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Marketing Principles Summative Brand Analysis - Urban outfitters

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Brand Analysis: A case study of Urban Outfitters

Urban Outfitters is a unique, creative and cutting-edge retail brand, with more than 130 stores operating across the United States, Canada and Europe. The label offers an eclectic mix of fashion forward, culturally inspired lifestyle merchandise in a variety of unconventional, creative and captivating retail environments, both in store and online, in order to provide a “lifestyle-specific shopping experience for educated, urban-minded individual in the 18 – 30 year old range” (URBN.com). This “upscale homeless” generation of affluent, experimental and inquisitive University students desires a brand that offers a range of authentic, on-trend products with the opportunity to engage in a …show more content…

In the retail environment, Urban Outfitters’ marketing strategy continues to establish an emotional bond with the customer, fulfilling their wants and desires. In store, “every element of the environment is tailored to the aesthetic preferences of [the] target customers” (URBN 10K, 2009; Levy & Weitz, 2012). These retail stores are typically located in large student cities, in high profile areas such as high streets and speciality retail centres to maximise visual publicity (Davies, 1991). URBN’s website explains that “stores are often located in unconventional retail spaces”, for example, a former theatre, bank, stock exchange and the Marble Arch in London (URBN 10K, 2009). Indeed, Steve Briars, Creative Director at Urban Outfitters says that their stores are purposely different to other brands’ stores to position themselves above rival competition, but that also in their interior design, “roughly 50%” of Urban Outfitters stores are different from each other, where the “existing retail space is modified” to provide a unique, bespoke experience (Hackley, 2009; URBN 10K, 2009; retailweek.com, 2013). For example, upon opening, London’s Marble Arch flagship store used visual sight dimension tactics by creating a 1,000sqft square hole in its ground floor, “providing sightlines to what is in the basement” (Bitner, 1992; retailweek.com, 2013). This can be

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