Blue Duck Essay Example for Free

Blue Duck Essay This report is made on the objective of executing a strategic analysis and evaluation of Blue Duck Shearling in order to be able to answer the following problem statement: â€Å"How could Blue Duck increase their consumer based brand equity (CBBE) by improving their social media appearance?† In order to answer the question an assessment of Blue Duck’s marketing strategy and implementation of the strategy was carried through. It focused on the Blue Duck’s social media marketing strategy and it led to giving suggestions how to improve their current approach with the aim of improving Blue Duck’s consumer based brand equity. In order to find out the industry leading trends in Social Media Marketing there were examined reports and statistics about the leading tendencies and developments in social media marketing. Blue Duck is a premium high-end shearling outerwear manufacturer. They design, manufacture and distribute high quality shearling and fur-trimmed and fur-lined coats in addition accessories for men and women. All the coats are produced in their New York based showroom in the fashion district. The analysis of the company’s current situation was carried through examination of Blue Duck’s positioning strategy. It included forming a perceptual map about Blue Duck and its competitors as well analyzing the competitors’ online appearances. The evaluation showed that the main advantage of Blue Duck is to carry on improving and implementing their social media strategy, as the competitors seems to lack in terms of social media marketing. As well there was carried out a comparison by analyzing the points of parity and points of difference concerning the competitors. The examination showed that compared with the main competitors Blue Duck lacks trendiness. Nevertheless Blue Duck seemed to have the strongest social media marketing strategy that they could benefit from. In addition, to analyze the company’s strengths and weaknesses, learn the growth possibilities and external threats there was carried out a SWOT analysis. It revealed that the main assets of the company are the quality and long experience in the shearling industry; still their weakness is the limited distribution channels. As they are strongly dependent on the weather, the global warming and climate change might affect their business as an external threat for the company. In order to assess Blue Duck’s current marketing strategy there is examined the Integrated Marketing Communication practices carried out by the company. As well there is analyzed the company’s current social media marketing strategy in particular. According to the findings Blue Duck concentrates on online marketing and in addition to that they do a bit of print advertisement. Lately Blue Duck has been focusing on the social media marketing, as it is one of the fastest developing forms of marketing. The main focus of Blue Duck’s social media activities is to increase brand awareness and the goal is to build online audience and a strong online community. Thus far they have slowly been moving towards their goal and objectives. Still they could benefit from some adjustments in their strategy to get faster results. To evaluate the current customer based brand equity there were carried out interviews with 3 people from the target group. Based on the answers there was formed a CBBE pyramid. It appeared that the overall customer perception matches brand’s own positioning statement, though 2 out of 3 interviewees noted that Blue Duck lacks trendiness. The recommendations for the future to Blue Duck would be to keep on developing their social media strategy and making adjustments to it according to the needs. Still as the brand image is inclined to be outdated and old fashioned they should consider improving their design aesthetics and producing trendier designs as well. Fruthermore Blue Duck should pay more attention to Pinterest as it is a growing platform. In addition Blue Duck should consider inserting a product reviewing and rating to tool to their website as it might appeal for their target group. Following these suggestions Blue Duck will increase their customer based brand equity and will succeed in building a stronger online community. Introduction The aim of this report is to examine an American shearling outerwear manufacturer Blue Duck’s online appearance and give suggestions for their social media marketing strategy. Blue Duck is a small company that serves the needs of United States shearling market. It is one of the main manufacturers of luxury shearling in the US. As their core product is shearling outerwear the active business season for them is from October till March the following year. During the summer season they mainly deal with the product development and design of the next season’s collection. As the winter of 2011 and 2012 was rather warm, the business suffered and the sales volume declined. In the summer of 2012 Blue Duck decided to develop a new marketing plan and they hired branding agency Art Zulu to help building a social media marketing strategy. The main aim of the new approach was to increase brand awareness and build a strong online community. This report will be assessing and analyzing the implementation of the strategy and in the end gives suggestions according to the findings. Problem Statement To assess the possibilities of increased brand awareness following problem was formulated: How could Blue Duck increase their customer based brand equity (CBBE) by improving their social media appearance? To analyze the social media marketing trends in fashion industry the following sub-question was formed. 1.What are the leading social media trends in the USA fashion industry? Secondly to assess the company’s current situation and their strongest assets to rely on while building the social media presence following sub-question came up: 2.What are the key assets of the Blue Duck’s present customer based brand equity that the company should rely on while building social media presence? In addition to propose the strategy and implementation for Blue Duck following sub-question was formed: 3.What strategy should Blue Duck use in order to build a strong on-line presence? Finally, to find out which social media platforms and technologies to use in order to implement the strategy the following sub-question was formed: 4.What technologies and social media platforms should Blue Duck use in order to target their potential customers? Delimitation Market This report will analyze the social media marketing trends and the possibilities for Blue Duck to improve their customer based brand equity on their current target market. As well the report will be focusing on how Blue Duck could expand their target group and appeal to a younger market segment and give suggestions based on the research and analysis of the company’s current brand equity. Due to lack of consumer primary consumer data the CBBE matrix will not be as objective as it could be. Geographical Area As Blue Duck operates locally the report will be based on the United States market, with a special focus on New York area. Time Frame The report will be based on the on going financial year of 2012 as Blue Duck is going through development of new branding and marketing strategies. Finance The report will not be focusing on marketing budget and the financial situation of the company. Methodology This report will be based on primary and secondary research method. The primary data will be based on the information acquired directly from Blue Duck. To find out the latest social media marketing trends the report will be analyzing several marketing industry reports about the current tendencies. To analyze Blue Duck’s current situation and strategies and find the possibilities for improvements there will be used different branding and marketing analyzing methods such as CBBE matrix, PoDs/PoPs, SWOT and perceptual mapping. To evaluate Blue Duck’s customer based brand equity there will be interviewed 2-3 subjects from the company’s target group in order to get a little overview of the consumers’ perspective concerning Blue Duck. Due to the few examinees interviewed the results and consumer perception of the brand is rather subjective, still it gives a little impression about the brand equity. In the end based on the findings of the study the report will give suggestions and recommendations about Blue Duck’s social media strategy by following Bernoff’s four-step social strategy called the POST method. It will start with concluding the targeted PEOPLE’s social activities. Then it will evaluate the OBJECTIVES to decide what Blue Duck wants to accomplish. That will follow to the STRATEGY – the planning of how the relationship with the customer will change. To sum up the report will come up with the TECHNOLOGIES that Blue Duck should use in order to implement its strategy. (Bernoff Li, 2008) Social Media Trends Today companies are confronted with the raising influence of new communication channels. It is completely transforming the marketing field, as it has existed for 100 years now. The traditional ways of marketing are increasingly influenced and integrated with social media. Nevertheless mainstream medias will still be vital, but will be strongly influenced by the newcomers. (Gillin 2008) Top Social Media Marketers note that Social Media Marketing is disappearing in the means of a separate media. That implies that Social Media Marketing is becoming one of the marketing tools and it will not be a separate activity, but an integral part of marketing. (Dreamgrow 2012) In the last decade and in particular the last 4 years there has been radical changes how people consume and search for information. A part from getting the information from the direct source such as traditional institutions like corporations, people have started using technologies to get things they need from each other (Bernoff Li 2008). It is called the Groundswell. This trend can be very beneficial for the companies, if they set their strategies right, or it can be great threat for a company’s image if the Groundswell movement is disregarded. Following will point out the main trends that will affect Blue Duck and the fashion industry in general in the United States. Rise of Social Media Marketing In a survey of 700 marketers, Wildfire App discovered that nearly all marketers find value in Social Media Marketing and over 75% of them were planning to increase their Social Media Marketing budget. The main benefits noted by the marketers were the increased brand awareness and direct interaction with the customers. Furthermore Social Media Marketing efforts seemed to increase sales and reduce marketing spending. More businesses are investing in Social Media. According to Borrell Associates, small- and medium-sized businesses in USA doubled their social media advertising budgets in 2012. State of Social Media Marketing study by Awareness Networks found that 70% of businesses planned to expand their presents on social media platforms. (Mershon, 2012) Social Media as a Customer Service Tool For the past ten years companies have been directing their clients to their websites for supporting information instead of having them call to the expensive support line. As one part of the groundswell, companies can benefit from using their Social Media platforms for offering customer support. By doing that they build loyalty and might cut costs on customer support activities such as support calls. Today customers are able to contact the company in real time through social media networks. When a person can easily interact with the company on Facebook for example, it increases trust. People can rely on the company. Furthermore customers get help from each other as well by commenting each other’s posts and communicating online. This will save a lot on company’s customer support expenses if the customers are able to help themselves. On top it will facilitate the communication for the customers. (Bernoff Li, 2008) Social Sales As users have access to unlimited amounts of information online, consumers identify trust as a key factor for finding valuable solutions. Consumers will not even enter the purchase funnel if certain trust elements are not triggered (About.com, 2012). People are used to getting recommendations from their friends and family, but now social media integration will allow customers to get real user reviews and ratings about products straight on the product pages. People will be more encouraged to purchase a product if it has positive reviews from customers who already purchased it. At the same time brands have to be careful and make the reviewing process as transparent as possible by revealing negative reviews as well to make it trustworthy. In that way people get the most objective overviews. A study has shown that reviews seem to build more trust than â€Å"likes†. 50% of the consumer say that a brand having a lot of good reviews and a few negative ones adds trust, at the same time only 26% of consumers find that having a lot of â€Å"likes† adds trust. Consumers seem to get confused about the origin of â€Å"likes† so they prefer reviews from people who have already purchased the product (About.com, 2012). Social Media ROI While there has been a lot of controversy about Social Media ROI and if it could be measured, marketers seem to start evaluating the importance of measuring the outcome of their social media efforts. However less than half of the businesses measure their results. Lack of monitoring might lead to waste of investment as companies are increasing their spending on social media. This again will be indicated by the poor ROI. By monitoring the results it makes it easier to adjust the strategy and change over to more efficient ways of social media marketing. Pinterest as an Ecommerce Site Lately the new Internet bookmarking site Pinterest has exploded. Based on industry reports, Pinterest is becoming the most significant driver of social traffic to eCommerce sites, even outperforming the more mature social media giants as Twitter and Facebook. Lately many online retailers are integrating Pinterest to their product pages. In that way the consumer is able to pin the things they like on their inspirational boards. Amazon has added pin button to every product. The evidence that Pinterest is skyrocketing is clear considering the reports. In Q2 in 2012, referral traffic from Pinterest rose 2,535 percent year over year while at the same time referral traffic from Facebook is up 2,7 percent. On top of everything the traffic driven on Pinterest is free. Companies ought to pay a lot of attention on Pinterest as it can be a great traffic driver besides email campaigns and search engines. (Duryee, 2012) Tabletizing and Mobilizing Websites In connection with the new technologies and portable devices companies have to start conforming their online present. More than half social networking sites’ usage will be on mobile devices. As more people use smartphones and tablets, the companies have to adapt their websites for mobile use. People are getting used to sharing content on the go, no matter where they are. Brands as Entertainers As companies move on to Social Networks such as Facebook and Twitter they have to learn how to engage and entertain their customer that they will not loose interest in the brand page. On social media networks brands have to be aware that the branding and marketing messages displayed on the page will not get annoying and people will not perceive them as spam. As case studies have shown the most successful social brands have a subtle branding and marketing approach. They offer their audience everyday entertainment and news, while occasionally interposing brand messages to keep the brand on top of the mind. Every message that a brand posts on their Facebook does not have to be related to the brand. This leads to the following social media trend. Online News Will Become More Social It has been forecasted that in the near future applications integrated with social media will gradually replace online news websites. People will get their daily news straight on their Facebook news feed for example. As well the people who are reading/sharing/tweeting the news will decide which news are the most popular and there wise the trending stories appear on their friends newsfeed. It is the consumer who decides what will be read. News Brought to Us by Ourselves For example on many news-broadcast channels the audience can speak up through Twitter and interact with the live news show. Furthermore during live debates there is the possibility for the audience to vote and express their support through Twitter. In some cases of live TV the audience is the main influencer of the course of the show. Twitter has become sort of a live broadcast channel itself. During the Spring-Summer 2013 fashion weeks in the fashion capitals in September the tweets and pictures from people at the shows gave a good overview of what was going on for their followers. People are getting more involved in being distributors of information and news. It is not only the responsibility of the press to be the prime distributors of information any more – it is the consumer. Conclusion Concerning the latest trends mentioned above Blue Duck has to take a lot into consideration while building their online presence. Blue Duck must be sure that their social media profiles interact with the consumer and that the conversation taking place there is not unanswered. Furthermore in connection with new technologies and platforms Blue Duck has to indicate the ones that their target group is the most involved in and take them into focus while developing a social media strategy. For example Pinterest is a great bookmarking tool for women concerning home and lifestyle subjects. It is appealing for them to take inspiration from other people all over the world and make pin-boards with great ideas and products. Finally Blue Duck has to make sure that their social media pages are entertaining and provide interesting content for their customers, so that they will not loose interest in the brand and keep it on top of their mind.