Brand Management Assignment: Sub-Brand Launch of Per Una by Marks and Spencer

Question

Task: The Purpose of brand management assignment Create a digital brochure of 1,500 words, capturing the creation and launch process of your new sub-brand. This is envisaged to enhance the image and equity of the current brand by tapping into emerging markets and big customer trends.

Main body to include:
1. The rationale behind launching the new sub-brand
2. The brand identity of the new sub-brand
3. The value proposition of the new sub-brand
4. The launch and management of the new sub-brand

Answer

Executive Summary
As evident in this brand management assignment, every organization is desirous into increasing its brand presence and relevance. Though there exists a difference between brand extension and sub brand. The organizations when try to diversify and intend to have a larger portfolio in the context of multiple industries or like to introduce a customer suggested product introduces a sub brand such as diet coke or Nachos with cheese. Digital strategies are to be incorporated with extreme care to capture market conveniently and fastly. Per Una which caters to women category of apparels worldwide is a marketed under the umbrella brand of Marks and Spencer and is inclusive of innovative strategies to build brand and its significance to its target market.

Introduction:
Brands are a powerful tool to capture market share. The fierce competition in the market enforces struggle of creating and commanding through brand building exercises. Building loyalty for the brand lends the necessary support in securing emotional connect for a brand. Ensuring loyalty and commitment from the customer is essential for earning continued customer patronage.

Marketing of a firm in the industry requires meticulous planning. In today’s scenarios where brick and mortar stores are spinning out and hedging themselves on the digital platforms, online stores are experimenting with visual merchandizing and window displays. Cut throat competition of firms’ leads to building strategies for waging marketing warfare popularly known as red ocean strategies that supports organizations for survival and saves from decline and extinction. On the other hand coming with new innovative solutions such as creating niche market requires a new model and market construction which is popularly known as blue ocean strategies. Digital marketing is the new trend that on the basis of views and subscriber database builds popularity and strength for the brand (Appel, et al., 2020).

Most of the brands wage war with immense struggle based on their marketing worth, consumer beliefs, attractive packaging, pricing, advertisements, distribution channels, sales strategies, etc. Marks and Spencer being a multinational brand successfully existing in diverse product portfolios got inspired to bring out its sub brand in clothing category Per Una.

Rationale for launching the new sub-brand
Per una is a new sub brand launched last year in the category of women shopping of apparels. It is a sub brand under the umbrella brand of Marks and Spencer. The brand is the most appropriate fit for the analytical report purpose as it well integrates the integrated concept of marketing communication. Firstly, M&S has a robust history to its credit of more than a century in the market of women fabrics. Secondly it is based out of London, UK which is the largest and most lucrative market. Thirdly, establishing the picturesque of the segmenting, targeting and positioning, the firm has a high command market with serving on the demographic variables of the gender based market with the of young age females’located worldwide.

The brand is dovetailed around the corollary of technological trends and social threads with consumer being the nucleus of the entire marketing activities. Women need assurance before making a purchase as she finds it confounding to believe easily the advertisements and other marketing channels such as word of mouth, publicity and or press release. The grace of the attire is usually posted on the digital social media platforms for admiration purposes. The selfie posts also tend to inspire other women in their network to make similar purchase. Thus the social, technological features such as various variants of posts such as video, gifs, boomerang, etc. are few of the many technical features of the instagram platform. This brand seeks to fulfill the product line of Marks and Spencer in the fashion brand category targeted at young women and seeks to reach out on global landscape with its online orders and offline stores delivery.

Brand identity of the new sub brand
Brand identity is the recognition of a brand through the image which is identified on the basis of impact dimension. It helps build competitive advantage with minimal difference of the perceived brand strength and its delivered efficiency (Mindrut, Manolica and Roman, 2015). Internal brand identity is measured with the brand culture, that is, consistency in delivery of quality and services for customers. A commitment to produce products with a view of customers’ centricity and priority for on promise delivering with zero defects production are the attributes of internal brand identity. Teamwork for cohesion and camaraderie is essential to secure interdisciplinary department involvement for product design, distribution and advertising. It is significant for all to participate and feel valued and involved in all the organizational processes. Strength of the parent brand of Per Una can be furnished with the credentials of 136 years of rich history. The present sub brand under the consideration was founded by George Davis which was bought by Marks and Spencer in 2004. The M&S bought it with a vision of leveraging Per Una with its global marketing strength. The brand seeks to identify itself with the females in the youth age cohort including the working women who have high orientation for fashion and desire to dress up well (Curley, 2017). Establishing identity of a confident woman who aspires, believes and achieves her health and family care goals. Association with a woman-based magazine would get better market to the upcoming cub-brand. Marketing: Various advertising platforms such as Instagram, facebook get heavy traffic of the youth segment of the market which is also a target of the brands.

Literature review
Research Report (2017) through their study on garment workers found the industry challenged through structured imbalances and fragmented categories.Chae, Stephen, Bart and Yao (2017) reported the ulterior aspects of marketing. As the implicit need of the customers are difficult to decipher. Word of mouth was found to be most effective. Chang et al. (2019) reported image-based posts to have huge impact on the minds of users and viewers. Merk (2016) remarked that products and services are nothing without brand leverage and patronage. Digital marketing suffered through the initial stage of credibility concerns while making atransition from traditional shopping to online presence (Martin, Borah and Palmatier, 2017) Lindholm et al. in their study of 2016 reverberated the ethical concerns of fabric manufacturing. Labowitz and Pauly (2015) brought to attention reasonable payment structures for the compensation to workers is indispensable for the work execution. King, Pan and Roberts (2017) guided on the audience engagement with social media platform where both sender and receiver of communication is remotely located.Hohenegger and Miller (2016) mentioned the cost allocation between offline workers producing in factories viz-a-viz those working on the screen. Gordon, Zettelmeyer, Bhargava and Chapsky (2019) discussed concept and costs of both online and offline marketing including websites, Facebook, etc. Egels and Lindholm (2015) brought to attention that at times workers suffer with little or limited rights granted to them for task execution. Designing, stitching and delivery of the products requires customer handling skills. Thus, taking care for ensuring their job satisfaction and securing their continuous commitment to work is essential for high quality products and services.

Value proposition
There is an inherent need to look good and be decently well dressed especially for women who are young and aspire to work. The ambition to wear fashion is self driven and requires a bent of mind to stay updated with current trends. This brand tends to offer premium quality at the lowest prices. This brand further seeks to serve the female cohorts who have multiple occasions to dress up in more than one type of apparel unlike men.

Brands such as Per Una serve the lifestyle needs. Mapping the mind and Charting the route to touch on the functional aspects and emotional perspectives of building brand connect requires influential and persuasive strategies. Transgender hasrarely been the focus of any brand but they have the similar or at times more desire to dress up and deck up. Thus, a purview on allocation of funds after corona patients’ treatment next goes to uplifting this marginalized section of the society. Also, to practice diversity inclusion, transgenders are hired and are trained on stitching skills and writing content for marketing purposes. Emotional contagion is essential to ensure screen shopping as it is only through words in the written format that a customer feels touched to make a buying decision. Also, combo packages may work better to increase sales for the newly launched brand such as on mother’s day or sister’s day, the one who is gifting is provided with a complementary order from the company. If a husband is gifting wife on wedding anniversary, they are provided with some special discount to quantify the emotional chord with the customers.

Launch and management of the new brand
The new sub brand coming from a major market share holder looks ahead to quick and easy popularity for its new brand launch. The product qualified for quality match and service delivery mechanisms looks ahead as joining to combat the prevailing pandemic of Corona victims. Fifty percent sales of the brand would be sent to relief fund for corona patients. Further, special discount for women doctors and nursesas during these trying times of Covid-19, these qualified professionals are risking their lives to save others. No contact purchase of the products with diverting the stay at home challenge times with dress up well times can boost business for its new customers. Further, free shipping is an added advantage for the customers who seek value for money and discounts.

Conclusion
Apparel supply chain gets complex with varieties of fabrics, customers, vendors, geographical locations, pricing decisions, marketing strategies, etc. fashion brands operate on the passion to follow trends and to look envogue. The customers are either served by the organizations or lead them through their personal interest and choice by self-designing and ordering.

References
Appel et al. (2020),‘The future of social media in marketing’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing ScienceIss. 48:79–95
Chae, I., Stephen, T., Bart, Y., & Yao, D. (2017). Spillover effects in seeded word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. Marketing Science, 36(1), 89–104.
Chang, Y., Li, Y., Yan, J., & Kumar, V. (2019). Getting more likes: The impact of narrative person and brand image on customer–brand interactions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1–19

Curley M. (2017), (Research Report) ‘Fair Wear Foundation- Research Agenda 2017-2020’

Egels-Zandén, N. & Lindholm, H., (2015), ‘Do codes of conduct improve worker rights in supply chains A study of Fair

Wear Foundation’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 107, pp.31–40

Gordon, B. R., Zettelmeyer, F., Bhargava, N., &Chapsky, D. (2019), ‘A comparison of approaches to advertising measurement: Evidence from big field experiments at Facebook’, Marketing Science, 38(2), 193–225

Hohenegger, K. & Miller, D., (2016) Labour Minute Costing: A Tool for Establishing Living Wage Floors inGarment Factories Amsterdam: Fair Wear Foundation King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2017). How the Chinese government fabricates social media posts for strategic distraction, not engaged argument. Brand management assignmentAmerican Political Science Review, 111(3), 484–501

Labowitz, S. & Baumann-Pauly, D. (2015), ‘Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg: Bangladesh’s Forgotten Apparel Workers’ New York: Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, NYU.

Lindholm, H. Egels-Zandén, N. and Rudén, C., (2016), ‘Do code of conduct audits improve chemical safety in garment factories Lessons on corporate social responsibility in the supply chain from Fair Wear Foundation’, International Journal of Occupation and Environmental Health, 22(4) pp.283-291

Martin, K. D., Borah, A., &Palmatier, R. W. (2017). Data privacy: Effects on customer and firm performance. Journal of Marketing, 81(1), 36–58

Merk, J. (2016), ‘Social dialogue and triangular bargaining in the global garment and athletic footwear industry’, Presentation at FWF International Stakeholder Meeting, Amsterdam

Mindrut, Manolica and Roman (2015), ‘Building brands identity’, Elsevier, Procedia Economics and Finance,20, 393-403