Marketing Mix in Gucci Fashion Brand - Essay Example

MARKETING MIX IN GUCCI FASHION BRAND By Location Introduction The house of Gucci, commonly known as Gucci is the Italian icon, which is based on fashion and leather labels. It is the most famous and prestigious identified firm for fashion brands around the world. Guccio Gucci founded the Gucci Fashion Brands in 1906 in Florence (Andy 2013, p.129). According to the BusinessWeek magazine, Gucci house is ranked in position 46 and it takes the second position after LVMH as the largest and best selling fashion brand firm. The Gucci was also among the top 100 best business firm (Go 1993, p. 23). Gucci Fashion Brandsoperate around the world covering about 425 stores and sells its products at wholesale to the upscale stores and franchisees stores in the world. The Gucci is also the largest fashion brand found in Italia. Therefore, based on marketing mix, the discussion below gives the case study of the Gucci Fashion Brand (Benbow- Pfalzgraf 2002, p.58). The manner and the activities the firm does to promote its products arereferred to as the marketing mix. In other words, marketing mix is the tactic a firm uses to promote or advertise its products in the market. The marketing mix involves the product, price, place, and promotion; referred to as the 4Ps. However, more other aspects have been incorporated to the 4Ps (Bergh, &Behrer2013, p.39). These include the positioning, which refers to the geographical positioning of the firm, or the general outlook, packaging of the products, political effects and the people involved (Bowman, &Gatignon 2010, p. 98). The main importance of the marketing mix is that the Ps influences each other and it results to expansion and flourishing of the business if the 4Ps work together. In case the Ps do not work together, it can result into the collapse of the business. The marketing mix requires a lot of marketing research to be incorporated, it also entails a lot of understanding among the practitioners, and finally, it involves a lot of business consultations between the practitioners and the manufactures and also several others (Boxwell1994, p.71). In 1921, the leather and Label Firm started as a small luggage store. Working in a hotel in London equippedGuccio Gucci with English language and hence he could be able to handle the customers. The Gucci Fashion Brands expanded rapidly and it resulted into the opening of a boutique in Rome. Guccio designed all the products of the firm, and in 1947, he designed the Bamboo bag. The Bamboo bag became the icon product of the Gucci. According to the marketing mix, the product of the business is one of the most vital and it should give it the required success. This means that its success depends on the product. The Bamboo bag served as the icon of the Gucci, this means that it was unique and it only belonged to the Gucci. Therefore, the Bamboo bag enhanced the success of the Gucci. It gained the competitive advantage over the other fashion brands firms in the world. Competitive advantage means that the product or whatever is new that the firm does in order to make it a notch higher than the rest. The Gucci also developed the green-red-green trademark. The trademark identified the Gucci and made it very familiar to the world. It followed to the establishment of many more stores in New York and Millan. This spread of the Gucci to the entire world implicated the establishment of a symbol of modern luxury in the global. The symbol of green-red-green emanated from the saddle girth. This enhanced its success. The Gucci immediately rose to prominence as the green-red-green symbol identified it in the global. Following the concept of the marketing mix, which states that the business cannot succeed without the 4Ps. Promotion, involves any activity that the firm does in order to make it known to the users and also to make the trade the company is dealing with. It can promote its products by either advertising either by word of mouth or by also making press reports about the product and itself. Incentives and commissions can also be used. According to the Gucci, the trademark promoted the firm since it identified it in the global. The green-red-green trademark also made the Gucci to gain competitive advantage over the rest of the firms in the world and hence the drastic rise of the Gucci Fashion Brands to prominence. The Gucci made a great progress in 1980s where many headquarter offices for the Gucciwere established in the world. Incidentally, the company experienced the poorest breakdown in 1990s when the sales of the collection of the accessories drastically went down at an alarming rate. The sales of the collection of accessories went down to as low as $110 revenue per year. After three years of such sales, the Gucci drove to the edge of total bankruptcy (Lamb, Hair, & Mcdaniel2009, p.79). The board decided that Murizo, who was the director, could no longer offer effective management since his management led to poor quality of the product; bankruptcy and it also affect the desirability of the brand of the Gucci. According to the marketing mix, the business will only maintain its success if all the 4Ps work together towards the success of the business (Mark, 2012, p.36). The location of the firm also matters a great deal. The Gucci had its locations all over the world that made it very famous and successful in its business (Kennedy, Banis, &Stoehrer 2012, p.91). Many stores and boutiques that belonged to the Gucci Fashion Brand were available in many parts of the world. The failure of the Gucci was due to the poor quality of the products and the poor management by Murizo. After the death of Guccio in the 1953, his sons took over the management. Aldo took up the management position in the firm that resulted into its expansion a great deal (Taryn 2002, p. 96). It gained an international prominence since Aldo started other boutiques in Paris, London, Beverly Hills, and Palm Beach. Throughout the leadership of Aldo, there were rampant family feuds over the shares of inheritance. The rampant family wrangles led to the ineffective decisions made by the board members of Gucci and this led to bankruptcy (Tony 2007, p.89). Aldo, decided to establish Gucci collections of the accessories. The sales of the collection of the accessories were intended to reinstate the sector of Perfumes. Price, according to the marketing mix refers to the value at which a product is sold off for. Pricing can involve several strategies. Pricing of the product may be for different purposes such as enhancing the image of the product, demarcation or for differentiation. In the case of the Gucci, Aldo used pricing for differentiation (Tim 2004, p. 61). His main intention was to make sales from the collection of accessories in order to reinstate the business enterprise. This rejuvenated it and it became fit for competitive advantage again in the market. The products of the Gucci did not take long before flooding the market and were sold very cheaply to a point of tarnishing the image of the Gucci (Richter 2012, p. 36). Conclusion For a business company to be successful, the 4Ps have to work hand in hand. The firm is recommended to have continuous supply of products which should also undergo continuous improvisation of the quality of the product so that to attain the competitive advantage. The business should also be strategically placed so that accessibility becomes so easy just like the Gucci Fashion Brand that had its headquarters in many corners of the world. The pricing of the products can also determine the success of the company. The image can be tarnished incase the company sells its products very cheaply since the customers may assume that it is moving to desperation. In addition, promotion also covers a bigger part. Product promotion should be done always whenever the enterprise comes up with a new product. The success of the business firm also depends on the management. The management should ensure that the decisions they make upon should be effective and should help the company (Kerin, &ORegan 2008, p. 118). The management is the head; it has to ensure that the 4Ps work together in decision-making and in all the aspects (Porter1985, p. 25). The Gucci ought to avoid family wrangles. Wrangles marked the beginning of its failure, the moment the family members begun fighting over their portions of inheritance, that was when the Gucci Fashion Brands begun to experience bankruptcy. The field of business is quite competitive and in order to be successful it has to attain the competitive advantage to make sure that it survives in the market. The firms have to be on their toes always to invent new products and keep their flow into the market (Wenderoth 2009, P. 250). They also have to make their products of high quality so that to catch the eye of the customers. The firm thus requires the knowledge and skills on the marketing mix in order to determine the tools that are required for a business to be successful. Bibliography Andy, B. (2013). Brand Journalism, P.129. Benbow-Pfalzgraf, T. (2002).Contemporary fashion.Detroit [u.a.], St. James Press. Bergh, J. V. D., &Behrer, M. (2013).How cool brands stay hot: branding to Generation Y. London, Kogan Page. 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