overview of a Luxury Fashion Brand

The company’s product mix is simple. They offer a wide variety of junior, plus, men’s, boy’s and infant apparel and low prices. The company also offers accessories, shoes, handbags, and home décor to differentiate itself in the market.

All the activities and strategies involved in getting the desired clothing and fashion industry marketing messages to the intended target markets are possible through communications. The global clothing industry has been handling a tough consumer market following the presence of established and competitive fashion rivalry (Smith and Taylor 2004, p. 7). Harvey Nichols has tried to cope with the changing consumer tides through introducing efficient marketing strategies to draw the attention of its consumers.

This expansion demonstrates how the luxury industry is now run by massive corporations whose focus is only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and most importantly, PROFITS! With growth and expansion, has come a decrease in quality and rarity. The luxury garments produced are mostly not handmade but are even outsourced to large factories in places such as China and Turkey. Also, to meet quarterly turnover projections, “designers churn(ed) out increasingly trendy collections of clothes, handbags, and shoes.” (Thomas, Pg. 246) With hundreds of new stores around the globe the surplus of designer labeled merchandise is immense hence, the proliferation of outlet malls.

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.

The author who inspired the topic of this thesis is Dana Thomas. As a fashion writer, Dana Thomas, has analyzed the changes in luxury fashion business. Thomas has been writing about fashion for the past twenty-five years in various journals such as Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Financial Times, and more. Dana Thomas’ two books, Deluxe and Gods and Kings, are the inspiration for this thesis. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre goes into great detail the secrets of the leading luxury industry brands, namely Prada, Gucci and Burberry, to showcase the “New Luxury” of today and how “luxury lost its luster” by featuring the manufacturing and logistical processes. Thomas exposes that many luxury brands use the same Asian factories that mass-market retailers employ, which raises questions concerning quality and craftsmanship for luxury brands.

In the luxury goods industry, the rapid development has brought the market more brands and the latest design products. Industry matures has caused the accelerated development of a wide range of luxury goods (Chiari, 2009). However, one thing was constant, no matter how much increased production costs, the large luxury brand of origin will not be transfer. Long cultural history is an integral part of the luxury brand, and the origin of products have also brought a certain cultural value for luxury goods (Heine, 2012).Especially for Asian consumers, it seems that in the far west, craft superb tailoring and rich cultural history of the western area are the pursue of Chinese consumers (Sombart, 2001).Louis Vuitton 's president has said that (2013), “when customers buy our products, they expect Western quality. The mystery of the origin of our brand is closely linked with our brand”. Although with the close of trade, many luxury goods in the production and sales process will cooperation with other country’s companies, the final product definitely launch in the country of origin. Gucci is a legendary brand in Florence (Italy), and it will also strictly control the production done in Tuscany (Italy), to ensure pure and high-quality products (Gucci, 2015). Therefore, a regional feature has brought an intangible value and more local cultural characteristics to the luxury goods.

In cash of fashion industry teen generation is the vital model which companies should hit. The loyal customer is ready to spend more money for a product of his liked brand if require so the company has to take care of its brand image and the customers likings and preferences. The customer loyalty program creates emotional bonding between the company and consumer which enhances the brand name and growth of the company. It builds long term customer relationship. This results in selective shopping and consumer becomes more careful. Gucci should concentrate on increasing its fashion brand and enhance its fashion market. Through their creative strategies the retailers have learn to manage these attitude. In fashion business, the customer loyalty program along with creativity proves to be the main basic factor for generating more revenue and enhance growth. The marketing strategies of Gucci are to incorporate controversial issues in order to enhance brand imagery. This creates a mark on overall experience and attracts the consumer. Technology is the main source for entertainment and connection between producer and consumer. Some of such technologies are ecommerce, television, internet, word of mouth through internet where companies can make brand promotions. The promotions of brand can also done through social network sites like Facebook, twitter

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

According to a study conducted by Brain & Company, the number of luxury consumers has increased dramatically from 90 million to 330 million over the past 20 years(Arpizio, no date). Since Roman Times, people have been using luxury items and they have become more prestigious and valuable over time than they actually are due to their unique and different marketing and advertisements. The extraordinary marketing methods of selling luxury brands include making the products scarce, touching consumers’emotions, using different kinds of advertising medium, having celebrities endorse their products, employing famous designers, and etc. Although those are all unique advertising strategies of luxury brands which are different from regular brands, the

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

The company is engaged in the design and manufacture or sourcing of luxury accessories, clothing and footwear.

Luxury is very selective and exclusive which there is almost the only brand in its product category. The sense of being sophisticated and having a good taste are based on this definition. The unique attribute of each product category belongs to one brand or it is called “the icon”. Only one brand specializes in one product category, for example, Brioni for men’s suits, Hermès for leather bags, Valentino for women‟s dress, and Guerlain for cosmetics.

Brand consultant and strategist Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults loftily terms it "nichevertise vs massvertise". According to him the luxury brands are not for mass consumption and shouldn 't be mass advertised. The social circuit gives them a fresh channel to reach out to their target audience without any noise. "The socialite model of marketing targets the guest lists minus the hard sell," he says.

In this introduction, the author would like to present an overview of research background, research aim and objective of proposal. Moreover, the literature review, methodology, scope of research has present in a middle part. Then, the last part shows research plan, and also ethical in research are discussed.

It clearly says that affordability, quality, availability, celebrity, self-satisfaction, image and social status are the key drivers to the migration of consumers to Luxury brands from value middle tier branded goods. It confirms the view that brand perception and purchase value is, apart from socially oriented motives of buying to impress others also affected by financial, functional, and individual aspects. It would seem that the dimensions presented in this paper are appropriate variables for segmenting the market for branded items.