Marks & Spencer Brand Management Assignment

Question

Task: Part 1 - Create and deliver a 5-minute presentation
* The Purpose
The first part is an individual piece of work that requires you to study a chosen brand in-depth
and then to present your findings in whatever way you see fit. You will conduct a detailed
analysis of the brand to ensure you fully understand their DNA - from their values and their
voice to their triumphs and failures, you will make it your business to understand it all.
* Your task for the presentation is:
1. To critically review the heritage of the brand
2. To critically discuss the market positioning of the brand
3. To critically evaluate the customer perception of the brand
4. To create and deliver an impactful presentation
Part 2 - A 1000-word written submission
* The Purpose
The second part is an individual piece of work that requires you to do a deep-dive into a
current, relevant trend which can provide your chosen brand with opportunities for
innovation and reinvention. You will use this analysis as a foundation for creating and
launching a new sub-brand in the future.
You will then use your findings to create a professional and visually stunning handout. Think
carefully about how you can present your research in a way that is both informative and
digestible.
* Your handout should include:
1. What is the trend and what does it do for the consumer? (25 marks)
2. Why is this trend emerging now? What is it changing? (25 marks)
3. What new consumer needs, wants and expectations are created? (25 marks)
4. How are other businesses applying this trend? (25 marks)

Answer

Part 1: Presentation
Critical review regarding the brand’s heritage
The proposed brand management assignment undertakes Marks & Spencer in this study. The selected company was established in the year 1884 by a Russian refugee named Michael Marks who migrated to Britain and opened up a penny stall that sold goods to the passer-by in Leeds. As opined by Anthony et al., (2016), the Michael marks met up with a man named Thomas Spencer and they both opened a store in 1904, which sold general goods to the customers. However, over 100 years, the M&S has evolved to be a public company along with emerging as the British Pioneer for the research lab of contemporary clothing fabrics since 1936. As argued by Asan (2019), it was long before Tesco, that M&S was considered to be the first and foremost stores that started the scheme of “self-service” shopping in the year 1940. 

Figure 1: The penny stall of Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer
Source: (Marksandspencer. 2020)

As stated by Calu et al., (2016), it is noted in this brand management assignment that in 1970-80s, the M&S moved out of the town and started flourishing their stores in cities and across the globe. In 1999, the company opened the online shopping stores and eventually, it entered into the contemporary era of latest fashion brands in the year 2000 that consists of modern sub-brands. 

Figure 2: Marks & SpencerSource: (Marksandspencer. 2020)
Critical discussion on the brand’s market positioning

What is brand positioning in the context of brand management assignment? 
As opined by David et al., (2017), the Brand Positioning refers to the positioning strategies adopted by a brand with an aim to create the unique impression with the minds of the consumers at the business market. It needs to be desirable, clear, specific and even distinctive of nature than the other competitors within the market.

Positioning map and its analysis
Figure 3: Positioning map of M&S
Source: (Developed by the learner)

In the above positioning map provided in the brand management assignment, the M&S is observed to have a high quality product with charging moderate to high prices for them, thus targeting the moderately high class of customers. M&S is able to keep up with its customer base owing to its products quality that match the price range and is affordable for the target demographic as compared to H&M and Debenhams.

Competitive analysis

Table 1: Competitive analysis of M&S
Source: (Developed by the learner)

USP and how it helps in maintaining competitive advantage 
The M&S is the quintessential brand of British Origin as it consists of the mixture of traditional concepts, with contemporary ideas and missions along with underlying the effective brand value. As opined by Dibb (2017), it does not lose the sight of modernization along with the expectation of the audience. It is considered to be a classic brand but it also embraces the future which makes it go ahead of the other competitors. Hence, with luxury image, justified values through the exceptional marketing along with adjusting the needs of the contemporary audience without faltering help them maintain their competitive advantage. 

Critical evaluation upon the brand’s customer perception
As opined by Dionisio and Leal (2016), it is clear in this section of brand management assignment that Marks & Spencer has received ratings of 3.12 stars out of the 25 reviews which indicate the brand to be popular within the customers and they are usually satisfied by the purchase of M&S products. It ranks 31st amongst the other general apparel websites. However, out of its diversified customer base, many of them have presented a positive review for M&S of being the advisor of style and comfortable fittings of the garments.

Figure 4: Numbers of reviews given by customers for M&S
Source: (Hansen et al., 2017)

As opined by Houghton et al., (2017), it is even stated that buying the M&S product online is easy and they effectively found their size and quality. Many stated the effectiveness of the company's service by delivering the products on time and maintaining good quality fabrics while providing a brilliant experience to the. As argued by Katsikeas (2018), many found to state negative reviews like the expensive returns with complications along with developing their websites. The customers also stated the inefficiency of their employees, which generated disappointment and hence, caused a bad reputation.

Figure 5: Average ratings of M&S from customers
Source: (Kotane et al., 2019)

Part 2: Written
Describing the trends and its importance upon the customer
Marks & Spencer is going to launch its sub-brands of clothing wear, named as Per Una within its physical and online stores. Thus, certain customer-driven innovative trends illustrated in the brand management assignment are followed by M&S for the sustainability of the brand and creating popularity among the customers such as,

Shopping through AR technology
As opined by Malar (2016), Augmented Reality is the future for every business retailer brand along with artificial intelligence. Thus, M&S is leveraging upon the AR technology which helps in mitigating the gaps between the digital and the physical and hence, have launched the feature where buyers can picturise the clothes upon them to see whether its suiting or not. It helps the customer to shop with ease and access the company’s product showcase.

Customisation of products
It is the classic symbol for luxury used by the M&S that offers embroidery and monograms along with unique schemes of colours. Thus, the research on brand management assignment mentions that the garment of Per Una will offer such customisation, which will help the shoppers to purchase the products that are tailored specifically according to their needs of a style, and hence, along with repairing their clothing they can revamp their entire look.

Figure 6: Customisation on the products of Per Una
Source: (Marcum and Campbell, 2016)

Social shopping
As opined by Marquardt et al., (2017) in the present report on brand management assignment, more than 41% of the e-commerce retailing brands are using the trend of social shopping and so does M&S. The company has partnered with certain influencers of social media along dedicating resources and time for building the shoppable social profiles on Pinterest and Instagram. Thus, the consumers are benefited to buy the products of Per Una as per their choice and styles from the social platforms. 

Figure 7: Social media profile of Marks & Spencers
Source: (McGoldrick and Liu, 2017)

Causes of the emergence of trend and the changes resulting through it
The current brand management assignment examines the readings of Mohr and Batsakis (2017) that due to the uncertainty within its positioning of the market, the Marks & Spencer are gradually developing some new innovative trends in order to launch their sub-brand named Per Una. Unfortunately, the market positioning of M&S as the quality retailers has lost its influence in recent times, which has resulted in the continuous declination of their sales. However, this uncertainty within the positioning was caused due to several factors such as inconsistency in marketing and promotions of products along with multiple indistinguishable sub-brands. Thus, due to this reason, the brand mainly focused upon one of its sub-brands that is Per Una and started to relaunch it in the market to attract its customer base. As suggested by Mouzas and Ford (2018), the reputation of M&S along with brand positioning needs to be restored and re-evaluated to salvage the sales hence, M&S adopted this innovative trend to make its brand image again. Thus, these trends helped in improving productivity with reduction cost. It helps the company to become more competitive along with building up its brand value that increases profits and turnovers.

Creation of new needs, expectation and wants of the customers
The customer's expectation from the brand increases as they start expecting more innovation within the field of clothing and making it easily available to them. The use of innovative trends like Augmented Reality helps the customer to choose the clothing as per their choice and could picturize whether the garment will suit them or not and hence, the needs arise as they want to look for more products in the company showcase to choose one out the all. The product customisation helps the customer to get products of unique designs for monograms and thus, the customer wants re-raised as they wanted to find more unique customised designs which will make their looks become more fashionable and exclusive. With social media platforms, the ease of shopping increases and thus, the customer expects to get the best quality of products from the company like Per Una of M&S. Thus, with customer-driven innovation adopted by the company as discussed in the brand management assignment, the customer needs, wants and expectation increases in every form as they want more unique style and designs from the company, the expects the product to be of the best quality and of affordable prices and they need the company to fulfil their demands and deliver the product of time. 

The application of this trend in other businesses
The implementation of the customer drive innovative trends along with M&S is also used by other companies, which are listed below within the brand management assignment:

Shopping through AR technology: The companies like Amazon, Lowes and Target have launched such feature of AR technology which helps the customer to picture the furniture within their homes. The AR market has anticipated reaching more than $133 billion in the year 2021. As viewed by Peasley et al., (2017), the smaller brands like Shopify feature the Shopify AR toolkits which create AR experience that showcases the product to their customers utilising the Safari Browser on the iOS 12 devices.
Customisation of products: The companies like Levi’s offers the personalised embroidery upon the denim jacket and jeans and on the other hand, the shoe brand like NIKE offers the shoppers to fully customise their sneakers for getting a completely unique pair. As opined by Peattie (2016), the brands like Atelier & Repairs along with Lot Stock & Barrel have completely based their companies on this uniques idea and are developing it further. 

Social shopping: The other clothing companies like H&M, Zara and Primark have also created their social media profiles in Instagram and Facebook to attract customers through showcasing their unique product designs, styles, embroideries and more. 

Conclusion
From the present brand management assignment, it could be surmised that the innovative and re-invention trends adopted by Marks and Spencer helps it gain significant competitive advantage in the market. Currently the company explored in the brand management assignment is aiming to relaunch a sub-brand named Pre Una, with the help of utilization of social media and other traditional forms of marketing, in order to win over the lost segment of customers as well as attract few newer ones.

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