Context Report for Digital Marketing Lauren Ludlow 2536 Words
My aim for this project is to research a current fashion brand and create and develop a fashion film, that lasts between one and two minutes, that reflects the brands current trends and style choices.
This competitor matrix was used in order to decide what each brand excelled at. It is scaled from 1-10, 10 being the best and it helped to define what Mango did better that it’s competitors in order to analyse the type of consumer that shops at Mango, Zara and H&M.
Target Market Product Price Promotion Sustainability Eco-Friendly Location
Mango 7 8 7 8 6 8 9
H&M 7 8 8 9 8 8 7
Zara 6 8 7 6 6 7 8
My brand of choice is Mango. This fashion brand was founded in 1984 but didn’t launch its first website until 1995. It is a modern contemporary brand with simple garments and very minimal accessories. This brand wants to define its consumer as elegant and sophisticated but has a brand identity that also wants consumers to be free spirited and outgoing. This identity has been translated into my own fashion film through style choices, keeping my outfits simple and showing their versatility as well as mango does on their websites.
This brand-positioning map was the ideal way to identify Mango’s competitors. In terms of pricing and quality, Zara and American Apparel are direct competitors of Mango. However, Mango’s direct competitors in terms of brand identity and product are Zara and H&M. Because of this, I chose to use Zara and H&M as competitors when analysing Mango as a fashion company.
Mango is a high street clothing line that sits at the top of its market. They offer a fashion forward approach at a reasonable price, with great quality and durability. Mango wants to provide its consumers with a lifestyle that accommodates for their style needs. “ Our objective is to dress the urban and modern woman or man and also meets their daily needs” is a statement that Mango swears by when providing for its consumers. The type of consumer that shops at Mango is ranging between twenty and fifty years of age. Although Mango caters for both men and women, there is a strong preference over the women’s wear collections that they sell. Mango aims for ethnic diversity and try’s to appeal to a younger generation with its newer collections, but still keep’s a classic styling that appeals to older audiences. The consumer’s lifestyle reflects that of a busy working class person with a good job and has high educational achievements. They have a mid to high income, that would be necessary for the consumer to live their chosen quality of life. This consumer has interests in art and fashion and could be creative, perhaps within art itself, in music or creative in business. The type of consumer that shops at Mango is ranging between twenty and fifty years of age. Although Mango caters for both men and women, there is a strong preference over the women’s wear collections that they sell. Mango aims for ethnic diversity and try’s to appeal to a younger generation with its newer collections, but still keep’s a classic styling that appeals to older audiences. The consumer’s lifestyle reflects that of a busy working class person with a good job and has high educational achievements. They have
a mid to high income, that would be necessary for the consumer to live their chosen quality of life. This consumer has interests in art and fashion and could be creative, perhaps within art itself, in music or creative in business. This consumer is conscious of the impact that he fashion industry has on the environment and wants to stay loyal to a brand that follows the same values that the consumer has. Once the garment in their possession has come to the end of its life, the consumer will either give to charity or place it into a clothing bin. Mango has over 7,800 employees and pride themselves on creating a pleasant working environment. Mango defines product concepts, store designs, quality clothing standards, price and brand image. Mango is a classic and chic fashion brand that wants its consumers to embody the charismatic and independent personality that the brand embodies. The brand promotes its clothing lines with online campaigns that are added to their YouTube channel. These videos capture Mango clothing in different environments to show the brands versatility among its consumers. Mango doesn’t fall into a niche category but it more caters for the everyday working person. Below is a SWOT analysis for Mango:
Strengths - Mango has a great selection of classic and tailor cut garments. All of the collections hey create and trend aware and fashion forward. Weakness - Some of the collections that Mango creates could be considered plain and possibly overpriced. Opportunities - A classic and chic London trend is always working for Mango. This gives them the potential to collaborate with other companies to carry on this chic trend. Threats - Mango creates garments that have been made by similar companies but are made a lot less expensively. For example, H&M makes basic white t-shirts for around £6.00. These white t-shirts can then be made by Mango for double the price.
H&M is a fast, fashion forward brand for both men and women but takes up a large segment of the women’s wear market. H&M are most successful at encouraging its customers to be conscious about the clothing purchases they make. For example, H&M already has a conscious clothing life that sells clothes that
have been made from sustainably sourced fabrics. They also have a clothing bin scheme that means customers receive a £5.00 voucher to spend in store when they donate a bag of clothing. Below is a SWOT analysis of H&M:
Strengths - H&M have a great clothing selection that is all at affordable prices. They have a conscious clothing range, a collection of clothing that is made from sustainable materials. Weakness - The clothing they sell in stores do not always come in the best quality or have the best fit. Their competitors have more tailored collections and need to improve upon their selection of clothing. Opportunities - H&M have previously done collaborations with companies such as Versace and Bulmain. This means there is always future possibility for other collaborations. Threats - H&M do not always stock a great selection and it sometimes pays to shop elsewhere for similar looking garments.
Social media is an important aspect of promotion to H&M; they have an Instagram account with a following of 17.5 million. The H&M Facebook page that has over 28 million follows, this is an important way for H&M to interact with its customers and this is where they post campaign videos and events for people to attend. Zara is a fashion forward men’s wear and women’s wear brand with a similar brand identity to Mango. They have a fast fashion approach, changing the stock in stores every two weeks. Zara’s most successful features include a fast turn around of stock. This knowledge of stock change means an increase in sales, as the customer doesn’t want to miss out on anything in store. Social media is also important for Zara. Facebook is its most followed form of communication, with over 24 million followers. Below is a SWOT analysis of Zara:
Strengths - Zara makes high quality clothing, with a variety of creative combinations and well-finished garments. They have a great range of classic cut clothing made from quality materials. Weakness - Clothing size ranges are not consistent, some ranges come in sizes that cater to slightly larger people. However they seem to make more collections in smaller sizes, meaning they can only appeal to a slimmer consumer.
Opportunities - Autumn/Winter always brings great opportunities for Zara in terms of outerwear and warm clothing. This brings chances for Zara to collaborate with companies that specialise in outerwear. Threats - Zara has a negative trend. Each summer season, they do not create a beachwear collection. However, this means that they have the ability to create one in the future.
For this film shoot, I chose my model because she defines model standards. She is tall and slender with a beautiful complexion and looks great with natural make-up. These are all features that are necessary for the type of casting that Mango already uses. However, after researching the type of models that Mango casts, they often cast unusual models. Because of this, I was determined to use my model even more because she has green coloured hair. I originally made plans for my film to be in black and white, as this is something that Mango does regularly for their feature films, but Mangos unusual casting choices meant I was able to bend the rules of modelling and film in colour to showcase her green afro. The filming took place in London, focusing mainly in Hyde Park, with features of monuments and places of interest, such as Marble Arch. Filming in London was important to creating the right visuals for a City Girl campaign that I created, based on the fashion films that Mango already creates, that all seem to have a campaign behind the reason for filming. This fashion film was intended to open the audience up to life as a girl in the city. I wanted to create an ideal that other people would aspire to when visiting a city. The style of filming consists of filming a real London girl on her travel around the city and the opportunities that the city offers but that don’t always get used. Mango has a modern and contemporary style and I wanted to incorporate this into life around the city. My model already owned many Mango items and this made it easy to style her. I wanted to show Mango’s clothing versatility so paired some of the same items with others. For example the floral dress in the park during the day that is then featured on the steps of Oxford Circus at night. Styling was easy, Mango has many plain or sparsely detailed items of clothing, so mixing and matching was effective. Styling was made up of teaming two-piece outfits together with accessories. This seemed to be most effective because my model was providing a fun and outgoing character that didn’t require over dressing as this would distract from life as a City Girl.
Filming took a number of days and started out with a suitcase full of ten different outfits. These outfits were condensed to six, but each outfit contained at least one item that had been previously paired with something else. Mango has a section on their website called Edits. Here is where they upload their fashion films from each campaign with still shots from each film and a pricing list for the garment worn in the video. This is where I plan to feature my own fashion film and will also include still shots taken from my fashion film with a pricing list next to each garment. Mango features 30-second clips of their campaign videos on their official Instagram account. These films also include hashtag for the campaign and for mango itself. Here is where I plan to show my fashion film edit, with a 30 second clip and hashtags that will read as city girl, autumn winter 2016 and Mango fashion. This fashion film will launch this month, as it is an autumn/winter collection for this year. Mango generates campaigns with every fashion film it makes; this fashion film is no different. The campaign title is City Girl and it features a girl exploring what London has to offer. These films are uploaded to the Mango website, Instagram and YouTube. I plan to upload my fashion film to YouTube in a similar way to Mango to replicate their style of promotion. YouTube is an important tool to use when publicising Mango fashion films as the target audience that Mango applies to, use YouTube as a form of social media communication. I plan to reach my target audience through advertising online on the Mango website, YouTube channel and Instagram account. I have set a time scale of three days. This includes choosing the outfits I want to feature in my film, model casting, filming in London and editing the film ready to be published. I will be filming the fashion film myself, using a canon camera and tripod. I have had previous experience filming so am confident enough that my skills will help in the filming process. Since my model will be show casing her natural hair, an afro, there will be no need for a hair stylist as it seemed appropriate that the model could style her own hair. Because the model make up was minimal, I took care of making sure that the make up was suitable for the film and applied it to the model myself. Filming took place over two days and a call sheet wasn’t necessary as there was only the model and myself. I plan to translate Mango’s soft and modern brand identity into my fashion film by carefully selecting the garments that I chose my model to wear. Mango’s garments are the defining point of its brand identity, without its clean cut garments and basic clothing that
matches any outfit, Mango would not be considered a fashion forward contemporary brand that it is so well known for. Mango stands by its claim to dress men and women of the every day society in classic clothing with a stylish and smart fit. These values are demonstrated in their campaign videos that draw in its audience with an ideal of life as a loyal customer to Mango. Mango is a very cool and independent brand, one that is hard to copy. Its competitors may have a similar clothing style but none have been able to replicate the lifestyle promises that Mango delivers or keep up with the quality garments and their affordable prices. Campaign videos are an essential marketing strategy that Mango uses for each new collection of clothing they bring into store. Each one of these videos describes Mango in a different way. A recent fashion film ‘City Vibes’ shows two girls on their trip around New York City, this is the fashion film that inspired my own video, whereas another of Mango’s fashion films ‘True Romance’ is inspired by movement and displays two models in the country side, on a cliff allowing their surroundings to become part of their clothes. These campaign videos are a strong selling point for Mango and they entice people to want to shop in their stores and become loyal customers. Mango doesn’t have a niche selling point to their company but they do sell a lifestyle that could be considered a niche. This is something that its competitors aspire to, such as H&M; they also create fashion films as a form of promotion to sell the H&M lifestyle. However the H&M lifestyle doesn’t seem as desirable as the Mango lifestyle. Mango creates fashion films that make the consumer feel like part of an exclusive club and this is something that Mango’s target audience is very interested in. Mango is a fun and easy-going brand with a modern and contemporary twist. The final full branded fashion film was designed to give consumers an insight into the world of Mango. This fashion film worked to create an atmosphere for consumers and demonstrated the versatility of the Mango brand.