Fashion Marketing: The New Paradigm

This summer, I spoke at many conferences (Annual Marketing Conference in Lima - Peru/ Fashion Seminars at the University of Trinidad and Tobago/ Luxury Marketing seminars at ISCOM in Paris) and the demand was always the same: "Tell us how Fashion Marketing is changing and what should be done to succeed". There is clearly an acknowledgment that the market, business and marketing environments of Fashion have dramatically changed and those changes require a new approach to succeed in fashion.

The changes happened in several ways:

* The market is now global...which means more opportunities but also more competitors

* The fashion/ luxury market segments have evolved from on segment (absolute luxury) to multiple segments (absolute luxury but also aspirational luxury and affordable luxury)

* The fashion/ luxury consumers are not more "one size fits all"...they are multiple segments dramatically different one to another...and there demanding totally different treatments

* And to make things more complicated, Digital Marketing is profoundly transforming the marketing  mix and particularly the promotional mix across the world.

With all those changes, fashion designers and businesses have to have marketing discipline. If not, they are going to dilute very quickly their limited resources on inappropriate or undistinguishable strategies and activities.

Having marketing discipline means for a particular fashion product idea:

* Have the right marketing objectives

* Focusing on the right target for such objectives

* Developing the right value proposition and positioning strategies for such target

* Developing the right marketing mix components to deliver such value with such positioning to the selected target

..And they have to do so while maintaining the creativity that makes fashion unique.

This is an amazing moment for fashion and luxury...very scary for some...quite motivating for others.

In all cases, the winners will be the ones who will be able to properly balance creative designs with marketing discipline.

Here is an extract of my presentation.

Good reading

Integration of offline and online marketing...The biggest challenge or is it?

So much paper and ink are used to write about the integration of offline and online marketing channels in a coherent mix...Even if 2 years old, a survey by Aprimo on the biggest challenges CMOs face indicated the following (in order): 1) Integrating & tracking multiple channels and 2) Doing More with Less.

Those multiple challenges are surely closely related the emergence of Digital Marketing like Internet, Mobile or Social Media...and the disturbance that those new channels mean in terms of sales funnel.

Well, let me throw some ideas to you:

* The purpose of Advertising (as a communication method) is singularly to create awareness. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still advertising.

* The purpose of Public Relations is singularly to generate goodwill from the business stakeholders. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still PR.

* The purpose of Sales Promotion is singularly to temporarily boost sales. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Sales Promotion.

* The purpose of Direct Marketing is singularly to generate immediate response. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Direct Marketing.

* The purpose of Word Of Mouth is singularly to make people recommend to people. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Word Of Mouth.

So the point is simple. Behind all the smokes for the new tools, there is this core principle that one needs to use the right communication methods for the right purposes and that the media consumption of the target that you are aiming at, dictates if you should go offline, online and social media or any mix of those 3.

Welcome

This is the first post that I am creating on this blog and I felt that a great way to start was to add some controversy. I will claim that aside all the smoke on Digital Marketing...in the end...the core principles of effective marketing remain the same:

• Understand the needs and wants of the consumers in the market that you are aiming at
• Identify and understand the competitors on that market
• Based on this knowledge:
  • Identify your top target
  • For the top target, identify the top competitors to beat
  • Define the value (benefits for price) that you need to propose to your target, to beat those competitors
  • Define the positioning strategy that will support your value proposition for your top target
• You can then and then only define your optimum marketing mix (Product, Price, Placement-Distribution & Promotion)...including your promotional mix which includes...Digital Marketing

So before you get to the shinny objects of Digital Marketing...a lot has to be decided and this is effective marketing 101