Situation Analysis
Introduction
Patagonia, Inc. is a Ventura, California-based clothing company, focusing mainly on outdoor clothing while incorporating the aspect of sustainability. Their logo incorporates a stylized version of the mountain Monte Fitz Roy and is easily recognizable to the consumer. Currently the brand is shadowing behind its competitors due to lack of advertising, a skewed target market, and highly priced products. This IMC campaign intends to raise awareness about sustainably produced goods and establish a sense of brand loyalty.
Background
Internal Factors “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” Patagonia's unique mission statement shows what they stand for and proves to competitors that their products will always be high quality without harm to the environment which is very important to the target market that the brand sells to. With a mission statement this bold consumers know that they are buying products from a company that cares which is rare to find because how competitive the market is. What propelled Patagonia into the limelight as a premier outdoor clothing brand was its high quality and sustainably produced line of products. Patagonia was the leading company to pave the way in waste reduction. Patagonia's iconic design and high tech materials allowed for the brand to gain significant market share amongst consumers.
Being a member company
PacSun, or more formally Pacific Sunwear, has been on a mission to “bring the beach to the people” for more than 36 years. Opening their first location in 1980, the company now runs more than 609 stores across the United States and Puerto Rico. Selling an array of casual apparel, accessories and footwear, the store’s products continue to be popular with teens and young adults. Read on to find out more about the retail chain, and check back soon for part two of this list.
The culture for Patagonia is environmental friendly, they have analyzed the human relations behavior to achieve efficiency and high employee moral. Patagonia provides both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to their employees. The intrinsic rewards offered by Patagonia is offering employees to display their passion. The extrinsic rewards are the benefit of having a child care on campus and offering exercise classes during lunch breaks.
Patagonia’s mission statement is; “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solution to the environmental crisis’. They stated in the mission statement that they inspire others. In order to inspire others you need to be motivated and work with passion and love what you do for a leaving. Companies like Patagonia are not very common. If you apply for one of their jobs at the end they end the application with the “Employee conduct” saying; “It is the responsibility of every employee to contribute to a positive work environment through cooperative and professional interactions with co-workers, customers and vendors”. It is very important to work for a positive environment . Everyone around must
Patagonia provide a work environment and values by offering benefits they have been giving to their employees. Most businesses in the world like Patagonia usually consist of many divisions and one of the divisions is employees who play a part in the achievement of organization’s goals and objectives. “The company has run a child care facility at its headquarters since 1985. Here, children remain close to their parents and are considered to be as much a part of the company as its employees” (Ferrell, Hirt, Ferrell, 2009).
Sociocultural forces. Due to increased awareness of production and labor standards, there is a current trend in the United States that focuses on sustainability and shies away from fast fashion. While the majority of consumers continue to shop at our competitors such as Forever21 and H&M, it would benefit the company to stay ahead of these consumer perceptions and cultural shifts. Consumers are increasingly concerned with where products are made and their impact on the environment, so Francesca’s continue to focus on sourcing products from vendors based in the United States.
The North Face has a marketing strategy that enables the company to focus on the athlete, the potential of the athlete, and the athlete using The North Face gear for performance. In comparison, Patagonia focuses on the clothing in which they produce and sell, rather than the company's model. Patagonia places emphasis on fabric technology in their marketing efforts and mainly depicts the clothing on company websites and catalogs. Therefore, this is an area in which both Patagonia and The North Face can improve in order to increase product communication towards target consumers. Both Patagonia and The North Face have exceptional product technologies, which they can use to market their brand and inspire consumers to explore the possibilities of their products. However, The North Face invests
There are many companies who could provide the level of benefits afforded to Patagonia’s employees however not all companies could achieve this level. A company would have to generate enough profits to provide these benefits. To achieve this level of loyalty would require many companies to shift their focus from being purely profit driven, to being more compassionate and caring about its employees, their lives, and the environment. For those companies that could financially afford this level of benefits, loyalty at the Patagonia level would require a major restructuring of its human resource policies and an environment in which employees, at all levels, felt like the company cared. These companies would have to consider these benefits as investments
They have fulltime jobs, families and responsibilities. Their schedules do not always permit them to take off exploring the world. To continue to expand the North Face’s product offerings to these consumers we have come to recommend a new product line, coupled with a new ad campaign. The new product line is a line of casual wear containing sweats, sweatshirts, hoodies, t-shirts, hats and beanies. North Face consumers can rest well knowing that this casual wear will continue to include the high-tech developments The North Face is famous for, as well as the environmentally conscious process used to produce their apparel. Consumers will still be able to identify themselves as having a connection with nature, even if they aren’t able to get out exploring as often as they would like, as well as continuing to show others this message.
Yes, I do believe all companies could benefit from Patagonia's practices. The value Patagonia instills in its employees has been a positive overall for its company. The work environments at every company are different in some form or another, but the creativity Patagonia has used to increase the employee motivation has been astounding. A flexible schedule format at most companies can work as long as the work is getting done in a timely manner. There will always be instances where overtime is needed to reduce the constant work flow, but the approach Patagonia has used to address such situations has made for a positive throughout the company. Walmart is a company that can learn from Patagonia, both of these companies are open seven days a week
Yes, I definitely feel that all companies could benefit from imitating the level of loyalty that Patagonia shows to their employees. The Patagonia company's foundation is composed of quality products, creating a healthy environment, and respecting employee’s values (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Hirt, 2016). These core attributes are what make the Patagonia organization so successful and well liked. The Patagonia work environment allows the employees to feel like they are a part of the team, and their personal lives really matter. This helps the workers stay motivated because they feel their daily contributions add value to the workplace (Rajput, Bali, & Kesharwani, 2013). Many businesses are focused on production and profit. Unlike other business owners,
To what degree can Patagonia's strategy travel to alternative business sectors (i.e., non-retail)? Could it be implemented in the context of a publicly held company? I doubt that Patagonia’s strategy be implemented in the context of a publicly held company. Most publicly held company had for specific goals to make profits. Patagonia’s has its unique business strategy and unique environmental positioning. Its goal was to educate customers and other business by creating a business to improve sustainability. The company has impact many other businesses and had profits by having these holistic ideas of being environmental conscious. When the company tries to expand their products, it almost went out of business. And expansion would have made them
Patagonia is a company that was founded over 35 years ago and employees 1,300 people with annual sales at an estimated $275 million. When the company was first founded it was on the principal of ensuring the business would preserve the environment and still continues this tradition (Ferrell, Hirt, & Ferrell, 2009). Patagonia is a company that recognizes the employees as part of the organization and actively involves them in the vision first presented by the company. The Patagonia Company is a much sought out place of employment with an average of 900 applicants applying for a job that becomes available. The company offers fully paid insurance and provides childcare for the employees and believes family is more important than the job and actively
The company motto is “Live the Dream” and they aim to fulfil their customers need and desire for comfortable clothes and equipment for travel and adventure sport. Kathmandu has described quality and performance as the key to their new design initiatives and they invest substantial resources that focuses on design, quality, technical development, merchandising and supplier management functions. They develop products that are
As a consumer of outdoor clothing for skiing and fishing I prefer to purchase Patagonia products. Since I have become a loyal customer to their products, I now skip some of the steps in the decision making process. However for this essay I will discuss how I have become a loyal customer and how I have moved through the varies stages of decision-making. The process consists of five different stages the consumer moves through, from initial stage of recognizing a need to the final stage of post purchase. Additionally I will discuss the Patagonia marketing strategy in detail and why I think they have a successful strategy.
Marketers can combine a variety of IMC tools to create brand value and avoid potential conflicts (Duncan & Everett, 1993) rather than separate practices to produce manifold messages about the same brand. However, companies can no longer be tied to a specific communication tool such as advertising. In order for consumers to get uniformity message and brand information, Reid (2005) states that marketers should fully apply IMC to capture audiences’ attention and convince them to have high perception of product and brand.