the world which could make them want to buy

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B R A N D D I F F E R E N T I AT I O N S T R AT E GY Against Competitors & Brand Positioning: The main way TRAPHOUSE differs from other brands is the fact that he is always on the move and always travels. He is his own brand and never just stays in one place and doesn’t have a shop people can just visit. He works in the homes of his consumers and just carries his equipment or he possibly works in the back of his own van. It’s a completely different experience of getting a tattoo. This whole feature of his brand will be implied to the process of purchasing his clothing because of the idea of pop-up shops being his selling technique. The clothing will never be guaranteed to be in your area and might never be. It will be lucky to gain without travelling far from your local area. This just raises the whole experience when it comes to exclusivity and could increase the demand in people having the urge to purchase his products just for the fact of owning it. The designs on the clothing will be very rare themselves. Every pop-up will include different designs and the same one will never be sold twice. The method of printing the clothing (screen printing) will mean that every single one of the clothing items will be slightly different and there won’t ever be two that match perfectly.

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RATIONALE RATIONALE RATIONALE 32

RATIONALE RATIONALE RATIONALE 33

- r at i o n a l e We conducted the previous research to investigate the need for a tattoo-related clothing line, as well as looking into the competitors to see where our brand would position in the current market. In-depth, we have looked into many aspects around the brand such as emerging markets, target consumer, and current market data - to name a few. We also collected a high quantity of data on the client himself and practised our knowledge of marketing to apply to the project. It’s visible that there’s a demand in the market for the TRAPHOUSE TRAPSUIT. Not just for the pop-up shop element but target consumers have shown their interest in the research surveys. By looking at the emerging markets, the hype around tattoos is massively increasing and becom-

ing more and more popular. With this increase in business, the team hopes that this will, therefore, apply to the actual design of the tattoos also. From this, we can predict that as tattoos get more popular, so will the brand. Also, exclusivity builds desire around a product so to have such a limited number of designs means it will keep everyone looking unique yet united in the same social group. Moscow is a really high ranking emerging market for both mid-market and luxury goods. This would definitely be one destination for TRAPHOUSE and the pop-up shop to visit. The emerging market means it’s not as established as places like London, New York etc. This is beneficial as there’s likely to be less competition within a newer market.

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O C

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brand identity

traphouse red R: 205 G: 23 B: 25

traphouse black R: 29 G: 29 B: 27

traphouse grey R: 124 G: 124 B: 123

C:15 M:100 Y:100 K: 0

C: 0 M: 0 Y: 0 K: 100

C: 0 M: 0 Y: 0 K: 65

#cd1719

#1d1d1b

#7c7c7b

TRAPHOUSE is his own brand and he is obsessed with himself. The identity of the brand is also like him in this obsessive manner. Every single part of the brand includes a part of him that can be seen and acknowledged by everyone. You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see anything to do with the brand without seeing something to do with him. The whole visual side of the TRAPHOUSE clothing links right back to TRAPHOUSE himself. This is to make his fans and buyers of the clothing acknowledge they are representing him. It makes them feel they have successfully bought into his brand with a product that shows it instantly. Another reason the visual side of the clothing links right back to him is so the products show the similarities to him and his work. This is to make other people think of him when the clothing is simply just seen by them rather than just the buyer knowing; making it a successful product and a working identity.

The way the clothing is done like this is by sticking to the colour pallet that TRAPHOUSE would use for his own personal work when tattooing his customers and creating his flashcards full of design options. He sticks to three specific colours, these colours being black, white and red. The main colour included in all of his designs is simply just black and if any red is included there would be a very small amount when compared to the black. The logo made for the brand includes an outline of TRAPHOUSE that has his name over the front. The font used for the text isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an actual existing font; it is a section of his own graffiti that he created on his van. It was done by him and edited into his logo to make the whole visual of the logo very exclusive as the font is non-existent. Either the full logo or the name TRAPHOUSE in his graffiti font is included everywhere within the brand. It is included on all the clothing and in all of the designs. The clothing print designs are mash-ups of his tattoo designs that they have the graffiti text over the top, also sticking to the strict colour palette of black, white and red.

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- brand story & personality TRAPHOUSE himself represents the brand story as the brand is very authentically him. The brand demonstrates a very street/grime vibe and the urban style relates straight back to London, where he’s from. Considering the brand culture, TRAPHOUSE would be passionate about various issues such as current affairs and social/equality issues I.e supporting the Grenfell Tower victims. This links to the tagline ‘#THEPEOPLESCHAMPION’ as the brand would care about helping those less fortunate or those victimised by inequality. The team has created a brand playlist using Spotify, to portray his style through music, and this playlist would also be streamed at the launch party and the pop-up shops. The playlist includes artists such as Skepta, Novelist, and Giggs. These rappers create music in the same genre and style as TRAPHOUSE’s own mixtape.

Looking at the personality of the brand, TRAPHOUSE would definitely be interested in attending luxury yet modern fashion shows e.g Balmain, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. These brands are very popular right now and slowly merging into the Hypebeast styles, making them very in-demand. TRAPHOUSE has already said in his interview how he really likes Louis Vuitton and the sports-luxe style; which is portrayed throughout the new clothing collection too. TRAPHOUSE’s collection would drop in an urban rave venue, with a rundown aesthetic embellished in graffiti, this portrays its edgy yet highly luxurious and fashionable products. Individuals that our client would look up to would be people with similar work ethics, Bill Gates came up with an idea completely new and people doubted it would succeed, but now he is one of the most successful humans in the world. TRAPHOUSE’s approach towards tattooing is unorthodox and raw and different from any other tattoo artist. Also, Bill Gates said that when he dies he’s giving all of his money to charity which supports TRAPHOUSE’s memo of giving back to the people.

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consumer engagement - b u i l d i n g b r a n d l o ya lt y Building a relationship with consumers is one of the most important factors for a successful business. Brands build loyalty in different ways and use various methods. TRAPHOUSE has a very edgy and interesting background, despite the negative connotations, it still draws people in. Consumers are interested in his story and it makes him and the brand feel more ‘real’ which is attractive. His past has been linked to rumoured criminal activity which gives the brand a personality already and begins to build the relationship with the consumer. Most of TRAPHOUSE’s current clients will probably buy from his fashion brand as they’re already invested into him and his business. Therefore, we need to keep the brand authentically him to keep the consumers that are already loyal to him and the TRAPHOUSE brand. Also, high engagement with possible consumers online will keep them interested and remind them of the products available. TRAPHOUSE already has a large following so he wouldn’t have to start at the bottom, he’s already doing this well. As previously mentioned in the market research, looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will help TRAPHOUSE understand how to make a consumer ‘need’ his products. The product must allow the consumer to gain self-actualisation and feeling accepting within a specific social group. This social group could be people that love tattoos or people that generally just like the clothing made, but either way the consumer will feel included and therefore invest more money into the TRAPHOUSE brand. Another aspect of brand loyalty is to make sure the personality of the brand really shines through. This relates to the authenticity of the brand story but also includes making an eye-catching logo and memorable fonts/colours. The logo is so unique and derived from graffiti that TRAPHOUSE did himself, that our team believes it will catch peoples attention. TRAPHOUSE will be able to encourage engagement by giving a donation to charity for every item sold, e.g when a T-shirt is purchased, £1 will be given to a charity and if you buy the full tracksuit £5 will be given, meaning that consumers will want to invest their money into the brand it’ll add to the feeling of self-actualization when they know their money has been donated to charity.

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- POS & BAGS The design of the packaging has been done in a specific way to be perfectly linked with the TRAPHOUSE brand. The colour palette consists of black, red and maybe some small specks of white. This shows an instant connection with the clothing, designs and TRAPHOUSE himself. The base colour of the bag is completely jet black with the new fashion logo large on each side to keep the design simple so the brand can be acknowledged easily. When it comes to the material, the basic style of the bag has a luxury feel with a large, sleek-shape and string/lace handles. These features of the design compliment TRAPHOUSEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own interest in luxury fashion brands such as Stone Island and Louis Vuitton.

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- product drops Initially, the collection will drop at a launch party in TRAPHOUSE’s hometown Hackney, London. Simultaneously the website will be launched via traphousetyler.com consisting of an online store and latest campaign shots. Also a special launch of ‘TRAPP’ which is TRAPHOUSES very own App on iOS products, this will also provide the consumer with the online store and latest collections, whilst offering discounts such as student discount and reminders of upcoming locations for pop-up stores. Pop-up stores will be launched in the cities that TRAPHOUSE visits during his tattoo tour. With TRAPHOUSE producing hundreds of designs weekly, the collection will constantly be evolving, with a different collection every month. Also by adding a limited stock to the online website means that people will have to visit the store to purchase a limited edition piece. As the business grows it can expand recruiting more people to help with styling and production, eventually resulting in a collection every week similar to Supreme.

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- ta g l i n e s

It was quite easy to come up with taglines for our customer, the first tagline we came up with ‘The People’s Champion’, this is what TRAPHOUSE refers himself to. The meaning behind this is to give back the community, give people what they want and to be there for THE PEOPLE. The second tagline MEWT came up with is ‘FASHION IS FOR LIFE’, we originally sourced this from the idea of sustainable fashion. This was the team’s first initial idea we wanted to incorporate in our project with our team being very conscious about the environmental damage that the ‘Fast Fashion’ causes. In the UK alone, a piece of clothing lasts 3.3 years before being discarded, for a younger demographic it’ half that with some clothing staying in an individuals wardrobe for only 5 weeks. Extending the life of a single garment by an extra 9 months can reduce its environmental impact by 20%-30%. The team and I wanted to portray the message that it doesn’t have to be just tattoos that are for life, but by putting the illustrations onto clothing this merges the boundary between temporary and permanent. We also used these as hashtags as we wanted to appeal to an online presence and get #THEPEOPLESCHAMPION and #FASHIONISFORLIFE trending.

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fashion is for life 47

#THEPEOPLE #THEPEOPLE #THEPEOPLE 48

ESCHAMPION ESCHAMPION ESCHAMPION 49

ADVERTISING C O N C E P T - PHOTOSHOOT The Trapsuit Collection Photoshoot had many different aspects that we had to thoroughly organise in order to have a successful outcome. The following document will consist of the steps MEWT took to produce this collection. Firstly sat down as a team, and talked about how we were going to portray the client’s ethos to the public. TRAPHOUSE uses Urban, Streetwear, Grime and London styles throughout his work so we focused on communicating the essence of London through streetwear. To do this we looked into Grime photographers as they are good at capturing strong, bold images. We came across individuals such as Ewen Spencer, Vicky Grout and Olivia Rose who’s have taken some of the most iconic Grime shots. We gravitated towards Vicky Grout as her style of using low angle shots and closeups that we wanted to use in our collection such as Skepta’s Shut-

down EP cover photo. This style of shot gives connotations of a superstar and a “People’s Champion”. The second stage was picking models, we were specific with wanting dark hair and fair skinned models as we wanted the models to look similar as well as wearing the same outfit. We felt this would enhance the visual aesthetic and chemistry between the models. With piercing and tattoos, we were non-specific as TRAPHOUSE’s memo is he’s the people champion, which means he’s for the people tattooed or not. This is what we wanted to portray in the final collection. Thirdly we looked at locations, MEWT constructed mood boards for the type of shots we wanted to take on the day of the photo shoot and for the type of area we wanted to use, this consisted of low angle shots, mid shots and portraits in a graffiti embellished area, surrounded with concrete flats. Being based in

Sheffield we wanted to find somewhere local whilst still portraying the essence of London. A place that sprung to mind was Parkhill Flats, these abandoned, run down, gritty blocks of flats was the perfect aesthetic to give that urban concrete jungle vibe. Now that we had the models and the location, the next step was sourcing the clothing, we used three black t-shirts, two hoodies and a crewneck jumper all fitted to the size of the models. We then used the screen printing facilities to put our designs on to the clothing. We used two designs one was the basic â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Traphouseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; logo which we put on the front of every garment and another large design on the back of the hoodies and jumper. On the day we took into account the weather, we wanted overcast, dim lighting to set the gritty aesthetic of Parkhill which we luckily had. We produced an itinerary for

all the team members so they had a vision of the shots we wanted and the 4 locations at Parkhill we were using. We also produced a Call Sheet which was sent to all the team members and the models which included the meeting location and the photoshoot location, hair and makeup recommendations and a health and safety reminder due to Parkhill being abandoned. Overall the photo shoot went smoothly and organised, we took 542 images consisting of the recommended shots we wanted at all of the locations. MEWT worked thoroughly to edit and select the five campaign images we wanted to use. We picked these images as we liked the chemistry shown between the models and the specific location points, we also thought these shot angles were the strongest, all 5 images work perfectly together for our campaign successfully portraying the essence of London.

51 william edwards

- 5 CAMPAIGN IMAGES From the photoshoot, we ended up with around 200+ photos, so firstly, Jessica went through them all to get rid of ones where the models were blinking or it was a bad shot. Then, as a team, we looked through the ones we had left and gradually made a smaller and smaller selection by considering angles and the strength of the models’ poses and faces. Eventually, we ended up with our 5 favourites and Callum edited them on Adobe Photoshop. We decided to take the colour away from the images and keep them fairly dark, although we did keep the red colour so the model’s skin still maintained its colour and the red was also captured within any graffiti in the photos too. The colour (or lack of) in the final campaign shots perfectly match the brand identity and the mood we want to set. The final images are really strong and I particularly like one of the male models in front of the urban scenery, and the camera angle is facing up. It’s quite a popular angle to use in commercial fashion, but despite this, it still works effectively and creates the look we wanted. Both landscape images in front of the graffiti wall also look really strong and mysterious as you can’t quite tell the relationship between the models. It also looks good to show that both genders can shop from the Trapsuit collection, making it a unisex brand.

52 Jessica martin

BRAND C O L L A B O R AT I O N Initially, thought for a celebrity collaboration would be A$AP Rocky and Skepta as he has already met both celebrities when giving tattoos. A music collab would benefit our client as TRAPHOUSE has released his own mixtape, this would promote the brand globally as these artists have millions of fans and followers. For example, if a hip-hop/rap/RnB artist such as Travis Scott wore one of our designs for a show, the garments would completely sell out. It would further make the brand memorable, as consumers remember celebrity endorsed advertising and associate different celebrities with certain brands through marketing. Also, it gives the brand status, making it exclusive and luxurious. This builds trust with our customers, as fans have a huge amount of loyalty and trust in their celebrity, customers will then feel our product is worthy of buying into. However, an A-List celebrity could possibly overshadow the brand, this can cut out brand recognition in our consumers. The celebrity/influencer needs to not be associated too much with another brand as this could draw attention away from the product. After looking at this other aspect of celebrity endorsements, artists such as Giggs and Stormzy are well-known grime artists. As TRAPHOUSE TATTOOER is particularly passionate about grime, this may suit our client better for a more realistic goal. Grime is still such an up and coming genre of music, this is similar to our client as his style of work is still new and unique compared to most tattooists. Overall, a grime artist would suit the brand and products perfectly.

58 georgia torr

TRAPHOUSE inspired playlist sample.

ta r g e t c o n s u m e r

61 JESSICA MARTIN

- Marketing mix After designing the collection and making a sample of it, we decided to use the marketing mix to evaluate its place in the current market, and present how the collection will be sold. Firstly the product segment consists of the whole collection made up of 3 hoodies, 2 t-shirts, joggers, gloves, headphones, and a Nike X TRAPSUIT collab pair of Air Force 1 trainers. Other than the trainers they are all majorly black with a logo and various tattoo designs on each one. The hoodies will be made from 20% polyester and 80% cotton, the T-shirts will be 100% cotton, and the joggers will be 80% cotton and 20% polyester. The added in polyester means that the fabric will have a bit more stretch and will more likely fit the consumer better. TRAPHOUSE cares about the people and keeps the prices of his tattoos relatively low, so they’re affordable. The clothing brand should maintain this value and make sure that the clothes aren’t too expensive. The T-shirts will be charged at £15 each, hoodies and joggers will both be £30 each, and gloves are £10. The Nike collaboration trainers will be charged at £85 for men’s sizes as they’re with Nike so the price can’t be much lower than that. The sale of the collection will begin with a launch party in London, where people important to TRAPHOUSE will be invited to purchase garments before anyone else. These people could include family/friends, bloggers, fashion professionals or loyal fans. Pop-up shops will then travel around the UK just as TRAPHOUSE does, and eventually reach places such as Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. The collection will also be available online, however, there will only be a limited number of each product to increase exclusivity. Product drops will be used to keep the consumer wanting more. The promotion of the collection will start with TRAPHOUSE’s Instagram page. As of December 2018, he has a following of 38,000 people, with the majority of them very active. This is visible from the high consumer engagement that TRAPHOUSE participates in daily; he often asks his fans to message him or comment on his pictures. Advertisements within magazines such as Garage and iD will reach his target consumer, as they have a similar consumer demographic. Also, using billboards and posters on the London Underground will get lots of attention, specifically as TRAPHOUSE is so authentic to the city. Many 18-21-year-olds will use the Underground daily so the billboards will definitely catch their attention. The collection can be promoted before they’re on sale to build up the hype of the products.

62 jessica martin & georgia torr

- p l at f o r m i d e n t i f i c at i o n postsSocial platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube are perfect to promote TRAPHOUSE as a brand. Initially, starting with music and how he can further promote “The People’s Champion” mixtape. YouTube is a great platform to promote music, he could create music videos for his album to reach a different audience, this will widen his reach to a new niche market, music videos can also be played at pop-up stores. However, I believe Spotify would be better in terms of how many people use the app on a daily basis, it also makes each person a playlist for “discover weekly” where people can find new music in the genre they listen to. Instagram is the best social media platform for promoting the clothing line and his tattoos. Also, by using the relevant hashtags, you can reach new f o l l o w ers and people that may like his work. As Instagram has recently changed its algorithm, it’s now even harder to reach your own followers as your posts are only shown to 10% of your followers unless you are beating the algorithm by using the correct hashtags and how good the quality of the images used are. To reach a wider audience on Instagram he could post more videos as they do a lot better in terms of views, the more actions you use such as stories and live posts, Instagram rewards you by showing your posts to more of your followers, as he might not even be reaching most of the people that are interested in his brand.

I believe that Facebook is not the best platform to use as its a completely different audience such as the older generation and we’re wanting to reach the millennials. In addition, not many people use Facebook compared to Instagram and Snapchat. However, to make his Instagram account a business profile it would be better to make a Facebook page for his brand and link this to Instagram where it will automatically post to different platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. I believe Twitter would be a really great to use for him as he has a lot of opinions and likes to voice them. For example, regarding TRAPHOUSE wanting to help charities and the Grenfell Tower victims, showing this to Twitter users will attract more people that want to help the cause, which may lead them to find his collection which gives £1 to charity on every garment. Being consistent with using all of these social media platforms is what gives a brand their reputation, consumers being able to see content on whatever app they are using. Lastly, making his Snapchat account public and having his username in his Instagram/Twitter bio allows people to view him on a personal level. As Snapchat content is usually more personal, compared to Instagram stories that are much more business lead. By following these steps and being consistent throughout the brand as a whole it will allow his social audience to grow further, which is what makes a brand successful.

63 georgia torr

references & bibliography - (2018). Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/kzzpjm/your-jeans-are-ruining-the-earth-v24n7 - Marketing Mix Definition - 4Ps & 7Ps of the Marketing Mix. (2018). Retrieved from https://marketingmix.co.uk - Amidst New Optimism, Emerging Markets to Overtake West in 2018. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/amidst-new-optimism-what-can-fashion-expect-in-2018 - Emerging Market Growth Beats US. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/pictures/eglg45gdjd/emergingmarket-growth-beats-us-2/#632d579953aa - Emerging Economies for Emerging Fashion Industry. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/6221/emerging-fashion?page=3 - (2018). Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/dotcom/client_service/marketing%20and%20 sales/pdfs/unleashing_fashion_growth.ashx - thestorefront.com, 2016. https://www.thestorefront.com/mag/12-most-talked-about-pop-up-stores-2016/. - Ben Stevens. retailgazette.co.uk, 2017. https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2017/04/the-rise-and-rise-of-pop-upshops-and-what-it-means-for-retail/. - Jian Deleon, businessoffashion.com, 2015. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/how-stussybecame-a-50-million-global-streetwear-brand-without-selling-out. - TRAPHOUSE@MAIL.COM (@traphousetattooer) â&#x20AC;˘ Instagram photos and videos. (2018). Retrieved from https://www. instagram.com/traphousetattooer/ - TRAPHOUSE SOUND, a playlist by Jessica Martin on Spotify. (2018). Retrieved from https://open.spotify.com/ user/1176870945/playlist/7og7ImgXJuNfPO2ZYjf4j3?si=rk2uhsccQtai8vVHrvf4pA

Appendices appendix 1

Brand positioning map (page 29) created by William Edwards current market data graph (page 25) created by William Edwards