H & M : Global Branding And Global Product Development

Hennes and Mauritz AB is a Swedish retail-clothing company, which has expanded enormously in the past years. H&M has grown from one single store in a small town in Sweden to a multinational ranked as the second largest global fashion retailer with its 3,600 stores in over 58 countries and $22 billion in annual sales (The World’s). This incredible story of success makes us wonder about their strategies and how they managed to get where they are today.

Catherine, W., Tat Pui, L. and Henrik, U. (2011) The Roles of Branding for a Brand Entering

H&M cruelly underlined the continuity of its expansion strategy in long-term perspective (Regnér and Yildiz, 2014), which means continuing to open stores ultimately (Barman and Petersson, 2002). It is planned that H&M will establish another 300 new stores, especially China, the United States and the United Kingdom as the largest growing market. Despite the countries mentioned before, South America, Latvia, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Thailand will be involved (Regnér and Yildiz, 2014).

Gucci, a brand known for its quality, luxurious and royal association was confronted with strategic issues which made the company take notice of its strategy of expansion and brand personality. The company was not only having concerns with their product line but they were lacking unified corporate vision and strategy after its acquisition of some major names like YSL. Due to which they started having loophole in their luxurious goods market discipline. Strategic concern for the company was how does the brand image cascade down in the target market and how does it rejuvenate itself is a management lesson.

Attention getter: Brands like H&M, forever 21, Zara have a dark secret that they don’t want you to know. Digging deeper in the world of fast fashion I found out of the vicious cycles that our clothing is manufactured in.

Of the hundreds of named brand clothing that form part of the retail and fashion industry I chose to compare, for my analysis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, American Eagle, and H&M. These stores are prominent, well-known for selling apparel, shoes, and accessories by the means of offering sales and promotions to their customers. This is a clever strategy for attracting customers, allowing them to believe that they bought goods at affordable, convenient prices – and not to mention the prestigious name prescribed to the clothing brands. Using keyhole.co as my main source, I obtained relevant and valuable information regarding the status of these brands. My intentions were to compare a period of 14 days, however, due to the limited access that I received from my free trial, the program only allowed me to see fewer of the dates than I anticipated. I want to take this opportunity and mention ahead of time that due to the various and distinctive products that are sold from these stores, when looking for the “spending capacity” I decided to focus on shirts/ jeans for men and women and compare the prices among them since each of these retailers carry those items and as a way to make this report easier to contrast and comprehend. Also, when approaching the section of “setting”, I screen-shotted some of the images on Instagram and made them into a collage to separate the type of clothes and trends that each of these brands sell currently. In the following modules

In order to be competitive, companies have to satisfy customers’ requirements. They have to provide a fast and dependable service at reasonable price. There are five performance objectives that lead companies to competitiveness. They are:

Nike’s main strategy revolves around product branding. Their brand compromises of a swoosh logo which is accompanied by a message of “just do it”. The logo was imprinted on all of their products with the message developed to express the individuality of their target group. The branding was further promoted by Nike’s relentless approach on the quality of their product as demonstrated when considering overseas business opportunities, quality must not be compromised in order to do so. This ensures consumer satisfaction and loyalty towards Nike.

In the fashion industry, fashion brands are highly associated with branding, because of the intensive competitive fashion markets. Moreover, fashion brands are self-expressing to some extent (Carroll, 2008). Building creative brand image is important for the fashion brands. In addition, Carroll (2008) said that social responsibility and potential risks are the two aspects related to the fashion brands. Just as

Burberry, founded in 1856, is a leading international luxury brand. Burberry designs, manufactures and licenses apparel and accessories for distribution through its own stores and network of prestige retailers worldwide. In early 1998, the new management team at Burberry set out its strategy to reposition and revitalise the brand, which resulted in significantly improved results and strengthened the base to build the business. With continuous growth since last five years, Burberry has faced new challenges of brand sustainability and positioning in a volatile industry (fashion) where customer behaviour is unpredictable. Thus, it requires a strategy that lays foundations for long-term growth and addresses the issues

Gucci is a multinational fashion brand based in Italy. The brand specialises in leather goods, clothes, and fashion accessories for both and women aged between 24 and 30 years. Gucci was founded in 1921 in Florence, Italy by Guccio Gucci (Gucci Official Site United States, 2016). The main purpose of this paper is to provide an in depth brand analysis of Gucci. The paper will investigate and evaluate Gucci’s vales and identity, and will discuss how successfully these are reflected by Gucci’s business model, supply chain management, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. In addition to that, the paper will critically evaluate Gucci’s brand identity (identity) in relation to its brand image (external).

LVMH’s brand portfolio is a catalogue of the finest things money can buy. Arnault said, “A Star brand is timeless, modern, fast growing and highly profitable.”[iii] LVMH has positioned its brands strongly in the luxury segment offering more than 50 different brands under their five core competencies. LVMH has been successful through all of their various brands in their portfolio giving them each their independence and creativity. “LVMH is well known for leaving much operational and marketing freedom to the various brands it owns.”[iv] “LVMH has done an excellent job of brand positioning, says Ben Cavender, senior analyst at China Market Research Group. It has succeeded in securing the particularly enviable position of gaining a following among the top percentage of China’s wealthy. As the financial crisis stretches on, LVMH customers in China still have money to spend.[v] “LVMH’s brand imaging, which relies heavily on pushing its European heritage, is so successful that it has benefited other brands by proxy, says Paul French, one of the founders of Access Asia, a group dedicated to tracking regional consumer and marketing trends. “Everyone hangs on the coattails of Louis Vuitton’s brand imaging in China.”[vi]

Sweden 's Hennes & Mauritz, more commonly known as H&M, is a retail-clothing company, famous for its reasonably priced “fast fashion.” With 6 different brands sold in 3,300 stores spread out over 54 countries, the company is second only in size to its direct competitor Zara. H&M uses psychographic segmentation, targeting at customers who belong to the group of fashionable and trendy consumers, who see shopping as a social activity providing pleasure in their daily life.

H&M sells the latest trend. It adapts to every age and also to the tastes and needs of its customers.

Owing to the successfully accomplishment of " low price, quality assurance" and excellent online sales channels, UNIQLO sees itself as nicely positioned to weather the China's slowing economic growth (Roxburgh, 2016). Meanwhile, serious competition with other apparel retailers is the primary obstacle to the development of UNIQLO. In the view of Zhu (2013), the Chinese market is massive, diverse, and has enormous potential. For the sake of truly thrive in this market, there is a need for foreign brands authentically understand the changing characteristics of Chinese customers, and establish quality products and services to satisfy their requirements. One recommendation is because this report use the SWOT analysis and Marketing Mix to assess UNIQLO's marketing strategies in China, it is worthwhile for further researchers to utilize other marketing tools to evaluate UNIQLO such as Porter's Five Competitive