Strategic proposal

Blanc canv as one couple one fragrance STRATIGIC PROPOSAL

Phoebe Reid N0495186

blanc canvas

contents Introduction 1-6 Product Launch 7-10 Billboard- 11-12 Social Media 13-14 Case Study 15-16 Blanc Canvas @ Festivals 17-18 Public Relations 19-20 conclusion 21

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introduction T

he inspiration and motivation for the new brand, Blanc Canvas, sprang from an interest in the blurring of gender distinctions that has at times stirred the fashion world. This interest was further enhanced after visiting the Trend-ology exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City where the focus was on the trend of unisex, and how it was making a break through once again. In this report I will strategically propose the initial launch of Blanc Canvas as well as expanding and explaining the brands first year promotional activities.

One Couple, one fragrance’ That Pink is for girls and blue is for boys, and the associated gender stereotyping reinforced our thinking but it was interesting to read in the e-magazine Dazeddigital, an article focusing on the end of gender as an issue with regards to fashion. Indeed the designer JW Anderson is quoted as saying “I feel that in a modern culture, if it’s about gender then it’s a very dated concept. I wanted to achieve something awkward, less comfortable”.

(Nakiska, 2014) His fashion show not only stirred but also shook some of the critics. From this formative thinking Blanc Canvas sprang off its page and its first product became a shared unisex fragrance for couples aged 19 to 24. Ultimately the fragrance focuses on creating “New fragrances and new memories for young stylish couples”

(Figure 1)

)

57% OF STUDENTS enter into a new relationship at university with many of them believing unis social aspects and the opportunityto meet like minded people make it easy to be

lucky in love (student 365)

Consumer Our focused consumer, as stated, is targeting 19-24 year old males and females. The reasoning behind this strategy was based on the premise that as it was few felt that this is the time where most changes happen, when experimentation and risk are high on the agenda, when meeting new people, starting a new career or going to university as well the perfect time to start a new relationship.

This is reinforced from the UK’s No. 1 student magazine and website, ‘Student365’ revealed that’ 57% of students enter into a new relationship at university with many of them believing uni’s ‘social aspects and the opportunity to meet like-minded people make it easy to be lucky in love’

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pen portrait NAME-Harlow RĂŠgis AGE- 21 IN A RELATIONSHIP LIVES- Leeds City Centre- Shared house OCCUPATION- Photography student at Leeds University MUSIC: Artic monkeys, Haim, Disclosure, The 1975 SHOPS @: American Apparel, eBay, Vintage stores, The Kooples, Male stores, Urban Outfitters MEDIA: Blogosphere, ID magazine, Love SOCIAL NETWORKS:Tumbler, Pintrest, Twitter LOVES: Fashion,f estivals, travelling, art galleries HATES: New look, Attention seekers, meat CELEBS: Alexa Chung, Suki Waterhouse, Nicole Riche, Kanye West, Kylie Jenner

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Product

(Figure 2,3,4)

Initially it was seen as important when producing a unisex fragrance to ensure that the scent and packaging wasn’t gender biased, either too feminine as this would alienate the male market or too masculine as this would estrange the feminine female.

Considering the idea that the fragrance is unisex as well as the foundation for relationships, the smell created and the bottle and packaging should appeal to both genders. The choice of natural homme as a base gave the fragrance a masculine base smell and the added accents of citrus and vanilla to make the fragrance lighter and fresher without making it too fruity, flirty and floral. Aldehydic notes were used finally to give the fragrance a classic and traditional scent. The design opted for was a fairly structural and industrial bottle design and packaging, as it was felt this would appeal and be attractive to both the female and male market of 19-24 year olds.

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blanc canvas

product launch 1 in 5

fragrances last on the market for over 5 years

Launching Blanc Canvas as a new brand will need to be more than just introducing our fragrance product. As the market is already oversaturated where only one in five fragrances last on the market for over 5 years (Hameide,2011) the launch will need to introduce our values and everything the brand represents, consequently providing the platform or umbrella for Blanc Canvas to embrace all of it future products under the same name.

On the 20th January 2015 Blanc Canvas will be launching pop-up shops in 4 student cities around the UK. Pop up shops are currently one of the latest on-going trends to hit fashion retail. They are usually successful as it guarantees exclusivity due to limited time span and a real need to get the product then and there. As the brand will only ‘pop up’ for short periods of time the intent is to increase consumer interests and desire as consumers know that the store and brand is only temporary and there is an element of being the first to engage with a new brand and be seen as a fashion leader. This strategy should enable Blanc Canvas to test the overly saturated fragrance market and is based on successful retail strategies employed by many successful businesses such as Comme De Garcons who opened up its first temporary pop up’store for a year in Berlin.

The strategy for our locations is quite simple; to maximise our ability to touch base with our specifically chosen age demographic, Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham, have been chosen as cities with thriving university populations. Placed in a busy location it is important for our pop up shop to be engaging with the consumers and create a talk in the city. Adidas created a pop up

(Figure 5)

shop designed as an Adidas shoebox. This is a great example of a brand who captured the market not just in Amsterdam but virally through it being shared on Twitter and Facebook. Subsequently Blanc Canvas plans on creating a store using the shape and material of a large canvas to grab consumers attention. Inside the ‘Blanc Canvas’ free samples will be offered to our consumers. This launch tactic will enable consumers to trial the product however these are not your standard perfume sample you shove in your handbag when someone pushes into your hand only to be found weeks later.

This perfume sample has been designed so that the cap that can only be twisted open by another cap. Meaning that it can’t be opened until matching with another one. This idea reinforces our brand values of creating new memories as well as the penultimate idea of our brand being a unisex fragrance for both genders. We hope that consumers will ‘open a perfume and open a Blanc Canvas’ Sampling is a popular launch tactic within the fragrance industry as it puts the product into consumer’s hands from outset.

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MOCK UP OF HOW PERFUME SAMPLE WILL WORK

A small but effective part of the launch will consist of Blanc Canvas workers dressed in canvas morph suits. Reasoning behind this came from London Fashion week where fashion is usually shocking, over the top but memorable. It is the eccentricity and sometimes the risk factor that gets the brand the coverage needed, particularly with the target audience we are focusing on. After all don’t they say any publicity is good publicity?

Something as small as this might help create the necessary buzz to help grant media coverage and consumer interest.

The timing of the launch is extremely crucial for Blanc Canvas to optimise establishing the brand and impacting on sales. It is especially important in the fragrance market, whether you’re an already established global brand or a new niche brand. Twice annually there

are high points where fragrance brands are able to maximise profitability, these being Christmas and Valentine’s Day. It is estimated that business soar over 100% over Christmas (Week) As a result of this we aim to launch our pop up stores around three main points of sale in the calendar.

For our event, our strategy will be to launch our brand on the 20th January to give lead in time for Valentine’s Day. This gives an opportunity to optimise growth and sales over the Valentines fortnight. Not only is a fragrance a favourable valentine’s gift but our ‘one couple, one fragrance’ product suits this occasion very well.

‘Valentine’s fortnight remains a key focus for prestige beauty products, representing 2.7% of annual fragrance value sales and 3% of total beauty sales in the UK – beating both Father’s Day and Mother’s Day sales.’ (Cosmetic Business, 2014) From this research it is vital that our launch coincides with Valentine’s Day and is before the valentine’s fortnight to optimise growth and sales.

million when broadcasted proving that YouTube now compares favourably with mass media advertising. (Cutler, 2010) Our strategy will be to use YouTube to showcase the footage from the initial pop up launch involving the consumers awkward meetings, trying to work out the bottle and open the perfume capturing all the different emotions of meeting and creating new memories.

Nottingham Trents ‘Super Awkward Montage of Students Mistaking Video for a Stills Camera’ is a great example of a simple yet successful campaign having now received over 1,354,803 views on YouTube. Our plan is to create a video that will reach this milestone of 1 million views if not more. ‘Videos that do not get embraced by consumer will fail to get to the first significant milestone of 1 million viewers, the next hurdle is to pass the four million mark (Posner, 2011)

Our strategy is to purposely divert away from mass media channels such as print media, cinema or TV as it is dated and costly. Consequently using YouTube as an alternative align our brand with our target audience and will be will be seen and judged as a more innovative method to advertise. Our strategy is underpinned by recent research conducted by visible measures revealed that out of 65 super bowl ads shown over a four week period received 99 million views on YouTube as opposed to 98.7

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blanc canvas

billboards

MOCK UP OF BLANC CANVAS BILLBOARD As an added part of the launch, we will be placing billboard in the 4 student locations. The billboard concept needs to be innovative, as well as a strong reflection of our brand. These billboards will initially appear very plain (‘Blanc Canvas’) however as you approach, whether its in car or on foot, a perfume advert will appear. This will be done using Lenticular printing that is used to printed images with an illusion

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MOCK UP OF BLANC CANVAS BILLBOARD

of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles.This idea came from trying to get people to remember the brand name, so seeing a ‘Blanc Canvas’ from one angle, questioning it and then a perfume advert from another, should be rather memorable as well as giving something for consumers to talk about and engage with. .

blanc canvas

social media

one lonely

hash

tag can increase engagement

by 100%

We will not just reply on the popup stores from our launch. We also plan to generate interest through social media using the power of hash tagging. According to buddy media one lonely hash tag can increase engagement by 100%. (Luckie, 2012) We will strategically implement the hash tag #blanccanvas for people to upload pictures from the launch onto Instagram and Twitter with the incentive to have the chance to win festival tickets( to the four festivals at which Blanc Canvas will be attending

NVA S NC CA LA #B over the summer talked later on in my essay) This will drive new viewers to Blanc Canvas’s social media pages on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well as all the other potential advantages such as increasing Blanc Canvas’s visibility and potentially helping it expand globally. Social media will be an important part of our marketing plan as a high percentage of our core consumers use these platforms on a day-to-day basis. Our website will launch on the same day as our official launch making it the

only place to purchase the fragrance.

Along with the website will contain a blog, where consumers can keep up to date on everything we are doing and comment on their purchases. This consumer-generated media is even becoming important to household brand such a Nike with their nikeblog. com and is becoming a vital part of a company’s marketing. According to Robert Scrobble “companies that don’t blog will be help suspect with people wondering whether those companies have something to hide” (Israel, 2006)

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case study

)

re 6 (Figu

When considering the branding the quote “Get the product inside people’s heads’ ref. immediately highlighted the campaign conducted by Lucozade in 2011. With their brand slipping from the hearts and minds of the public and loosing relevance they were being outdone by new rivals such as Powerade, Gatorade resulting in slow down in growth against global mega brands. One target for the brand was to try and target the millennial consumer as well as creating a new buzz for

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the brand. This is where Lucozade YES was born, connecting sport with music.

First of all they collaborated with Dj fresh to produce the track louder that was a UK #1 single and received over £14 million views. (Grey London) Leading on from this they dominated 4 major festivals including V fest and T in the park, giving out thousands of free Lucozade Energy as well as the opportunity to win Lucozade branded products such as tents, bottle and bags just as you entered the site. By the end most festival goers would have drank, be wearing or have some kind of Lucozade product to take home as a ‘souvenir.’ In terms of business results and success, the YES campaign delivered 21 million new customers and £21.4 million in sales uplift (Grey

London) After evaluating the phenomenon and success of the Lucozade YES campaign, it was felt this experience could guide our strategy about branding as this would provide an innovative approach for Blanc Canvas, a marketing tool that no one in the fragrance industry has done or achieved yet.

It was decided that the promotion of the brand would be in a ‘select’ environment where we could maximise the leveraging of the viral nature of our core consumer. When looking at our pen portraits it was identified that the one select environment that both the male and female consumers would go was to the festivals.

(Figure 7) page 16

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festivals As a result this summer Blanc Canvas will be heading to four huge festivals including Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds and Park life. These festivals have been specifically chosen as they match the music profile of our consumers. Throughout the 4 day festivals we will be giving away testers of our unisex fragrance, as well as given the chance to spin the Blanc canvas wheel. There are 6 prizes on this wheel, which are Blanc Canvas dry shampoo, x2 Blanc Canvas Sunglasses, x2 Blanc Canvas mug, x2 Blanc Canvas disposable camera, (each photo when printed will contain the Blanc Canvas logo) x2 tickets to VIP refreshing area, (set up buy Blanc Canvas offering clean toilets, showers, hair straighteners and phone charging stations) x2 2 hours phone charging. The reason these all come in pairs is to keep the emphasis on the

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(Figure 8)

idea that the brand is for couples.The Blanc Canvas buzz does not stop here, we will be setting up the ‘Blanc Canvas silent disco tent’ within the site, which will be open every day for public use.

Our ultimate aim is to sell the brand at these festivals, not the perfume. We are hoping that this will give us the platform needed for people to buy our product & make connections with the music & memories of the festival. As well as promoting this on the Blanc Canvas blog and social network sites, our strategy will be to use direct marketing teaming up with Ticketmaster and See tickets to enable us to access the data of those who buy tickets to the 4 festivals. This will establish a direct link between Blanc Canvas& the consumer at the festival so that target emails prior to the event informing the festival goers of what’s happening creating a pre festival, word of mouth buzz.

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public relations Our communications strategy will ensure positive publicity and well- handled PR for vital for Blanc Canvas as it has the potential to put fashion companies at a great advantage. Positive PR will not only enrich the image, kudos and reputation of Blanc Canvas but it can also be a and in terms of cost is cheaper and more valuable than TV advertising. The cult of celebrity and its relationship to the world of fashion is becoming increasingly important within the fashion PR remit. With social media and technology thriving, celebrity seeding has become increasing popular for brands. Seeding is when a brand loans or donates a product to a celebrity to promote the product. In the ever changing world of advertising some of the most effective audience influencers are those who have the highest followers and fans on social media channels such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. ‘‘A few years ago, the world of celebrity seeding was an unpredictable process for PR agencies’’ (PR Moments, 2013) An example of celebrity seeding that generated mass sales was Kate Middleton’s dress at Reis that sold out across the US and the UK and helped Reis double its profits. (Arthurs, 2011) Our strategy is to seed our product to ‘famous’ YouTube couples to promote on their vlogs. As Susi Weaser, head of partner management at channel flip stated “YouTube entrepreneurs often reach more people than TV adverts but look 100 times more creative and engaging to the viewers” (Solon) Zoe Sugg aged 23 is a fashion and beauty blogger, better known as ‘Zoella’, who is currently one of the most popular Youtubers around. To date she has 4,776,104 subscribers and over 186,071,944 video views. (Stat Sheep, 2014) Her boyfriend Alfie aged 20, also known as Pointless blog also has 2,311,288. Accessing one of these would be the perfect couple to promote our brand as they fit our targeted consumer as well as being a real life YouTube couple. We also feel that they have a strong enough platform to be able to reach our specified demographic group of ages 19-24.

The other YouTube couple we feel is brand appropriate are Jim Chapman aged 24 and Tayna Burr aged 24. Again both well-known vloggers, vlog about their relationship as well as their shopping hauls.

We thought about using the agency Boom, who are the top pick agency for YouTube seeding. They match our brand with the suitable audience. However we felt, as the target audience we knew a lot about Youtubers and who would be best suited for our brand.

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conclusion The launch of Blanc Canvas will inevitably give the brand the exposure needed to reach potential consumers. Supporting our yearly plan, will be a focus on setting up 2 unexpected pop up shop events in September and December to ensure the brand doesn’t ‘get lost.’ An exciting new market that Blanc Canvas will also be pointing their promotion towards is ‘university freshers. ’ As a perfume for both halves, we will push our product around September as a gift for couples who are parting for Uni. The strategic proposal outlined will position Blanc Canvas with a secure footing in a competitive UK market. It is our intention through vigorous promotion, to achieve this goal by December 2015 beginning with the product launch, the exposure at the Festivals and the well handled PR. Once the brand is established in the UK, enabling high sales and turn over, the product will look to be ‘internationalised’ in certain liberal markets abroad. The intention is to build the basis for a brand that has the power to extend its product portfolio and become a multi million pound

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Illustrations Figure 1- http://bestsoylatte.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tattoo-tuesday_24. html Figure 2 ,3,4 - http://kalifornia-klasss.tumblr.com Figure 5- http://makeup.lovetoknow.com/Free_Perfume_Sample Figure 6- http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/02/04/lucozade-energyinvests-10m-yes-moment-six-month-long-campaign Figure 7- http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1075370/ Figure 8- http://favim.com/image/53406/

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references Arthurs, D. (2011, 12 28). Kate Middleton’s Midas touch strikes again as ‘Duchess effect’ helps Reiss double its profits. Retrieved from Daily Mail Online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2079286/Kate-Middletons-Midas-touch-strikes-Duchess-effect-helps-Reiss-double-profits.html Cosmetic Business. (2014, 02 06). Fragrance sales expected to boom over Valentine’s fortnight. Retrieved from Cosmetic Business: http:// www.cosmeticsbusiness.com/news/article_page/Fragrance_sales_expected_to_boom_over_Valentines_fortnight/95425 Cutler, M. (2010, 07 06). Ad Age. Retrieved 05 2014, from http://adage. com/article/about-digital/tracking-giants-viral-video-data-insights/137689/ Grey London. (n.d.). Lucozade YES. Retrieved from creative brief: http:// www.creativebrief.com/agency/work/21632/3535/lucozade-advertisingdigital-yes-by-grey-london Israel, R. S. (2006). naked conversations. In R. S. Israel, How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers (pp. 40-52). John Wiley & Son. Luckie, M. S. (2012, 09 20). Best practices for journalists. Retrieved 05 2014, from Twitter blog: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/best-practices-forjournalists Nakiska, T. (2014, 02 27). Opinion: Is fashion over gender? Retrieved from Dazed Digital: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/18462/1/opinion-is-fashion-over-gender Pop Up Britain. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from Pop Up Britain: http://popupbritain.com/ Posner, H. (2011). Marketing Fashion. London: Laurence King Publishing.

PR Moments. (2013, 03 06). Welcome to a new era of celebrity seeding, says Radiator PR’s Gaby Jesson. Retrieved from PR Moments: http:// www.prmoment.com/1312/welcome-to-a-new-era-of-celebrity-seedingsays-radiator-prs-gaby-jesson.aspx Solon, O. (n.d.). How to hit the YouTube jackpot. Retrieved from Channel Flip: http://www.channelflip.com/pages/glamour_article.pdf

Stat Sheep. (2014, 05 27). Zoella Channel Statistics. Retrieved from Stat Sheep: http://www.statsheep.com/zoella280390 Week, R. (n.d.). Online Sales at The Fragrance Shop. Retrieved from Retail Week: http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/health-and-beauty/onlinechristmas-sales-soar-at-the-fragrance-shop/5032414.article

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biblyography Books David Hall, R. J. (2008). Business Studies . In R. J. David Hall, Business Studies (Vol. 4, pp. 1-90). Scotprint.

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Online Articles Arthurs, D. (2011, 12 28). Kate Middleton’s Midas touch strikes again as ‘Duchess effect’ helps Reiss double its profits. Retrieved from Daily Mail Online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2079286/Kate-Middletons-Midas-touch-strikes-Duchess-effect-helps-Reiss-double-profits.html Bullas, J. (n.d.). How to use the power of hashtags in your social media and marketing. Retrieved 05 12, 2014, from Jeff Bullas.com: www.jeffbullas. com/2014/05/07/how-to-use-the-power-of-hashtags-in-your-socialmedia-marketing/ Carat Ireland. (n.d.). Lucozade YES launch. Retrieved 05 26, 2014, from Carat Ireland: http://www.carat.ie/cases/case-studys/lucozade-yeslaunch-2 Cosmetic Business. (2014, 02 06). Fragrance sales expected to boom over Valentine’s fortnight. Retrieved from Cosmetic Business: http:// www.cosmeticsbusiness.com/news/article_page/Fragrance_sales_expected_to_boom_over_Valentines_fortnight/95425 Grey London. (n.d.). Lucozade YES. Retrieved from creative brief: http:// www.creativebrief.com/agency/work/21632/3535/lucozade-advertising-

digital-yes-by-grey-london Luckie, M. S. (2012, 09 20). Best practices for journalists. Retrieved 05 2014, from Twitter blog: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/best-practices-forjournalists Nakiska, T. (2014, 02 27). Opinion: Is fashion over gender? Retrieved from Dazed Digital: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/18462/1/opinion-is-fashion-over-gender Pop Up Britain. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from Pop Up Britain: http://popupbritain.com/ PR Moments. (2013, 03 06). Welcome to a new era of celebrity seeding, says Radiator PR’s Gaby Jesson. Retrieved from PR Moments: http:// www.prmoment.com/1312/welcome-to-a-new-era-of-celebrity-seedingsays-radiator-prs-gaby-jesson.aspx Solon, O. (n.d.). How to hit the YouTube jackpot. Retrieved from Channel Flip: http://www.channelflip.com/pages/glamour_article.pdf Stat Sheep. (2014, 05 27). Zoella Channel Statistics. Retrieved from Stat Sheep: http://www.statsheep.com/zoella280390 Week, R. (n.d.). Online Sales at The Fragrance Shop. Retrieved from Retail Week: http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/health-and-beauty/onlinechristmas-sales-soar-at-the-fragrance-shop/5032414.article

Videos Cutler, M. (2010, 07 06). Ad Age. Retrieved 05 2014, from http://adage. com/article/about-digital/tracking-giants-viral-video-data-insights/137689/