Critical Overview of the Role of Fashion Management - Essay Example

Critical Overview of the Role of Fashion Management Introduction The fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Management and marketing are key components for this industry to flourish putting aside the models and designers. New trends are unearthed and brands established through marketing and management. Fashion management focuses on managing supplies and selling products (Solomon & Rabolt, 2004). A fashion manager of a brand like Abercrombie and Fitch his or her duties will include helping sales associates to reach the required target and coordinating operations in their assigned sales market (Clark, 2004). To add on, fashion managers execute and create and execute good marketing strategies that aim to keep their retailers relevant. This is through positioning them as being stylish and better than their competitors. Through fashion managers, brands are able to meet and satisfy the customers’ needs. Customer Behavior Everybody is a consumer of either a product or a service and has a behavior. Blackwell defines consumer behavior as the things that people do when they consume, obtain, and dispose goods. There are three major factors than can affect a consumer behavior when purchasing an item. Personal is one factor where the customer will purchase something based on things like sex, age or race. Young people will be seen to purchase something for a different reason than an older person (Yang and Peterson, 2004). Psychological factors contribute in a consumer making a decision to purchase a particular item. Motive, perception and knowledge are some psychological factors that a customer will use when deciding to buy a particular product (Blackwell et al, 2003). A consumer that follows a healthy lifestyle will tend to purchase items based on this factor. Personal traits of a consumer such as friendliness, introversion, ambitiousness and compulsiveness will influence the choice of product they will pick in a store. Social factors will also contribute to which item a customer will pick from a shelf. Opinion leaders, roles in family and social class are things an individual identifies with making them to buy clothes or shoes based on that. If a particular leader is viewed as a role model by money and he associates himself with a particular brand then the people that view him as a role model will pick the brand associated with him (Yang & Peterson, 2004). Ways of changing a consumer perspective about a brand from a negative one. In 2006, the Chief Executive Officer of Abercrombie and Fitch was invited to an interview by Salon Magazine in the opening of the company’s flagship store. The CEO made insensitive statements such as, only the young, beautiful and thin are to wear his clothes. He went on to add that the clothing line is for cool kids and most people cannot be part of it as it is exclusionary. These comments from the CEO went viral and affected the sales of the company. The comments having been made nine years ago is still fresh in the minds of the customers. The sales of the brand have been reducing year by year since the negative comments. In the third quarter that ended on November 1, 2014, there was a decreased in net sales by 12% to $911.4 million. This is a great decrease compared to net sales of $1.033 billion for the prior year third quarter ended November 2, 2013. The company has experienced a continuous drop in its GAAP net income bringing in the need to improve the relationship it has with its customers. There are a number of methods to use to make consumers of a particular brand have a positive attitude towards. Relationship marketing is among the direct method of marketing a brand to consumers. This method establishes a relationship with the consumer as it involves direct dealings. Programs for individual customers are customized depending on the stages they are going through. Customers are directly involved unlike the usual marketing strategies where all customers get the same promotions (Miletsky & Smith, 2009). Focusing on the brand value and positioning is also another strategy. This is achieved through communicating the brand values in advertisements, and showing how great the product is. Through listening to customers, the company will get what they want from the brand and this can be expressed to them through the advertisements. Listening to the customers then giving them feedback is important in making customers believe in a brand and change their negative perception to a positive one. Negative perception by a consumer can be changed by improving aspects of a brand or the whole brand. Things can never remain the same hence the need to keep up with styles and competition from other brands (Wänke et al, 2007). Departments in a Company that can Improve the Image of a Brand A company is made up of different departments. The function of each department is what helps to make a company run the business it is operating. Some departments may seem insignificant but in their small ways they contribute to a company’s success. Customer service is a department present in almost all companies to handle, customers’ queries and needs. The customers having a bad perception of the brand, the customer service people should handle them politely (Rost et al, 2009). Regardless of the approach the customers will use, this department should show that a company has their interest at heart and that they are valued. Human resource department is a key department in promoting a brand. This department can take the approach of building a brand from inside out. Employees should be engaged with the process of marketing so that they are able to offer the appropriate services to the consumers. It is much easier for employees to deliver something that they trust and believe in hence building a strong connection with the consumers. Corporate Affairs department is in charge of how the public views a company. The image of a company which is mainly the brand that a company deals with ought to have the right appeal to the public. Once the marketing department has put in order all the strategies to change the customers’ perspective on the brand, the Corporate Affairs should take it upon themselves to sensitize the public through community service, voluntary of activities and promoting of events. These activities will appeal to the public and draw them back to being consumers of the brand. In the case of Abercrombie and Fitch brand, the activities the company can engage in is anti- bullying. Most of the plus size teenagers are usually picked on by others and made to feel inferior. The company can carry out this campaign in schools and neighborhoods which will help in promoting its brand among this group of teenagers. Manufacturing and production department is directly associated with the products a company delivers to the consumers. Products produced should be of high quality and cater for all categories of the consumers it targets. In the case of Abercrombie and Fitch, the clothes manufactured should cater for all teens regardless of their body size. The department should also ensure that the clothes are appealing to the teens in terms of being trendy and stylish (Garcia and Saad, 2005). This is because teens and the youth generally prefer appealing and trendy products to conventional products. The Best Strategy to Repair a Brand Abercrombie and Fitch being a clothing line that mainly targets teenagers, the best strategy is to manufacture clothes that appeal to their styles and caters for all sizes (Beaudoin et al, 2003). Some teenagers suffer from obese or they are naturally big. The brand can target them by creating trendy plus size clothes for these teenagers. The negative perspective drawn from the CEO comment that the brand does not cater for big teenagers can be wiped out by this strategy. Focusing on style and trend, the company should also ensure that in every season whether summer or winter, there are new clothes in the market to cater for the season. Teenagers are people who like to be associated with the latest things in the market. This strategy will ensure that they are hooked to the brand all year round (Dewsnap & Hart 2004). Engaging in activities and promotions that aim to empower and link directly to the teenagers will help boost the brand. Teenagers are the consumers of this brand and only if they feel connected to the brand that is when they will support it. Putting a lot of emphasis on the things and details that surround teenagers will help to boost the brand (Xie & Peng 2009). Abercrombie and Fitch brand has gone a step ahead to improve its brand by working on its stores atmosphere and logos. On the stores atmosphere, initially they had a night club aesthetic but they have transformed them into a more open store with more lighting making the stores to be inviting. The loud music in the stores has been cut down to invite more people and making it more appealing. The logo business is being reduced by the company to almost nothing by the end of spring. Clothing involving the brand have been associated with logos for the longest time and the company wants to make a change to see if it will boost the sales of the brand. Time taken to Repair a Brand Reputation A brand takes time to build and to get customers to believe in it but it also takes a very short time to destroy. In the situation of Abercrombie and Fitch, the statement made by the CEO, took place nine years ago but until now people still remember it. It may take quite some time to repair the brand reputation since this will be said to have completely changed when people no longer react when the comment made by the CEO is raised. Brand reputation may take a short period of time to be repaired if it is handled immediately. The moment any bad information about a brand goes viral, the concerned company should take it upon itself to immediately start advertising about the brand. The advert could be through showing the consumers how the brand has been improved and how it is much better. This will help to draw away the focus of the consumers from the bad energy about the brand. Concentration of the customers will be shifted to the positive and the company will have won by taking advantage of the publicity (Ha & Perks, 2005). Abercrombie and Fitch brand has been in existence for a very long period of time. The brand has established itself in the fashion industry making it have a good percentage of loyal customers. If the company makes an effort to counter the bad perception with a good one anytime it comes up then the company is in a good position to regain its reputation within a year. Conclusion Fashion management is a very important area in the fashion industry. It is the department that is conversant with what is trending in the market, what the customers want, how to deliver the needs of the customers and how to increase sales of the company. In the case study of Abercrombie and Fitch brand, the fashion management department of the company should have immediately acted on the bad comments issued by their CEO to salvage the situation. 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