MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
COMPANY ANALYSIS Joelle Michaela Davis MKTG 4520 Social Media Marketing 1
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND
Hennes & Mauritz AB, also known as H&M, is a Swedish clothing brand that was founded in 1947 and has developed dominating reign in the apparel industry. The company currently has locations in 43 countries with over 100,000 employees, making it the second largest clothing retailer in the world. H&M has seen a substantial amount of success in Europe, Asia, North America, and the Middle East and has been growing an incredibly rapid pace. In the last year alone, 304 stores across the globe in an entirely self-financed expansion, adding to its already 2600 existing locations.
Though H&M originally carried only clothing designs for women, they now offer everything from menswear to children's clothing, footwear, accessories for all genders, and even home items. The store prides itself as being the go-to destination for everything from basic wardrobe staples to different trends the latest fashion. The brand focuses itself on appealing to youthful and fun teenagers all to way young professionals who wants to incorporate a sense of fashion and chic into their career ensembles. The diversity of the product selection, combined with high quality and incredibly low prices, has brought H&M into the closets of people all over the world and from all different backgrounds.
2
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
BRAND
H&M can be described simply as hip, contemporary, edgy, and all the while classy. The company is consistently exciting and energetic, calling for its audience to live every moment of their youth with exhilaration, intensity, and style. The lifestyle of the brand is evident through everything from its in-store ads to its social media campaign, and has successfully gained the company many devoted shoppers and followers. The voice of the brand calls out to the youth and young professionals enthusiastically and with a spirited approach to encourage being fashionably able to stand out in a crowd.
Spread throughout the stores, website, and social media pages, the photography of H&M features a lot of fashionable men and women posing amongst unconventional elements of scenery. These include desert landscapes, indie music festivals, roadsides (especially seen during their Road Trip photo shoots), and more. This gives the H&M a sense of rebellious edge that makes the products and lifestyle of the brand more appealing to its young audience.
3
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
PRODUCTS H&M specializes in the latest, trendiest, and affordable styles of clothing and accessories for women, men, and children. They also feature a small assortment of inexpensive beauty and hair products for the savvy shopper, and have even more recently expanded into the home decor industry. This gives the company an extremely broad range which in turn allows them to hit a wide array of markets. One of the advantages that H&M maintains over other companies lies in the options given to their consumer. Individuals who may have completely opposing tastes in fashion can visit their nearest location and find articles suitable to their own wardrobes.
WOMEN H&M offers women clothing from the hottest trends in edgy party wear to the stylish business skirt and blazer. They upgrade basics for any wardrobe such as giving a plain white button up a ruffled accent around the collar or turning black business slacks into skinny black trousers. The company has stretched its designs over a myriad of different styles to make any type of woman a fashion statement. Women can also purchase sleepwear, swimwear, matching sportswear pieces, and even lingerie at certain locations. Aside from clothing, women can purchase trendy shoes, jewelry, accessories such as purses and hats, hair accessories, and even cosmetics.
4
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
MEN Men are given extensive options at H&M, whether they are seeking modern business attire or items of casual flair. Selections remain flexible to a young man’s wardrobe, and contemporary to keep him updated. Though not as broad as the selection for women, male shoppers at H&M are still able to find quality pieces at incredible prices including casual wear, business wear, sports clothing, loungewear, shoes, and accessories.
“H&M is not just looking for the perfect design, but also works actively to develop a more sustainable chain of design, manufacturing and product handling for both people and the environment.” – H&M.com -
KIDS
H&M is a company that understands how quickly time flies. It’s important to be able to find clothing that is not only affordable due to how quickly kids get taller and taller every year, but that can also endure through rough play and seemingly endless washes. This is why H&M offers an incredibly affordable, safe, and high quality collection just for kids.
5
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
HOME Though available in limited locations, H&M offers a home decorating line including textiles and decor for the kitchen, bedroom, living room, office and more. Currently, H&M Home is only available over the internet and mostly only for European countries. However, the first store in the Americas is set to open in Mexico in 2013.
6
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
TARGET MARKET ANALYSIS OVERVIEW
Due to the company’s immense size and number of locations, H&M covers a vast market that has led it to hold the current title of being the second largest clothing retailer in the world. The company has made a point to consider and understand the multitude of lifestyles that stream from the plethora of individuals that walk into their stores every day. They use a collection of segmentation variables such as gender, income, and psychographic elements such as trendiness, to really pinpoint the type of individual they are marketing to and successfully reach them. It is crucial that these variables are studied closely from market to market because consumers can be extremely different in various geographic locations. Many methods of marketing have to be altered dramatically to target audiences in countries around the world to suit local cultures, including the use of models of all different ethnicities and nationalities. To give an idea of the actual vastness of H&M’s market across the globe, the following chart shows the company’s top sales distributions in 2012 across various nations:
*1 SEK = 0.15USD (7/12/13) *An additional 40.1 billion Krona were made across 27 other nations *Figures based on H&M Annual Report 2012
7
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
PRIMARY TARGET MARKET
The majority of H&M’s shoppers are unsurprisingly women. Not only do they shop for themselves, but they purchase for both the men in their lives as well as their children. In fact, H&M began as a clothing brand for women, and women remain their main focus. The primary target market of the company is composed of women who lie approximately between 18 and 35, and who may be categorized as working class to middle class. This can be seen primarily in H&M’s price leadership strategy in conjunction with the very wearable articles of high style. This targets the everyday woman who seeks to look stylish and chic in her everyday life. Individuals may be a teen, college student, or even a young professional and still want to shop at a place where they can find their fashion essentials at a great price. In fact, many of the articles that H&M carries are designed with a flexible enough style to adhere to these different women all at the same time. For instance, a pair of black skinny ankle-length trousers can appeal to the urban hipster as well as the trendy young professional’s business wardrobe.
It is important to note that another reason why H&M’s primary market lies on these women is because these women also make up the majority of the individuals purchasing products within the children’s lines. Additionally, many women also make up a significant percentage of sales within the men’s line for their boyfriends, relatives, and friends (Radman, 2012).
8
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
SECONDARY TARGET MARKET
Working- to middle-class men between the ages of approximately 18 and 30 make up the secondary target market. As mentioned earlier, H&M carries an entire product line dedicated to men which includes clothing, accessories, loungewear, underwear, sportswear, and more. Generally, these product cater to the urban gentlemen on a budget or the trendy hipster who wants to keep up with the latest trends.
COMMUNICATION WITH TARGET MARKET
H&M communicates with their target market through a variety of methods, the majority being electronic. The company sends out periodic emails to customers who willingly sign up to receive promotional mail. These messages generally contain either information on current sales or a bit style advice for their customers. A much higher level of involvement with their market occurs through the use of the company’s website lifestyle branding sections and through social media, both of which are assessed in the following sections.
Due to the fact that H&M runs over 2900 stores in 43 countries and offers online shopping around the world, the company's incredible geographic reign makes it difficult to market based on age and income factors alone. As mentioned before, they must adjust marketing tactics to adhere to specific market cultures while retaining the sense of class, modern appeal, and style that women all over the world can relate too. H&M’s tasteful European influence on their designs assures that the products are effortlessly chic and while they gently follow the waves of trends,
9
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
the products are still acceptable and conservative enough for people of these different lifestyles and backgrounds.
COMPANY WEBSITE
H&M’s United States website is in a way consistent with the theme of their clothing collections: it is simple, modern and stylish. The site design is visually appealing in a minimalistic sense, making it easy on the eyes. As viewers navigate through the content, they will find a neatly
organized
site
with
great
visuals,
informative text, and great deals.
First of all, the home page greets viewers with a huge red box in which current sales are listed. As we can see, a sale going on now allows customers to purchase two sale items and get one free. Scrolling down we can see other features occurring at H&M, including store openings, style advice, product recalls, and requests to sign up for the company newsletter. In my opinion this makes for great main page due to the fact that it is both simple answer to the point. Additionally, customers love a great sale and at H&M, sales bring prices down so much that products are pretty much free! 10
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
As far as content lies, H&M’s site main menu consists of H&M Life, Ladies, Men, Kids, a Store Locator, Customer Service, and a Newsletter Sign-Up tool. First of all, H&M Life is a huge part of the company is lifestyle branding strategy. Basically, it is comprised of a variety of blogs and articles offering style advice in order to engage shoppers in the brand. This text covers the content of H&M Life in higher detail on Page 20.
The latest look books can be accessed by hovering over each department: Ladies, Men, and Kids. Multiple look books and outfit coordination tools are available in the third and fourth menu columns once users hover over the department. These include seasonal catalogue, current trend showcase, most popular item lists, and specific advice for certain styles. While I find it wonderful that H&M strives to offer its customers a diverse selection of look books, I simply find that they may have too many options. The problem also lies in the decision to list all of these options last rather than first. When I personally browse through H&M’s online store, I never click these look book links simply because I don’t even notice them. Just like how our interest in an article usually starts at the top of the page, my interest in links starts at the front of the list. I believe if the company slimmed down and repositioned these options, people may consider these look books more which may lead to higher sales from shoppers. If they see that item A looks fabulous with
11
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
item B, they may purchase item A when they only came online to get B! Again though, if they don’t slim down the amount of look books, users may not even know which to look at which may further influence a lack of interest.
The main shopping page itself is nicely organized and easy to navigate, especially thanks to the simple menu on the left side panel. Additionally, there is an excellent mobile shopping app available on both Android and iOS devices that shares the same clean and easy navigation. The only issue I’ve come across is that I don’t think they have everything they offer in stores, even beyond sale items. I feel as though sometimes when I look online I might be missing items that appear in the stores. I have to question if I want to just go to the store or take the chance of missing a great piece. The site is a great tool to see the direction of the seasonal selection, so I tend to just use this as deciding factor for whether or not I want to get up and physically visit the store.
Another questionable factor about the web page lies in the absence of social media integration. We don’t see a Twitter feed, we don’t see any YouTube videos, we just don’t see anything. The only reference to H&M’s social media presence can be found at the very bottom of the page under “Join Us”, which basically just gives links to the company’ social media pages. I think this is a surprising hole in the website structure and at least having a twitter feed or video embedded would make the website a little more engaging. My only guess is that H&M wanted to keep the site very simple.
12
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
To sum up the website evaluation, the visual aspect of the design favorable as is the site navigation. The photographic content in conjunction with the H&M Life sections make for a great communication vessel to the target market. These factors establish H&M as not just a clothing brand, but as a lifestyle. It gives the brand a personality and connects the customer at a deeper level. Through tools like this, the company is able to showcase what the market favors and is actively searching for, and goes beyond that to provide so many look books that people are able to get creative and gather style ideas from the website alone. The downside to H&M’s website lies in the fact that there is almost too much content to gather while shopping unless you are a diehard H&M fan, which makes it almost an inconvenience to check the look books and fashion columns. Additionally, there is zero social media integration which seems strange and quite frankly, almost unbelievable.
13
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS H&M is currently using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube as social media platforms. They are highly active on all four of these tools, and use each of them to heighten interaction between the company’s markets and their brand.
H&M uses Facebook as one of their main social media outlets. It may be safe to say that Facebook provide
the
most
engaging
experience
for
consumers, as it offers the most amount of material and interaction. As of mid-July this year, H&M boasts a whopping 15,151,000 likes, with right around 104,000 individuals talking about the brand. The company regularly posts about new pieces, trend updates, outfit coordination’s, topics on both sustainability and corporate governance, and information on occasional sales. I would say that the company does a really great job of this, because they feature attractive and luring visuals in each of their posts. In addition to this, H&M has a plethora of albums filled with old and new collections and photo shoots from the brand. These are all available for the audience to get ideas and inspiration for their own fashion sense. It appears that posts are made around twice or three times a day in order to reach their audience at least once a day, making sure that they are 14
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
frequently at the front pages of their fans’ feeds. Being an “every day” brand, H&M hopes to make an impression on their followers every day. Due to the fact that the company posts regularly at a rate that is frequent but not invasive, I believe they are utilizing Facebook at the most efficient level.
15
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
H&M splits its Twitter presence into geographical segments, offering accounts in a variety of languages. For the purpose of this text I will generally reference the main account,
simply
@hm,
which
has
approximately 2.3 million followers unless I state otherwise. H&M seems to use this account every other day, which is rather surprising considering the number of followers. It is understandable that they may focus more on their regional accounts, however given the number of followers (2.3 million) compared to the number of followers at @hmusa (approximately 160,000), it is safe to say that it is likely fans will simply follow the main H&M page before following the regional accounts. Due to the fact that the main account is fifteen times larger than the H&M USA account alone, the company should be taking more initiative to post on this page.
So far, tweets are comprised of trend updates, sneak peeks, and information on sustainability. The main account seems to never post on sales since it has no geographic specification, and H&M does sales based on region. That being said, the H&M USA page does discuss current sales and promotional content regularly and they tweet about three or four times a day to reach their audience.
16
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
I would say that the company should make an effort to tweet more on the main company page simply because it possesses the most followers. Even I follow @hm and have only now just began to follow @hmusa after discovering it even exists. The company should consider that people move very quickly during social media browsing and it is not intuitive to most people to go straight to their region’s social media pages. Perhaps one way to direct people to their regional accounts would be to retweet from those accounts, such as @HM retweeting from @HMJapan from time to time. At least then the number of followers would see a dramatic increase and more consumers would see the promotional content.
“Trend update! Go for the irresistible look with H&M's new stand-out styles. #hmTrend pic.twitter.com/e8e2qQnhbe” -- @HM
17
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
YOUTUBE
H&M has been utilizing YouTube for its campaign work and lifestyle branding. The page has just over 48,000 subscribers but has received approximately 31 million views across their videos. Recent videos include recent campaigns, bits of style advice here and there, some behind the scenes footage at shoots, and even interviews of bands that fit the sort of lifestyle the company was shooting for during its music festival-esc H&M Loves Music campaign.
H&M seems to surely be targeting its younger audience through these videos, as they are much edgier and urban than other styles that the company offers such as the fashionable young business look. For example, these videos feature much of the “hipster, ripped-jeans, cropped shirt, fedora hat� boy and girl, yet H&M also carries clothing that caters to a much more tailored type of person. It may benefit the company to feature content that can appeal to its more mature consumer, as many people might get lost and uninterested in this messaging.
18
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
GOOGLE PLUS
H&M uses Google+ in the same manner that they use Facebook. Though many people admit
to
not
actively
using
Google+, the company still boasts over 3 million followers and posts at least once per day. I’ve noticed that they have not uploaded a single video, which should be corrected, and have actually not kept up with their photo albums as much as they have Facebook’s. While it is understandable that Facebook is of a much larger scale, a company of their magnitude should not leave room for an absence of content such as this one.
19
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
BLOGS
While H&M has neither an account on a blog engine or a “BLOG” tab on their website, they offer a section called “H&M Life” which is basically a collection of articles written in-house. H&M Life actually has sixteen sections within itself, such a News, Trend Reports, Style Insights, Store Openings, and much more. As mentioned earlier, I feel that they have too many sections, but each serves its own purpose. For the audience however, it may be better suited that some topics were merged.
20
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
In any case, the main page of H&M Life has a wonderful stream that features a high volume of posts per day. This is great for dedicated fans who are likely to be the ones interested in H&M Life anyway. As we can see here, fifteen posts alone were made for July 19. The good thing is, these posts are short in both content and visuals, so it’s kind of like reading a newspaper: easy to skim and to-the-point. Since these articles are not posted via social media networks, viewers who are passionate about style and fashion can view at their leisure rather than the posts blowing up your news stream. It is through these blogs that H&M offers more than just a clothing brand to its consumers; the company offers valued information from the fashion insiders in the industry which gives the company a higher credibility in the fashion world. These articles reach out beyond the company itself and discuss topics such as what’s hot on the streets of Paris or what people are wearing to certain highly anticipated events. It’s a wonderful way to communicate a respectable and credible brand image to H&M’s market.
One of my favorite posts is called “Parisian Passion”. Since I’m personally obsessed with Parisian Street fashion, I found this to be very interesting and informative. It describes how to achieve this look, which is described as being “classic, stylish and timeless, but with an element of rock ‘n’ roll cool throughout”. I like this post because it shows how to be classy and elegant but with an edge – a look I always found enchanting. It’s straight, to the point, and then offer a
21
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
selection of current products at H&M that are associated with this look. H&M does an excellent job at keeping these posts both informative and fresh.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS NOT BEING USED
Interestingly enough, H&M is not currently using Pinterest to gain any followers. I find this strange because even companies like IKEA and Target use Pinterest. Pinterest is an incredibly easy way to effortlessly spread products, coordinated looks, print campaigns, and more. H&M could simply post these photographs and watch the magic happen as people repin and repin, causing an exponential amount of impressions.
H&M doesn’t use Myspace, which is understandable because Myspace really focuses on music now and H&M would probably see no benefit in the sharing capabilities on Myspace. It might as well just stay with what it has. Aside from that, the list can really go on.
COMPANY IN THE NEWS On their website, H&M has a section called “News”. Here, users can find current information relevant to the company’s current finances, press releases, and news articles. This summer H&M has issued a number of press releases, mainly over financial concerns. In order to get a look at what type of content H&M features in their press releases, we will take a look at a few samples.
22
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
On June 11, H&M issued a press release on their website entitled “Isabel Marant brings her French touch to H&M”. In this exciting statement, they announce that their latest fashion collaborator will be the wonderful French designer Isabel Marant. H&M has long partnered with various designers such as Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, and Jimmy Choo on limited time seasonal collections. These collaborations are always highly anticipated for fans of H&M, and so this press release must have received a high volume of attention at the time.
In a press release from June 19 entitled, “H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB Six-month report”, the company announces its quarterly sales figures to its investors and to the public. It is a very neutral statement written direct and to the point. There’s not much else to note on this press release, besides the fact that this an example of a very frequent type of release.
Aside from financial-related press releases, H&M releases many updates on their contribution to environmental issues and their corporate social responsibility. For example, on July 8 the company published an online article explaining its plan to implement a proactive safety strategy to improve working conditions in Bangladesh factories (“The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh announces its plan for implementation”). Articles of this nature can be found in the “Sustainability” section of H&M’s Newsroom page.
23
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
CUSTOMER CREATED CONTENT
There is a variety of customer created content available on the web for individuals to engage in. The majority seems to be in the form of social networking fan pages and blogs, giving other fans the ability to become a part either through following, liking, or commenting posts. . Since H&M is such an international company, we will focus entirely on Western fan made content.
Facebook is one of the easiest ways to generate a fan page. Anyone with an individual page can do this, so needless to say there is a countless amount of fan made content on Facebook for all sorts of brands. H&M has quite a few and one of the most popular of them all is called I Love H&M (www.facebook.com/H6M66). This page boasts 11.5 thousand followers, which isn’t bad for a social media fan page. It must be considered that most followers subscribe to official brand pages rather than fan pages, so this number is pretty impressive. In any case, this page posts heavily with outfit coordinations, H&M news, fashion posts related to H&M-like styles, and introductions to great fashion bloggers.
On Chicismo.com, there is a section for H&M that includes various fan made content (www.chicisimo.com/fashion-brands/hm). These include H&M recent style posts from the company itself, looks pulled together by fans on the streets, H&M fashionista rankings (very cool). On many of the featured outfits, references and links are provided to the exact product the fans are wearing. 24
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
The last example of fan made content that we will inspect also shares the name I Love H&M (www.ilovehm.se). This blog is a hosted on a standalone website hosted in the same country that H&M is based out of: Sweden. This site is a full-on dedication to H&M, and the webmaster is a self-proclaimed “addict of H&M”. Every week or so, this girl posts photos of outfits she is wearing but also takes photos of products she wants in the actual store. She really is obsessed with H&M and does a lovely job and giving the brand a ton of publicity to her followers. She does a great job also because she is cute and edgy, fitting the modern style of H&M’s clothing.
This is just a small example of how H&M receives customer generated content. A benefit to all of this is that the company can generate an idea of how content is being received by its consumers. One of the biggest issues with customer generated content is, of course, that the shaping of a company’s brand image falls out of the company’s own hands.
25
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
SPRING SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS
Perhaps the largest campaign that H&M has held recently is the H&M Loves Music campaign.
.
Elements from this campaign can be found all over H&M’s website, social media
pages,
and
in-store
advertisements.
H&M Loves Music is basically a response to music festival season and the fashion that has come with it. Quite irrefutably, festivals such as Coachella, Pitchfork, and Bonaroo have influenced a fashion style that reflects the free-spirited 1960’s California girl and boy - this can be seen all over the music festival. Everyone just looks a little more hip and rugged while somehow insisting that they are living life to the fullest in that very moment. H&M has turned this entire movement into a campaign that has reached millions and inspired a new wave of fashion. All in all, the purpose is not only to
26
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
promote its own products, but to promote the lifestyle shared by many devoted H&M fans and shoppers.
H&M
has
been
present
at
numerous festivals so far including Coachella, Pitchfork, Roskilde Festival in Germany, and they already created an event on Facebook to invite fans to their tent at Osheaga Festival in Montreal. The global campaign has been pressed on the company’s social media pages in all different languages to let the markets know that company is exactly where the fun is at.
The campaign is also seeing popularity via other social media networks. On Twitter, the hashtag #hmlovesmusic has been extremely popular, with others such as #hmpitchfork, #hmhurricane, and #hmroskilde creeping behind. H&M’s YouTube account has an entire collection dedicated to H&M Loves Music. Viewers are able to watch videos featuring behind the scenes footage, live performances, exclusive unplugged sessions, “best of” fashion finds, and tutorials on how to achieve great festival outfits. The company has been utilizing all major ends of social media to get the campaign to its followers in as many ways as possible. They understand that in order to communicate a brand lifestyle, the audience must see the brand come to life and reveal itself in motion. For all of these reasons, the H&M Loves Music campaign has been immensely successful in attracting consumers.
27
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
SOCIAL MEDIA STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
Strengths Facebook
YouTube
Google +
Weaknesses
Large amount of followers (15.1 million) Frequent posts with great content quality Visually appealing posts Large amount of photo album content Frequent posts, nearly 3-4 times a day on the USA page Split into various geographical accounts with one main account High in informative content Beautiful video Great outlet for lifestyle branding Cover a range of content including campaigns, music festivals, interviews, style tutorials
Main Facebook page does not make multilingual posts
Most people follow the main account, but they don’t post enough on it Less visual content
High number of followers (3 million) Frequent posting, at least once per day
Likely to only be watched by one type of market: urban, hipster, edgy youngster Ignores the professional market for the most part No photographic content No video content
SUGGESTIONS As far as their social media goes, I would personally recommend that the company integrated at least a Twitter feed into their website. The fact that there is nothing on the site is really strange to me and I can’t think of any reason not to include the feed.
As for Facebook, I think the company should either reference international pages in the “About” section or make posts available in 3 or 4 main languages. I’ve actually seen brands, such as The Lord of the Ring Online make posts available in 3 different languages. It has never annoyed me, I think it wouldn’t be 28
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M that bad of an idea. Of course the more appropriate way is to just have the pages in different countries (i.e. H&M USA, H&M Germany) which they do have but provide no reference to on the main page. This same issue stands with Twitter. They should at least tweet more often and/or direct followers to their designated geographic page.
H&M should also put more effort into providing visuals on Google+ simply because they are so big of a company that there is no excuse as to why they are slacking on that. It’s evident that Google+ is not as popular as other social networks, but there is a possibility that people may shift to the network at any time. It would be a shame if the company lagged behind content-wise simply because no one wanted to upload videos and photos. Even if they are just using and posting heavily on Google+ for search engine purposes, the company needs to just shape up the page a little.
Their YouTube account should simply be made broader to satisfy more of the shoppers in H&M’s domain. The brand specializes in all sort of styles for fashionable men and women, but the videos only cater to that edgy hipster style that not everyone connects with. I, myself, am a huge fan and shopper at H&M, but I don’t relate to the H&M Loves Music campaign as much as I would have when I was 19 or 20. Now, I am heading in a more professional direction and have no connection with that campaign. H&M should simply have more videos that cater to young professionals interested in maintaining a clean, classy style.
29
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
CONCLUSION H&M’s overall web and social media presence is rather impressive. However, as the company is the second largest global clothing retailer in the world, this comes as no immediate surprise to us. As for now, they are fully utilizing Facebook and are doing a great job at their regional Twitter accounts. Additionally, H&M is making beautiful YouTube videos, but should focus more on broadening its scope to connect with the young professionals that love the brand as well. From a consumer point of view, H&M’s social media performance is satisfactory. I have personally never had difficulty or frustration navigating through its pages, and have received adequate information on their sales and new styles whenever I’ve checked their feeds. Only through careful analysis have I been able to pull out where the company needs improvements but I have high hopes that they will successfully build the best connections with their global markets.
30
MKTG 4520 COMPANY ANALYSIS: H&M
SOURCES
1.
"H&M Case Synopsis." Simon Frasier University. Web. 10 July 2013. <www.sfu.ca/~sheppard/478/syn/SynopsisA.pdf>.
2.
"H&M Plans to Expand Despite Net Profit Drop." The Wall Street Journal. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578273131381051790.html>.
3.
"H&M Sales." Bloomberg. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-17/hennesmauritz-sales-miss-estimates-after-august-heatwave.html>.
4.
"H&M Six Month Report." About H&M. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://about.hm.com/AboutSection/en/news/newsroom/news.html/en/783130.html>.
5.
"H&M offers fashion and quality at the best price." H&M.com. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://hm.com>.
6.
"H&M | Company Profile." Innovation Leaders. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://innovationleaders.org/hm_company_profile.html>.
7.
"H&M: CHAP.8 Segmenting and Targeting Markets." H&M. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://hennesmauritz.blogspot.com/2012/05/chap8-segmenting-and-targeting-markets.html>.
8.
"I Love H&M | A Blog About H&M." I Love H&M. Web. 19 July 2013. <www.ilovehm.se/>.
9.
"Sales development in May and the second quarter 2013." About H&M. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://about.hm.com/AboutSection/en/news/newsroom/news.html/en/780894.html>.
10. "Outfits with H&M | Chicisimo." Chicisimo. Web. 24 July 2013. <http://chicisimo.com/fashionbrands/hm/>.
31