Research pack – GREG

HOW DOES A FASHION BRAND CREATE A SUCCESSFUL SALES CAMPAIGN? – My hypothesis

 

To begin my research I first looked into a selection of industry professionals. Overall I chose to look into four industry professionals, exploring their roles and how they became so successful.

The first professional I explored was Maureen Chiquet.

Maureen Chiquet is a fashion businesswoman who was CEO of Chanel for 9 years.

Chiquet began her fashion career after graduating from Yale University in 1985. Following her graduation, Chiquet found herself working in the marketing department at L’Oréal Paris. Her role in the marketing department involved assisting to the manager and marketing team by helping with the production of marketing materials and literature ranging from web content to brochures and press releases. The role allowed Chiquet to put a foot into the industry by gaining both experience and contacts. Following her position at L’Oreal, Chiquet went on to work for the marketing and merchandising teams at The Gap and Old Navy before bagging a role as president of Banana Republic.

After gaining years of industry experience and increasing professionalism Chiquet now found herself in 2003 and with a position in Chanel, one of the biggest luxury fashion houses. The job was as president of US Operations. This role involved overseeing day to day tasks that contribute to the growth of the brand as well as strategic planning within the company and goal setting in order to push the company into achieving its goals; these goals could range from meeting successful turnovers, whether annually or quarterly to launching a new product well.

After gaining 22 years of experience it was now 2007. Following five years as president of US operations, Chiquet was now offered the position of Chanel’s CEO. The role of CEO is the highest ranked executive position in a company. The job has many responsibilities starting with making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company as well as acting as the main link of communications between a brands board of directors and corporate operations. This role is what made Maureen Chiquet so highly known in the fashion industry and opened the doors to her eventually being able to publish her book.

After 9 years as the CEO of Chanel news broke that Maureen Chiquet would be stepping down. Chanel released a statement, following Chiquets dramatic departure mid-way through Paris Fashion Week, admitting that Maureen Chiquet had stepped down from her role “due to differences of opinion about the strategic direction of the company”. In the aftermath of this statement, many rumours began to hit the circuit claiming Chiquet was fired however none of this was ever confirmed.

 

After leaving Chanel, Maureen Chiquet went on to publish her book ‘Beyond the Label: Women, Leadership and Success on Our Own Terms’. The book charts Chiquets unlikely path from literature major to global chief executive, giving guidance to readers on how she built her career and how they can discover their own paths and leadership values.

 

CEO JOB TITLE – What is a CEO?

A CEO is the highest ranking executive position in a company or organisation.

The role involves making major corporate decisions, acting as a link between company directors and corporates as well as keeping on top of the company’s in house departments such as marketing and financing in order to better the brand and ensure it has a positive growth. The role can be very demanding and requires a great deal of experience and professionalism.

 

 

Why I chose this professional? – The links to my project.

I chose to research Maureen Chiquet as one of my industry professionals because she is a very successful name within the fashion industry and her direct links to the business sector work perfectly within my project. Her role as CEO worked within many areas of fashion business allowed me to gain an insight into how a brand is successfully run.

Maureen Chiquet also worked in merchandising and marketing prior to being CEO at Chanel. Given merchandising is my main focus in my project, I decided researching someone who worked within the industry would work perfectly.

 

The next industry professional I explored was Paolo Cigoginini.

Paolo Cigoginini was a fashion marketer who rose up the career ladder to eventually become Alexander McQueen’s Worldwide Marketing Director.

Paolo Cigoginini began his fashion career at Dolce and Gabana as an e-commerce director. An e-commerce director is responsible for collaborating with cross-functional partners in order to manage all aspects of the ecommerce business including developing business plans, creating content strategies’as well as developing promotional campaign’s and other online marketing mediums such as web designs, web analytics and web technologies.  The role allowed Cigoginini to develop his marketing skills and enhance his experience within the fashion industry. As well as running the ecommerce sector of the brand, Cigoginini also worked alongside the worldwide communications and marketing teams.

Cigoginini also had a role as Communications director at Bottogea Venta. This position acted as a pathway to his position at Alexander McQueen because it is owned by the same company; French Conglomerate Kering.

Paolo Cigoginini got the job as worldwide marketing director at Alexander McQueen at the end of 2016. He was the first to be employed by Mcqueens new executive chief, Emmanuel Gnitzburger.

Cigoginini’s new role involves overseeing the production and development of campaigns, merchandising store layouts and web designs, branding new products in order to increase sales as well as working closely alongside communications to keep on top of press releases, investor relations and PR.

Marketing Director Job Title- What is a marketing director?

A marketing director in the fashion industry is in charge of the brands development and implementation, this is controlled by the production of business plans and creation of brand strategies. Along with overseeing marketing strategies such as campaigns, event planning, digital marketing and PR. The role is very important in a fashion house as the way a brand is marketed greatly impacts the company’s turnover by determining whether a product sells.

 

 

Why I chose this professional? – The links to my project.

I chose to use Paolo Cigoginini as my second industry professional because he works directly in the marketing sector. This meant learning the skills required for his role could help me to gain an insight into marketing and understand the skills I will need to apply to the marketing side of my project. I think Cigoginini is a very interesting professional that has a very important position in the fashion industry which also linked to my project because it allowed me to gain an insight into the different roles within fashion marketing.

 

 

The next industry professional I chose to look into was Tomoko Ogura.

Tomoko Ogura is known worldwide for her role as fashion director at Barneys New York.

Ogura began her career studying Economics at Dartmouth College. Following her graduation, she managed to gain a role on Barneys fashion merchandising team as a merchandising assistant. As her skills began to develop, she quickly climbed the career ladder and at just 29 found herself becoming the huge, New York stores director.

Ogura’s directing role involved her choosing which stock would appear in store by attending fashion shows and presentations as well as looking through portfolio’s and attending fashion fairs. The important executive role also required her to develop the stores private label collection whilst also keeping on top of monitoring the stores sales to help determine the type of stock to launch in store.

Tomoko Ogura left her position in Barneys. After four years in the position, it is said Ogura exited in order to take on a new opportunity.

Fashion Director Job Title – What is a Fashion Director?

A fashion director is in charge of managing the entirety of a store. They decide what stock is launched and how the store is merchandised. They are also dependant on monitoring sales in order to understand which stock is selling. A fashion director is the top spot in a retailer – the position is responsible for the daily running of the store as well as the other tasks mentioned prior.

 

Why I chose this professional? – The links to my project.

I chose Tomoko Ogura as my third industry professional because her job allowed me to pick apart the different roles within a retailer and really understand what each one is responsible for. I also gained an insight into the role of a fashion director and how again the fact she started out as a merchandiser meant I had direct links to the basis of my project which allowed me to collect information on skills I can take forward with me into the production of my work.

 

The final professional I researched was Blogger and Influencer Sarah Ashcroft.

Sarah Ashcroft is a UK Fashion and Beauty Blogger.

Ashcroft began her Fashion career following graduating from FRA London. Seeking a job in PR, Ashcroft launched her blog ‘that pommie girl’ as a source for her interviews as she was regularly being asked by employers if she had one.

The blog which was created purely to help Ashcroft gain a position in PR, dramatically grew and Ashcroft found herself running it as a full time job. Upon reaching 200k on social media, Ashcroft found herself with floods of brands contacting her to promote their products with sponsored photos and collaborations.

After her blogs dramatic growth, Ashcroft then went on to create a YouTube channel in order to connect more directly with her followers.

After her massive growth on social media, Ashcroft then went on to collaborate with several different brands ranging from Missguided to Pretty Little Thing. These collaborations put her name on the fashion map and lead to her landing her own clothing line on etailer In The Style.

Ashcroft went from PR enthusiast to Social media star to designer in the shortest amount of time.

 

 

 

Blogger and Social Media Influencer Job Title – What is a blogger and influencer?

A social media influencer and blogger is someone who collaborates with brands in order to promote them and encourage people to buy products from the brands. The job is one that is dependent on having a secure following on social media platforms such as Instagram. The role requires posting sponsored photos and videos reviewing products.

 

Why I chose this professional? – The links to my project.

I chose Sarah Ashcroft as my final professional because of her position within the media. Social media is such a major platform today and I knew that I would need to apply the media to my final project therefore by researching Ashcroft I was also able to research social media and how the platform works to help brands market and promote themselves.

 

For my next element of research I decided to create a mindmap. I decided to create a mindmap in order to explore the fashion industry and the roles within it.

Overall I created two mind maps the first on the fashion industry and the second on fashion campaigns.
This was my first mindmap:

I created the first mindmap as a way of gaining a deeper insight into the industry I am basing my project on. Researching the industry directly allows me to really understand the different sectors and jobs which I can then use to apply to my work as I will have a more in depth understanding of what skills are required to carry out a particular role or task.
This was my second mindmap:

I created this mind map as a way of understanding the characteristics of a good and bad campaign. By understanding what makes a campaign good and vice versa, I will be able to identify a successful campaign and also understand my hypothesis more. I also looked up the best and worst campaigns in fashion, as displayed on my mind map. When researching the campaigns I found that the unsuccessful campaigns were remembered more if they were so offensive the consumer just not forget it and that the successful campaigns were remembered because they were digital and interactive which allowed the consumer to gain something out of it and therefore remember what they did or potentially watched.

 

For the next part of my research I created two mood boards.

The first was based on luxury brands and the second focused on highstreet brands. I created the two mood boards as a way of comparing highstreet and luxury shopping experiences. The focus of the moodboards was too allow me to understand the differences between competetors – I wanted to find out if luxury and highstreet campaigns were different, If luxury brands used more luxurious fonts and edits on their imaging and wether the campaigns projected the difference in price by looking more luxe or more affordable.

For the next element of my research I decided to carry out a focus group. I conducted the focus group by asking a group of classmates their opinion on my idea. My focus group was a female deographic of 17-20 year olds. I wrote down my hypothesis and placed it into the middle of the table. I then asked each persons opinion and for feedback on how it can be improved. The focus group was helpful because it allowed me to understand my hypothesis from different points of view. I realised when recieving the feedback that it was helpful because it allowed me to see my project through another set of eyes. I think because I knew about the topic and I understood my question I was missing minor problems within and the foucs group helped me to gain an insight into them and fix the minor issues within the focus group. When I first started the group my question was “What makes a good fashion campaign” but when the group had finished my question had become “How does a brand create a successful sales campaign?”. The focus group taught me to use more specific terminology within my question in order to make it more related to my topic. Overall, the focus group was very helpful and I will definately use one in my final major project.

For the next part of my research I analysed a brands website. I chose to analyse Pretty Little Things website as it as an independent e-tailer that currently does not have an actual store consumers can visit. I analysed the website by taking screenshots of the different pages such as home screen, shop etc. I then cut out the images and stuck them into my  research book, then I wrote about the different options within the webpage. I decided to do this because it allowed me to gain an insight into what goes on behind an online brand as well as the opportunity to look at things I would potentially edit on my website in my final project. I think to look at the website for the consumers eye, I was able to see things I wouldn’t if I were the one creating it; I was able to see errors in the colour themes on the website alongwith prices that were hard to read.

To continue my research, I then went on to analyse one successful and one unsuccessful campaign.

I did this to gain a deeper understanding of the chracteristics dispalyed within a campaign and as a way of being able to idnetify how they work.

The successful campaign I chose to study was the Burberry Kisses campaign.

This campaign launched in 2013 and was a partnership with Google. The campaign was interactive and involved allowing consumers to send a interactive kiss to anyone around the world. The idea of a kiss being sent linked to Burberrys new lipstick launch yet allowed the consumer to interact with the campaign in order to remember it.

I think the campaign is good because it is interactive – it allows the consumer to really take part in it and therefore means it sticks out in their mind and they’ll remember it. I also think one of the biggest strengths within the campaign was that it allowed people from all around the world to connect with one another in a new exciting platform, the campaign allowed you to send a message sealed with a burberry kiss! Overall the campaign was very successful. In the first 10 days of the campaign going live 13,000 cities sent a kiss and a total of 109 million miles were travelled by the kisses.
The unsuccessful campaign was Fashion Junkie by Sisley.

This campaign caused a lot of contravirsy upon its release. This was because a wide range of people found it very offensive. They believed it almost branded drugs as ‘fashionable’ and that displayed such an offensive image around young audiences was not morally right.

However, I think although the campaign was offensive it still stuck out in consumers minds because they were so offended by it! The contravirsy within the image caused the campaign to be talked about a lot and spread around the industry, meaning it got the publicity that the creators intended, it just was not as positive as they had hoped.