Executive summary
The strategy of this IMC plan is to extend Abercrombie & Fitch target audience, young generation, to the senior segment; the reason by doing this strategy is because there are more potential customer that haven’t been discover yet, so if we can reach to those people, the brand can expand its market and gain more profit. Furthermore, the current image that A&F holds in people mind might be a brand that provides casual luxury products or a brand that is only for young people, but if the brand can have the opportunity to upgrade its image to compare with those high-end brands, the brand value will increase dramatically.
And so by, we must add the element of maturity into our brand image and appeal senior customer to purchase our product. In order to carry out this strategy, this IMC plan will use different marketing communication tools such as product placement, event marketing, advertising and public relationship to accomplish this goal. Eventually, after execute this new strategy for A&F, more and more senior will consider A&F is a brand not just for teens but also for them.
Business situation review
* Brand introduction:
Abercrombie & Fitch, also known as A&F, is a renowned worldwide fashion brand that provides people the sense of causal luxury; it has a variety of product from the shoes that you wear on foot to the hat wear on the top, even fragrance and those exquisite accessories you can buy one at the store as well. Nowadays, A&F has more than 300 branches within the U.S, and several stores around the world.
The reason why A&F is so popular recently is because the style of the product is unique and modern; furthermore, the products also possess high quality as well. Additionally, another reason that A&F has such high popularity is because the affordable price, take the T-shit for instance, the average price is 25 to 30 dollars, if we compare A&F to those famous brand such as Armani, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, we can find out the price that A&F stands is much friendly than the others. * Target market:
The main market of A&F is target at those young adults, from the age 18 to 25, different nationalities, color and characteristic, and those people who love fancy stuff but can’t afford extremely expensive brand. One of the things that A&F attract people is the image that displays the personality of vivid, young but a great sense of mature. Many people might consider a brand that is for young population as premature, the massage that, however, convey from A&F is the sense of fashion and the high-class feeling. Furthermore, due to the affordable price, young adult Can have the ability to buy such a brand that provides the sense of fashion and distinguish themselves among others.
* Competitive
Among the retail-clothing industry, there are various of brand that possess almost the same brand image as A&F, but the reason why A&F still can distinguish from those brand is because the unique brand equity that it stands. Therefore, although there are some attributes that similar with A&F, we still can scrutinize into those nuance and seek out some different between each others, and that’s quite important to execute before doing our own IMC plan. Therefore, those brand listed below are similar with A&F, and all in the same category.
1. H&M
H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB) is an international fashion brand, which comes from Swedish. The target market of H&M is for men, women, teenagers and children, and those people who love fashion products. The feature of this retail-clothing company is to provide fast-produce product that provides consumer the fast pace of trend, it means that the time from the design process to the product been displayed in the store is short. Because of that, consumer can enjoy those fashion products at the very first hand. The company has more than two thousand chain store around the world. Meanwhile, H&M often co-branding with other fashion designer such as MARNI, VERSACE， LANVIN，JIMMY CHOO，ROBERTO CAVALLI, etc. This strategy makes the product more valuable than before, and triggers the collecting enthusiasm among those consumers.
2. ZARA
ZARA is one of the most famous fast-fashion brands in the world now, it owns by Inditex Group, a giant Spanish closing retail company. The company claims it only takes two week from producing a new product to any chain store. One of the marketing strategies that ZARA possess is that they don’t execute any commercial advertisement, instead of doing that; they transfer the capital to set up another branch. The target audience is those people prefer enjoying fast pace fashion product, and want to be distinguishes from other people.
3. Forever 21
Forever 21 is a fashion brand that from the U.S., and it has many branches in major cities around the world. The brand offers trendy clothing and accessories to those people who love exquisite product, especially the female market. The price position that the brand stands is quite friendly compare with those high-end fashion brands such as Armani, Gucci, LV, etc.
4. GAP
GAP is a brand that owned by The Gap, Inc., an American clothing and accessories retailer. The target market that the brand focus at the first place is only on blue jeans and T-shit, but later the brand expands its product category to suit the needs of men, women and children. The personality of GAP is more general than those others brand such as H&F, A&F, Forever 21, and the spectrum of age for using GAP’s product is much broader as well.
* SWOT analysis for A&F
STRENGTHS:
1. Acceptable price
The price strategy is a very essential factor that determines the brand position. One thing that makes A&F so popular is the affordable price; more people can enjoy certain level of luxury or fashion based on a friendly price. Because of the affordable price, fashion is not a privilege hold by those rich people. Take the price of a pair of jeans for instance; compare with a 190 dollars jean that DIESEL sale, the price of the jeans that A&F is only around 70 dollars. Therefore, the friendly price is a factor that can strengthen this brand, and make more people interest in it.
2. Specific market audience
Abercrombie & Fitch creates a very specific target segment that helps the brand to focus on certain consume. The target audience consists of various people, but the most important factor is all about the young generation. Meanwhile, due to the specific marketing segment, the brand can come out with more specific strategy that makes them easier to reach through the consumer.
3. Strong distribution strategy
There are several ways for A&F to distribute its product; the first one is the brick and mortar store, such as those stores inside Macy’s. Second, the consumer can purchase the product online due to its own online store, allowing those busy people to shop instead going to the store. Meanwhile, some times there are some special promotion only carries out on the online store.
4. Unique atmosphere for shopping in store
The atmosphere within the store provides consumer a really pleasant circumstance to shop, moreover, the unique decoration and the aura makes the brand distinguish from the others.
5. Stylish design
The image that shows on A&F’s product is simple but stylish. However, maybe there are fewer picture or character on the product, but the design that shows on all product convey a sense of modern and fashion, and that’s the reason so many people get appeal on this amazing brand.
WEAKNESS:
1. Few branch chain store in the Asia and Europe market The number of the chain store within Asia and Europe market is way below the number in the U.S. First of all, during the past ten years, the closing market in Asia has growing extremely, and due to A&F is an international fashion brand, the distribution strategy should emphasize on this booming area more in order to generate more profit and enhance the brand awareness and loyalty. Furthermore, when talk to fashion; the first place that pops out in your mind will definitely be Europe, such as London, Milan, Paris, etc. Thus, in order to strengthen A&F fashion image, letting more people aware of this brand is necessary.
2. Provoking image
In order to make the advertisement more attractable; A&F usually use the idea of sex to appeal consumer. Lots of advertisement or picture imply some kind of sexual implication that some times makes people feel unpleasant especially those conservative.
3. Untruthful information via on-line advertising
When A&F is doing some kind of promotion via the on-line store, some time the information is not clear and not congruent with the information that they promoted in the brick and mortar store.
4. Similar design concept with the competitor
Some time is a little bit hard to distinguish A&F’s product from those competitor, not because the design but also the attributes of the brans parity, especially when the target audience is similar with each other THREATS:
1. Losing senior market
Because the target market that A&F holds is focus on the young generation, therefore, senior might not consider A&F as the brand when they want to shop for garment. 2. Generate negative brand image
The advertisement that A&F usually conduct is by using sexual appeals to attract people, or using macho male or sexy female to enamor consumer. This, however, tactic might creates some negative feeling among the brand, the consumer; especially those parents might deems A&F as a bran which is not ethical.
3. Losing market share due to brand parity
There are several brands that possess similar product or design with A&F. Therefore, how to distinguish each other will be the most important things that the brand needs to take into consider. Otherwise, the consumer can’t recognize the difference between A&F and the others.
4. Losing market share due to few chain store oversea
There are over 300 stores within the U.S, but just couple branches in the international market. In comparison with A&F, many brand expand their chain store all over the world, letting more people enjoy the pleasure of shopping their products, such as H&M, ZARA, GAP, etc. The sake of setting branches around the world is not just generate company’s revenue but also build up brand awareness in people’s mind, forcing people to familiar with the brand image and strengthen the brand loyalty.
OPPORTUNITIES:
There are many possible opportunities that A&F can deal with, and each opportunity can set up different positive consequence that will provides somewhat benefit to A&F and give the brand various direction to manage their strategy and fulfill the mission they possess such as adding the “Green” concept to the product, offer free modification among all pants, enhance the on-line system that gives more access for customer to shop or some special event like Issuing limited products. However, within this IMC plan for Abercrombie & Fitch, the main idea that I want to express the most is the target market exist some certain possibility to generate more profit or brand awareness by playing more attention on those seniors.
Based upon this idea, there are several opportunities that we can follow: 1. Make A&F more suitable to senior by redesign the products The reason that redesign the product can appeal more senior customer is due to the style or graphic that display on the product might be deemed premature by those senior. Therefore, if the brand can place more effort on designing the right style senior likes, the brand can expand its target market to a higher level. 2. Change the stereotype that A&F is a brand for young generation In the mind of people who love fashion product, A&F always be considered as a brand for young people, not because the product itself, but also the image that the commercial present to the public. Thus, A&F should dedicate more on the image, the image that convey more maturity. As a result, it will attract more senior customer to purchase A&F’s product.
3. Positioning A&F as a brand to senior
Abercrombie & Fitch can be the brand that provides not just the casual feeling but also the high level of exquisite perception. Expanding the product category to more mature product might be a way to strengthen the image of maturity. Meanwhile, A&F can make itself be seemed as the level of those high level fashion brand such as Gucci, LV, PRADA, etc. This move will give the massage to the consumer that A&F can also suit the need of their desire for the product that is fashion and also possess the personality of mature.
Marketing objective
According to the 2010 Form 10-k, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the revenue of A&F is $ 3.469 billion, and it’s getting better compare with those previous years. In order to, however, make the company generate more profit and brand loyalty, we must scrutinize into those potential opportunities and carry out the best one, therefore, the marketing objective within this IMC plan is that Abercrombie & Fitch will increase the revenue and develop more potential customer from expand the target market which is from the young generation to those senior consumer, by three years later. As we know, the target customer for A&F is focus on those young generations, especially from the age 18 to 25. Thus, by extending the target audience, A&F can attract more potential customer and gain more profit.
1. Product
Within this IMC plan, we are not selling any particular products or item but rather the brand or any products that associated with A&F. The idea of this plan is to expand the age segment in order to attract more senior customer than before. Therefore, how to make the products appealed to those older customers is the concept that me need to take into account, in addition, putting more mature element in the design process will give the final product a sense of maturity and a bit more fashion. Thus, the marketing objective at this part will be adding more mature flavor to the product and strengthen the product image to a high level that indicate the sense of maturity. After the fulfillment of this objective, Abercrombie & Fitch will not just the brand only focus on young people but also justify the reason why the brand suit the senior as well.
2. Price
Sometimes the price is the hardest part to decide in the process of setting objectives. Different brand price range from cheap to outrageous high, one of the reason that why A&F is so popular is due to the affordable price, the price that most of the people can afford it. However, affordable price is not equal with the normal quality, adding value to the price, make the price value beyond the price itself. There is several ways to accomplish this concept such as providing a higher quality of customer service in order to enhance the relationship between both sides, or strengthen the brand image by making people believe A&F is a brand that provides high quality merchandise. Eventually, the goal is to convince consumer the value of the price is way beyond the actual one.
3. Place
Most of the time when shopping in the store, it’s obviously that the majority of customers are teenager, and one of the reason might be the environment is designed to attract the target market (young people), therefore, all the decoration or the aura inside the store is more like a young generation style, such as the picture on the wall usually are those macho men and sexy female; the perfume inside the store is so strong that you can smell it after you leave the store and the light is a little bit gloomy that some time make people feel dizzy. As a result, all the reason that I mentioned above might be the causes that hesitate senior to shop in the store. Therefore, the marketing object of this part is to create a better and comfortable environment for senior. Meanwhile, it’s important not just to provide a suitable circumstance to shop but also an understandable way to reach through.
4. Promotion
One of the problem that we need to solve with the promotion is to break through the generation gap, this gap might seems nothing seemingly, but it sure does matter the way that the promotion take place. The reason that I mention it is because the way senior see through the promotion process is totally different than young people, therefore, the marketing objective is to concentrate on the meaning of the promotion, providing information that will attract senior customer to the store and also form the knowledge that A&F is a brand not just for kids but also for adult. As a result, by using the proper promotion, A&F can attract more people to generate more reputation, and boost the revenue as well.
The central strategic idea
Among those fashion brands, A&F is the one that focus on the casual luxury segment, many people willing to buy its product due to the quality product and the fashion brand image, because of that, A&F become one of the most popular apparel brand among the world nowadays. However, when talking about the position that A&F stands, most of the people will consider A&F as a brand that only suit for young people, most of the product that display in the store are hoody, T-shirt or jeans, those product usually deem as for children, but that is only the stereotype among all of us, if A&F can attract more people that is older to purchase the product, the image will eventually change, and the brand will be widely consider as a mature brand such as Ralph Lauran, Tommy or Calvin Klein. As far as I’m concerned, the reason why I think expand the target market from young people to senior is a proper strategy for Abercrombie & Fitch is because there still exist a great amount of potential customer that can bring a huge profit to A&F; having a bunch of young loyalty customer is not enough, the best way to build up a phenomenal reputation is to provide service to both junior and senior, make the brand broadly acceptable.
Furthermore, when talk to those renowned brands such as LV, Gucci, Armani, we won’t consider them as a premature brand or a bran that is only suit for young generation or some certain group but a brand that provides high quality of exquisite product. The purpose of this strategic idea is not putting Abercrombie & Fitch at the same position as those fashion brands that I mentioned above. The reason of this strategy is to elevate the brand to a higher level that provide the mature feeling that can attract senior customer, meanwhile, when more and more senior customer enjoy A&F’s products, the brand image will become more solid and convince people that A&F is a brand that not only suit for teens but also for adults.
However, before starting this strategic idea, there are several thing that we need to reconsider, such as the communication situation, how’s the current communication channel looks like? What’s the tactic that Abercrombie & Fitch utilized to reach through customer? Is the current tactic suit for our new customer? Those questions are the one we need to elaborated, and come out with a more specific plan that can appeal more people, especially senior, to purchase our product. Furthermore, we have to redefine our customer, make sure me know the attributes of their shopping behavior or even the style that those senior prefer, this effort will give us the knowledge to know our customer deeper and better.
Communication situation analysis
According to this strategic plan for Abercrombie &Fitch, the main problem for senior to shop for A&F’s product is the wrong cognition that the brand is only suit for young people, and because of this reason, most of the senior will rather choice other brand that will provides them the sense of maturity and possess the fashion feeling at the same time. Therefore, based on this obstacle, we need to convey the right information to the right person. Thus, the information must be via the right channel and the massage must be tailor to match what seniors needs. Nowadays, most of the information exposed through different media, and it’s easy for people to see.
However, there is no such a No.1 option, different media has its own function, it can’t just apply to every one’s need. For A&F, we can grab the message from various ways, such as the commercial lunched on the TV, the picture issued inside the magazines, the image display on the giant billboard, the store that we shop on-line or even the massage within the store. Those channels all can make a very well impression on us; therefore, the detail inside those channels will be the key factor to change people’s attitude. Take the magazine for example, in order to appeal senior customer, the picture inside the magazine can’t just use young people as model, it has to show some grownup that is mature enough to bring out the specific feeling.
Target audience analysis
When speak to Abercrombie & Fitch, the first image or feeling that pop out consumers’ mind is the perception of vitality and youth, thus, the target audience for A&F is focus on those young generations from the age18 to 25. Meanwhile, except the age, there are several attributes that possessed by those people, such as the tendency of collecting fashion products, or owning the ability to purchase fashion items to make themselves looks better. However, based upon the new marketing strategy, the final goal is to extend the age segment and bring more senior customer to this market, therefore, the new target audience among this marketing plan is the age from 30 to 50 and possess the following characteristics: 1. Self-Independent on the economic status
Generally speaking, most of the young customers can’t afford to purchase a great amount of products at the same time because they are not self-independent on the economic status; they still rely on parents’ income to supply their daily cost, and subject to parents’ order. However, if the target audience is focus on those seniors who have a greater power of consumption than those youth, they can purchase more products and make the purchase decision by their own. Moreover, due to this customer characteristic, there will be more consumption either inside the store or the on-line purchase, and the revenue will have a sharp increase as well.
2. Live in the urban area
There are several good parts that benefits the customer that live in the urban area, the first one is the people can have more access to purchase A&F’s product. Although the Internet is so popular now, we can even purchase the product at the on-line store just for a click, but we still can’t have the virtual contact with the products. For customers, sometime is better for them to see the product by itself and give the product a try to make sure whether the item fits the person or not.
Furthermore, most of the population lives in the urban area, and the majority of A&F’s store locates at the central of the city. Therefore, the people lives in the city can have more opportunity and convenience to reach its products. Second, the latest trend and fashion info often starts from the urban area; the people lives inside the city can gain the first-hand information about the latest fashion trend. 3. Care about personal image
No matter male or female, the target audience must have somewhat narcissism in her or his personality. They believe that wearing good-looking cloth and the right brand can creates the sense of confidence, and that’s the reason why they choice A&F to be the brand they want.
4. Interesting in the fashion domain
People who love fashion tend to pay more focus on the apparel industry, because there is a strong connection between each other. Every time there is a new product release or a product co-branding with a famous designer, the person will follow the news and try to participate in the event, and there’s a high percentage that the person will purchase the product.
Positioning strategy analysis
Positioning Statement:
Among all the people from age 30 to 50, who love fashion products and enjoy wearing casual luxury apparel (Target audience) Abercrombie & Fitch (Product/Service name) Is one of the most famous causal-luxury apparel brands in the fashion industry (Competitive set) That performs confidence, vitality and uniqueness to customer (Benefits proposition) Because of the high quality product and the stylish design (Product support) 1. Target audience
In the positioning statement, the target audience is not just for those young people but also focus more on the senior market. Based on the Strategic idea of this IMC plan, the perfect age group is from 30 to 50, because they possess several preponderance such as having a job and a more stable income than those young people, thus, they have more opportunity to purchase A&F’s products. Moreover, seniors usually have a better taste on closing than juniors, therefore, if A&F can make those seniors become its loyalty customer, it can transfer the image that the brand is not just for young people but also for those mature adults.
2. Product/Service name
According to this IMC plan, there are no specific products that the company wants to promote or use as a strategy to boost the sale. Our mission is to promote Abercrombie &Fitch ‘s name and appeal senior customer to use our product. Therefore, the goal of this plan is to redress the image and promote the concept that the bran is more likely for senior.
3. Competitive set
For Abercrombie & Fitch, our competitive set is not just in the apparel business, but also the whole fashion industry. The products for A&F are miscellaneous, so that’s the reason why A&F can compete with different kinds of fashion brands. Furthermore, because the brand has already well known by the public, so they don’t have to put extra effort on creating brand awareness.
4. Benefits proposition
The people who wear A&F cloth or use any of its products can feel a sense of fashion and confidence due to its unique position in the market. The feeling that elicit from the product can be somewhat energetic and mature, and that’s the feeling, which appeal to most of the consumer to purchase its product. Meanwhile, based on the new strategy, we want customers to have a different experience than before by means of a much mature image that can persuade senior to get involve in it.
5. Product support
The reason why A&F is so popular around the word is because the stylish design and the unique image that convey to the world. Those apparels or products that design by A&F are usually simple but modern; there is no fancy figure or glary color on it. Therefore, the brand is easy to distinguished from the other competitors, and also that’s the reason why I think the strategy to expand the age segment to a higher level is feasible, because usually the more simple trait that the product possess, the more easy for the product to be considered mature, and that’s the thing our new potential customer wants.
Communication objectives and strategies
Although there are various brands within the fashion industry, different people choice the brand that suit them the most, sometime is based on status, some time is based on personal taste; however, the reason why so many people, especially teenagers, appealed by A&F is owing to its stylish design and vigorous image. However, the problem of this IMC plan is how to get seniors involve in this brand and turn them to up hold A&F’s products. Thus, the communication object is to send the massage to the target audience and boost the revenue by convincing people that the brand is not just for teens but also will be the best choice for seniors to purchase when they need closing.
In order to accomplish the communication objective, there are several strategies that listed below: 1. To create a suitable environment for senior to visit A&F stores In order to fulfill this strategy, we must conduct some research to realize what’s the key element that triggers senior to shop and what’s the condition that make them feel comfortable while they doing purchase. The reason for doing this strategy is because the current environment is designed to attract young consumer, therefore, in order to attract senior customer, the company must figure out the best shopping environment to appeal them to come.
2. Promote the idea that Abercrombie & Fitch is a brand for senior Refresh the original image of A&F and put the sense of maturity into the brand whereby senior feels like this special brand is for them. In order to execute this strategy, we must use different marketing tools and various mediums to accomplish this mission. More details will be illustrated in the last part of this IMC plan. 3. Move Abercrombie & Fitch’s image up to those high-end fashion brand such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauran. The purpose of this strategy is to let people build the connection for A&F to those high-end brands in order to increase the brand value. By strengthen the brand value, more people, especially senior, will consider A&F as a phenomenal brand to purchase.
Program of tactics and executions
With regard to this IMC plan, there are various tools to accomplish this mission; different tactic has its own advantage so we need to slice them together then maximize the great amount of benefit from it. There are so many disciplines such as advertising, personal selling, PR, etc. Therefore, sometimes we just can’t use them all; we have to select some of the most effective ways to conduct the strategy that we came out with. And so by, according to this plan, several tactics will be elaborated in the following paragraph:
1. Product placement
The reason why this alternative marketing tactic is a great choice for this strategy is because by using this method, not just the product of A &F can expose to the customer but also the image. When the products display inside a movie or commercial, the audience will have a chance to see and have the perception of it. Meanwhile, this tactic has been so popular for quite a long time and most of the company considers this tactic as a great ways to promote their brand or product, so the potential influence on customer is quite huge. Therefore, based on our strategy, we will expose our product or our brand image to the public, but we need to place it in the right place and person. We will execute our plan by putting A&F’s products or logo on senior who take part in the movie or commercial, the reason why we are doing this is because we want the customer who is in front of the TV or computer to deem the brand is looking good on those people.
Generally, we seldom saw A & F’s product wearing on senior among any program, so that’s the notion we want to convey to people. Furthermore, in order to illustrate more specifically, we will choice certain people or program to expose our brand image, take the actor for instance, when choosing the people to wear our product, we might consider senior more than young guys, the actor such as Gorge Clooney or Sarah Jessica Parker will be the best candidate for translate the new image of maturity to people. In addition, we must pick the right movie or TV program to place our brand into it, because some time if the movie or program is for teens or children, the purpose of this action will be not successfully accomplished.
2. Advertising
There are various ways in advertising, each of one has it own advantage, however, in this case, there will be only few channel that appropriate to accomplish this goal, such as: * Television In nowadays, people can get a slew of information from TV, and it is also the best way to create awareness. According to this channel, the best way to convey the information that the brans is not only suit for young people but also adults as well is to launch a commercial that carry the image of senior wearing A &F product and shows how confidence they can be just because the brand can bring the sense of fashion and maturity. When people, especially seniors, see the commercial frequently, they will gradually change the original brand image in their mind.
* Magazine
There are tons of different magazine in the field now and it has possess several advantage such as high marketing segment, longer attention to ads, high color quality, etc. We, however, can’t put our advertisement in all of them, we must be specific, choosing the right one that can reach the right person, therefore, according to the strategy, the target magazine will definitely be those fashion one such as Elle, Ebony, Vogue, People and FHM. Furthermore, in order to promote the perception of mature and professional, those famous magazine such as TIME, Economist, ADWEEK will also be taken into consider. Take TIME for example; in order to give the audience an explicit impression, we might consider buying a whole page for our ad, thus, once the reader start to read, the image of our brand will unfold in front of them.
* Outdoor
The place that can display the ads are not just in the TV or magazine, there are many places we can use in the public area to show our brand image and product advertisement, such as the giant billboard out side, the bus stop next to your house, even on the public transportation can have a space to make advertising. Therefore, we will display our brand image in those places that people gather the most; make sure our exposure can reach people as much as possible. To make this tactic more specific, A &F will runs this method by putting out senior celebrity image such as Gorge Clooney; the image of him will mostly convince people that A&F is a brand that fits on senior and it looks good as well.
3. Public Relations
In the tactic of PR, our goal is to build the right image we want, and let people feel positive that this new brand image is positive. Therefore, by using all the tools of PR such as the news release, annual report, news conference etc. we want people to know the brand is extending its image to a higher level, and will provides customer a better feeling that will appeals to those senior customer. To execute this strategy by using PR, we might have to combine different tactic to maximize the outcome. For instance, in order to spread the new image out, we might need to set up some event or co-branding with the others.
And so by, we might need to set up a news conference or launch a press release to run our story to the public. In addition, one of the functions of PR is to create positive image and strengthen company’s reputation, so by sponsoring special event such as the Oscar ceremony, LPG golf tour and the Grand slam series; the image of A&F will be seen not just a brand that provides causal luxury apparel, but also a brand that possess high-end perception and the sense of maturity. Furthermore, in order to let people understand the reason why the company comes up with this idea, and to convince senior to use its product; the company can release some article that is relevant to this topic, getting people familiar with the new idea.
4. Celebrity Endorsement
By using well-known people to promote its product can make the brand image more clear and gain more attention. In order to make our brand shine and bright among the public, the company is imperative to choose the right person for endorse its product, several condition such as the person need to have a positive image that well accepted by the public, the person’s personality needs to match with the brand or the product; otherwise, people will think the brand has no connection with the person, and that will make the credibility decline. So, in order to fulfill the condition and match the strategy we set up, we will invite celebrity such as Gorge Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Robert Downey Jr. to be our spokesman; and by using their mature charisma, more people will convert their first image of A&F and turn in to the perception as the strategy we wanted.
5. Event marketing
In order to promote the strategy and boost the sale, we can create several events to accomplish this goal; more detail will be elaborated in the following paragraph:
* The “A” membership
To create loyalty customer and reward them for their purchase, we will conduct a membership program that give them the benefit as a return. The program will run first with applying our membership card and join the A&F club; after applying, every time when they purchase a certain amount of money, they can get some credit, and after collecting enough credit, the person can enjoy a perpetual 30% discount on every purchase afterward. Moreover, the person who gets a perpetual membership can receive a 100 dollars gift card on his or her every birthday. * The “ I want to fly fashion” event
In order to strengthen the function of our perpetual membership, we will co-brand with United Airline and American Express; every time when you take a flight with United Airline or purchase product from A&F by using American Express, the person can receive bonus from it, and can use the bonus to purchase flight ticket or products within A &F store.
Conclusion
Nowadays, Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the most famous fashion brand in the world, the brand has it own unique image and special value, the trend of buying its product is not just happen in the State but also around the world. However, besides the current situation, the company has more opportunity to enhance its brand equity by expanding the customer segment to a higher level. In order to make the brand more accepted by senior, we must create another image that can appeal to them, make them feel the brand is not just for cool teenagers but also for mature adults. Therefore, the strategy of extending target customer to the senior segment can bring more profit to the company and form a new brand image, providing customer another high- end brand to shop and make them feel special.