MEGAN GREEN
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY BRAND IDENTITY BRAND CONSUMERS BRAND POSITIONING COMMUNICATION MIX BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Vivienne Westwood is one of Britain’s most influential and well known designers. Her wacky ways and unique designs have made her one of the most well known designers not only in the UK but also around the world. She was even named one of ‘Britain’s Greatest Fashion Designers’ back in 2011. Well known for her rebellious and punk designs, she has managed to bring modern punk and a new surge of fashion back into the market with her own unique style and edge. Since 1960, she has always been the designer and creative director for the brand, using her own name as the brand name, and her own face for magazine spreads. Westwood quoted “I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer in the age of punk, I just used fashion as a way to express my resistance and rebellion”, showing how from day one she has used her own ideas ad ways to express her own personality through her brand. Her iconic Orb logo is something which is iconic and can be recognised easily by many around the world showing how diverse and successful her brand is from opening her first shop in London.
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Vivienne Westwood is a female Fashion Designer who mainly focuses on punk rock styles and doing the unusual with her brand. Her popularity knows no bounds, but her punk attitude is more alive now than in the movement’s Seventies heyday. In 1971, Westwood opened her first shop, ‘Let It Rock’ at 430 Kings Road in London, which was later renamed ‘Sex’ in 1974. With around 116 stores in total and around 11 in the UK alone, her style and unusual ideas are popular worldwide. Westwood products are mainly clothing lines or accessories but her wacky style is still shown through these products. Her inspiration comes from a variety of things such as in 1972 her main interests has turned to zips, biker clothing and leather which then lead to her shop being re-branded with a skull and crossbones and renames ‘Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die’.
RAND Westwood’s original store which is now named ‘World’s End’ is still open for business and still continues to carry Westwood Collection such as her main women’s ready-to-wear line which she officially launched in 1981. Even though Westwood has remained one of Britain’s most influential designers, she has always struggled with probability within her brand. This meant that she had to make bold statement designs in order to stay the most influential designers. This involved Westwood using her brand as a medium for political expression. In 2006, she created tank tops with the slogan “I am not a terrorist” which was a bold statement tank top which was eye catching and showed her unusual style of clothing to set herself out in the current market.
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B I RAND
Brand identity is something which a brand will use to communicate with their consumers and their own personal brand style. The brand identities that they try to create throughout the brand, need to be closely appropriate and related if longrun brand purchasing behaviour is to be achieved. Vivienne Westwood’s brand identity is one of the most impressive yet wacky styles around. Her individual style is shown through her brand by having outrageous and bold designs on her clothing and accessories. Westwood decided to stick with her own name for her brand instead of changing it, this would make it clear to the consumers who the designer is but also makes her a well known and iconic designer.
DENTITY
The Vivienne Westwood Orb is the main logo for her brand which resembles the Sovereigns Orb which is one of the British Crown Jewels. This crown jewel was created for the coronation of King Charles II and the jewelled aspect of the Orb links to Westwood’s anchored position in the British fashion industry. Westwood’s brand doesn’t have a specific tagline attached to it, however there are many famous quotes in which she has said. “My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor” and “You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes” are two of the most popular quotes from Westwood. Having a wild brand makes her stand out from other competitors which makes it more appealing to the consumers due to the clothing, logo and the way Westwood approaches the fashion industry.
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OU HAVE A MORE INTERESTING LIFE IF YOU WEAR IMPRESSIVE CLOTHES”
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
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ONSUMERS
Brand Consumers are the customers who buy products from this brand and are also the way the brand sets their identity round. Brands use their consumers to help them decide what new products they can create, as they can set this to their age range or gender for the brand.
Westwood has a wide variety of brand consumers who are both male and female from the age range of 25 to 60 years of age. Her consumers are mainly people who like a unique style which both a rock and chic style, but she also has many different shapes, patterns, textiles and accessories which are very unique and wacky. As Westwood’s has a strong belief in campaigns as political events, her target audience are mainly also environmentally and politically aware.
Westwood’s brand is said to be most popular in the UK, Asia and the USA which shows how diverse her consumers are worldwide. In addition to this, Westwood once quoted “My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor”, this conveys that she wants to make her clothing line affordable to anyone but also suits her mad style. Brand consumers would also be influenced by the marketing and advertising used by Westwood. Advertising such as magazine pages, social media or also fashion shows would encourage and influence the consumers to buy the clothes or accessories and also give them an idea on what new styles Westwood was bringing out.
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Westwood currently sells internationally in 86 countries, in 5 continents. Within the current market, her brand positioning falls under the category of high end luxury fashion. However, all of her collections fall under different categories due to the wide diversity of styles and the target audience. Her brand has always had an avant garde style about it, meaning her brand has new and experimental ideas and methods.
In addition to this, her brand doesn’t always follow the current trends in which other brands follow, as she has her own style which makes her brand positioning different to other brands. Westwood has many unique selling propositions over her career, but the main factor when the time she invented punk fashion. This was shown in her first ever store which opened in 1971, Kings Road in London, where she kept changing the name of this store every few years to names such as ‘Let It Rock’, ‘Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die’ and ‘SEX’. Westwood has many different collections which changes her brand positioning due to the style of the collections. Her brand now consist of four labels such as the Gold Label, Red Label, Man and Angolmania which makes her brand stand out from others and changed her brand positioning within the market.
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Vivienne Westwood has a large brand reputation which means the need for advertising is limited. Her use of TV, radio and billboards is limited and rarely used due to the fact she is such a prestige brand. Westwood mainly uses magazine printers or online advertising to show off her brand. In addition to this, Vivienne Westwood herself is the main iconic face of the brand which means that she is featured in each magazine spread which are always unique and reflects her personality and also rein-forces the brand message. As she does not use any TV, radio or billboard advertising, this means that she makes sure that all of her online or magazine advertising is bold, eye catching and relevant to her brand and the image she wants to achieve.
Public Relations is also something at Westwood uses within her brand. She holds many fashion events to publicise her new collections such as her first fashion collection which was shown to the press and international buyers. Her first fashion event was her ‘Pirate’ range which was the collection of Westwood and McLaren shown in London and Paris in late 1981. Other events such as Punkature shown in 1982, World’s End in 1984. After ending her partnership with McLaren, she then showed one more collection featuring the World’s End label: “Clint Eastwood” in late 1984. Many brands have sponsors which help advertise the brand. These would feature on adverts or other advertisement for the brand or sponsor. However, Vivienne Westwood doesn’t have any sponsors which shows how much of a well respected and prestige brand she is. Her brand is well known on its own without having to have any celebrity endorsements or sponsors due to the originality of the brand and how wacky her ideas are.
Westwood also used personal selling within her brand such as pop up shops which she used as a promotion event for her exclusive ranges. Pop up shops are primarily set up in order for consumers to have a brief look at some of the products from a particular range by Westwood. In addition to this, these events will also be used as extra advertising for her brand but not done by herself. They will also be used for a press launch day, where press can gain access to featured garments in these events which they will take images of or even buy to use as extra coverage of the brand by creating shoots using these garments. This will be helpful for Westwood as other people will create reports about her brand and cover making it an advertisement opportunity for the brand. She mainly sells her products business to consumer through her pop up shops and through her own shops around the country.
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However, she never really sells her products business to business to business as her products are exclusive to her brand. However, some of her products are featured in different shops such as Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London, and other department stores. This makes it easier for consumers to be able to purchase her products if the stores are not near to them.
Within her website, she also has a pop up link which appears to users when they first click on the web page. This wants users to sign up for the email scheme by sending them links ad information about the brand. This is a useful scheme in order to make the consumers more aware about the brand and current products or information in which might be happening in the future.
Westwood has also had many collaborations with other designers to create many famous products. Her most famous collaboration are with the Melissa footwear company. This product is a jelly like shoe which has been collaborated with the Vivienne Westwood Orb to make this iconic product. Since 2008, these two brands have collaborated on over 50 exclusive products which are all environmentally friendly and have sustainability which links closely to her idea of using political factors within her products
Social Media is also another major part of her advertising, way to communicate with other brands and her consumers. Social Media is a huge part of the 21st Century now with online shopping being used and websites set up for brands to advertise their products. Other social media aspects are also used such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook which allow the consumers to connect with the brand and also to keep updated on the brand products and information
Instagram is the main way people can see actual imagery from the brand shoots, products or anything else they want to post on their page, this will then be seen by anyone who follows this page. Twitter and Facebook are a way for consumers to get information about certain things the brand posts such as any pop up shops that might happen, future collaborations, events or anything else regarding the brand. This helps the brand to communicate with the consumers and keep them interested in the brand and keeps the brand alive.
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IBLIOGRAPHY
Megan Boyes. (22nd April 2008) Vivienne Westwood Available at: http://www.vogue. co.uk/article/vivienne-westwood-biography. Assessed at: Tuesday 22 April 2008. Anonymous. The story so far’. Available at: http://www.viviennewestwood.com/en-gb/ history ‘ Anonymous. ‘LABEL OVERVIEW’ Available at : http://nymag.com/thecut/fashion/designers/vivienne-westwood/ Susannah Frankel. (21st September 2012). “You have a more interesting life you wear impressive clothes”. Available at : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/vivienne-westwood-you-have-a-more-interesting-life-if-you-wear-impressiveclothes-8157187.html. Assessed at: Friday 21 September 2012. Hannah Riding.(23rd May 2013) Vivienne Westwood. Assessed at: May 23, 2013 Available at: https://www.silvertreejewellery.co.uk/blog/vivienne-westwood/vivienne-westwood-orb/ . Gabriella Carr.(9th January 2015) ‘Vivienne Westwood mag’ Available at http://www. slideshare.net/GabriellaCarr/vivienne-westwood-mag-43356960 Stefania Bjorgvins. (18th January 2011) Available at: https://issuu.com/srefania/docs/ vive_west . Assessed at: January 18th 2011. The Brand Council. (9TH December 2002). Assessed at: December 09, 2002.Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/166537/brand-council-case-studies-viviennewestwood# . (SEPTEMBER 1, 2015) COLLABORATION: MELISSA X VIVIENNE WESTWOOD BY NOTION MAGAZINE FASHION, COLLECTIONS Available at : http://notionmagazine.com/collaboration-melissa-vivienne-westwood/ Fill, C. (2013) Marketing Communication. Brands, Experiences and Participation. Sixth Edition. Pearsons Education Limited.