Karen Millen - The Fashion brand - Essay Example

Introduction Rebranding is the creation of new look for an established product. The aim is to differentiate the product from its competitors. Rebranding can also be defined as remarking a product or company in order to change its grade. Brand familiarity and knowledge influences the perceptions of the target groups. The strategic objective of fashion retailers in rebranding is to increase revenue. The branding process builds value of the brand to the firm. Brief history Karen Millen is a renowned British multinational and women designer clothing retailer that specializes in eveningwear, tailoring and coats. The company has stores in United Kingdom and other countries. Karen Millen was founded in the year 1981 through the partnership between Kevin Stanford and Karen Millen. The brand continued to expand through acquisitions and partnerships. The company trades from 46 concessions and 84 standalone stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company has spread to 23 countries and has 16 international stores and 57 franchise stores. The company majors in clothing accessories, shoes and clothing. Karen Millen has encountered stiff competition from major rivals like Reiss and French Connection. The French Connection has developed a strong brand identity through heavy embellished eveningwear and dresses. The target market includes young professional women aged 25-35. French Connection has been increasing the product range to include stylish outwears, shoes and dresses. The company has proved to be a major competitor for the Karen Miller brand. Both companies seem to have the same target market, necessitating Karen Miller to have differentiated products. French connection offers competitive products, coupled with intensive advertising and promotion campaigns. The brand has turned to internet marketing as it widens its scope of influence in the fashion market. However, the company needs to carve a niche in the stiff fashion market (Grose 43). Reiss is a fashion brand in the United Kingdom owned by its founder, David Reiss. The brand produces feminine clothing. The company has a strong reputation and was declared fashion retailer of the Year in 2003. Reiss competes from the same target market with French Connection and Karen Miller. A strong reputation is its principle asset. Reiss targets young professional men and women. The brand is offering competitive prices and an effective brand equity program. Brand equity can be developed by building, borrowing or buying it. Buying or borrowing brand equity for Karen miller can be done successfully through acquisitions. Rebranding is one of the ways of reforming brand equity. In business, rebranding entails creating a new name, symbol and design for an established brand. The aim is to develop a differentiated product in the stakeholders mind frame. Rebranding assists in identifying the product or the company from competitors. According to research, rebranding is changing the name of the company, positioning and targeting. This is meant to attract new meanings to the corporate brand and to inform the stakeholders concerning these meanings (Grose 45). In fashion and clothing industry in the United Kingdom, the rebranding can lead to increased revenues. Rebranding the Karen Miller fashion brand entails the use of integrated marketing communications campaigns to communicate the image and the values of the new brand to all the stakeholders. Rebranding is connected to changing slogans, logos, names or a combination of them. Karen Millen fashion brand is using rebrand to appeal to wider market share and increase the sales revenues. The concept of revolutionary and evolutionary rebranding has been incorporated in the strategic rebranding plan of Karen Millen. Evolutionary branding is the concept of minor developments in brand positioning. These include logo change and slogan. Revolutionary rebranding causes major overhauls and identifiable changes which are essentially meant to redefine Karen Millen brand. Through rebranding, Karen Millen aims at enhancing and regaining brand equity. Studies show that the value of rebrand must have a positive impact on brand equity. This entails preserving the power of the hard-earning heritage and the value of the consistency to the customers. The aim of the brand is to ensure that the brand equity strategy adds value that can be used in the long-term. The company has introduced brand- new evening wear and accessories that improve the image of the brand in the UK retail market. The strategic team of Karen Millen believes that the existing brand equity should be a basis for augmenting and evolving the brand. Therefore, rebranding should not be the basis of undercutting or giving up equity. The strategy has consolidated the position of Karen Millen products in the UK fashion industry. Brand identity Brand identity can be referred to a collection of brand associations created by a firm with an aim of representing what the firm stands for. Karen Millen offers a wide collection of products. The Karen Millen brand identity also serves as a promise to the customers. Studies show that brand identity must be sustainable. According to the strategic plan of rebranding Karen Millen, a strong brand identity is a critical factor for success in the UK retail market. Brand identity is the strategy Karen Millen needs when it comes to direction and scope of a fashion retailer. Rebranding Karen Millen is meant to achieve advantages in a radical and changing environment. The company is introducing new quality clothes on regular bases. This is bound to create competitive advantages for the fashion company. Research shows that rebrand should be accompanied by aggressive marketing to maximize on the desired results. Rebranding has attracted consumers and deploys the actual resources for the fashion company. Rebrand is a functional strategy that focuses the performance of an organization to the stakeholders among whom customers are central. Rebrand and brand identity strategies are principle elements of brand marketing that differentiate products from competition and create brand awareness and identity (Grose 51). Brand awareness guarantees a certain level of satisfaction and quality. This is useful in the promotion of products in the fashion industry. Karen Millen aims at increasing sales and ensuring customer loyalty. Studies show that brand identity is the core element of branding and rebranding. It provides direction, meaning and purpose of a brand. The management of Karen Millen brand believes that a strong identity and brand awareness shall change the outlook of the fashion company and give the products a better standing among the stakeholders. Practical steps in rebranding Karen Millen Karen Millen aims at ensuring that the brand identity reflects their inner values and their potential success. Successful rebrands must ensure that a brand is rare, valuable, hard to imitate and with no easy substitute. This adds to the brands competitive advantages. The company has invested in new apparels and fashion products that redefine the fashion industry in the target markets. The rebrand aims at ensuring that product dimensions target profitable associations and market segments. The company believes that fashion industry is core to the society and has heavily invested in clothing. The premium quality of the Karen Millen and its innovative orientation are some of the strong assets that compound the idea of brand identity in the firm. Karen Millen is using organizational and personality dimensions in creating a strong brand in the UK. The company offers a variety of products are competitive prices. The company is keen on intruding new products like footwear, handbags and apparels for the target market as part of the strategic rebrand. The brand identity of the company entails the use of imagistic metaphors and brand names during marketing. Most of the Karen Millen products have a communicational importance. This emphasizes the brand to the customers. Brand name has a particular importance while designing or enhancing brand identity. The process of rebranding a fashion company requires the use of brand name acceptable to both the customer and brand holder (Grose 33). The main purpose of the rebrand identity by the Karen Mullen fashion company is increase revenues. This identity aims at differentiating the brand’s products and creates a competitive advantage in the fashion industry. Brand positioning Brand positioning can be defined as the ways in which a customer is expected to perceive a product. It is also defined as the relative perception within a significant group of customers. Brand positioning is essential when it comes to a brand’s marketing statement. Therefore, it must precede development of brand sub-strategies which include promotion, media and packaging. The management of Karen and Millen believes that brand positioning underlies other strategic decisions both in the long and short term. The essence of brand positioning during company rebranding is to ensure that the brand competes successfully in the increasingly dynamic fashion market environment. Karen Millen believes that brand positioning cannot be adequately addressed without identifying principle elements of brand identity like market target and the products’ point of difference. The target market is considered to be the potential users of the product. Karen Mullen exclusively targets women with stylish and latest fashion clothes, footwear and other accessories. The brand positioning and identity are important when it comes to developing strong customer base and brand equity for the UK fashion industry. The target market together with the perceived differentiation from customers is seen to be the major pillars of brand positioning. Brand positioning reveals the target market, the aspects of the brand and the reasons for differentiating it. The marketing department of Karen Millen uses the concept in its rebrand strategy to establish its niche is the target segments. This has earned brand a positive image and recreated a new image. This is the heart of rebranding in fashion industry. The company is aware that effective positing requires a succinct, consistent and focused message. Brand positing poses a major challenge in many fashion companies. CBBE (customer bases brand equity) pyramid model diagram Fig 1 This model suggests that for a fashion company to be successful in rebranding, the process of brand equity must be customer driven. The customers must have positive performance experiences and imagery for the product. These experiences are meant to create positive judgments and feelings for the product. Eventually, the product must resonate with the consumers. Brand architecture Brand architecture refers to organizing structure of the brand portfolio. Brand architecture defines the number and the roles of the brand names used in the company for its range of the products and the target market. The brand architecture ranges from a single brand for all products to a plan in which products have their own brand names. Brand architecture is the structure of brands within a fashion organization entity. Through brand architecture, brands within a company are differentiated from one another. Karen Millen uses brand architecture to define different leagues of branding within its organizational strategic plan (Grose 23). The company has developed effective and functional relationships between corporate brand and sub-brands and the complementary roles they play in the rebrand strategy. According to the management of the Karen Millen, sub-brands are meant to reinforce the principle purpose of the corporate brand. Brand architecture is an integral part of fashion industry rebrand. This is justified by the assertion that brand architecture is an integrated process of developing a strong brand. This happens through brand relationships among a collection of branding options in a competitive market. The purpose of a rebrand is to ensure harmony among sub-brands. This enables a company to be perceived to be meeting the demands of the stakeholders in a comprehensive way. Karen Miller has entirely embraced brand architecture as a way of coordinating all the brands within the organization. Karen Miller uses individual product brands, corporate or umbrella brand and endorsed brands while executing brand architecture. Karen Millen brand onion Fig 2 Brand onion diagram indicates how organizational elements intertwine to build an organizational rebrand. In conclusion, the brand positioning strategy must counter the positioning strategies of the main rival in the market. The brand must be perceived to perform well in matters that are of concern of the target market, relative to the main competitors. The UK fashion industry is keen on the brand performance and sensitive to the expectations of the target market. Studies show that people are willing to pay a little more while purchasing quality products. Karen Millen engages in the marketing battles with an aim to operationalize the concept of brand positioning. Works Cited Grose, Virginia. Basics Fashion Management 01: Concept to Customer (basics Fashion Management). London, UK: Thames & Hudson, 2011. Print. Read More