The Survival of Fashion Luxury Brand When The
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2021 International Conference on Education, Humanity and Language, Art (EHLA 2021) ISBN: 978-1-60595-137-9 The Survival of Fashion Luxury Brand When the Designer Changing: How to Balance Design and Market in Order to Maintain Brand Value Yi-yan WANG1,a 1Fashion Institute, Changzhou Vocational Institute of Textile and Garment, Changzhou, China [email protected] Keywords: Brand equity, Luxury fashion brand, Fashion designer, Marketing strategy, Visual communication. Abstract. Fashion designer is one of dominate role in a fashion luxury brand. There are many cases that luxury fashion brand via recruiting a creative designer to revive their commercial empire. For example, Tom Ford capitalizes on ten years to make nearly bankrupt Gucci resurge, even become a bellwether that value 4.3 billion market cap in the luxury industry[1]. But, that is not mean every designer could be lucky to cooperate with a brand that match his or her design style, such as the transitory cooperation of Kalvin Klein and Raf Simons. Thus, except the cooperation situation of designer and company, the other critical factor to determinate one designer whether match a brand is the balance between design and marketing. This report examines the plight of fashion luxury brand when designer changing. And explore how to remedy the loosing of brand core competitiveness and discuss a sires of reasons why new design concept useless for sales improvement, also, how to utilize marketing strategy such as visual communication to maintain brand equity. In this paper, the author conducted a series of comprehensive methodologies such as content analysis, historical research and case study to probe the role of designer for luxury brands and describes that marketing strategy might contribute to protect brand value in the period of brand upgrading. The research finding that, whilst designer changing, the visual marketing could be an effective method to help luxury fashion brand tide over difficulties, whole visual presenting of brand could maintain the impression in customer mind. 1. Introduction The global market of luxury has increased significantly in the past twenty years, but also experienced many changes. In 2007, the worth of this industry reached $263 billion approximately, which surpass 31% than past the five years[2]. In France, luxury fashion industry has been become the fourth largest source of revenue. In Britain, the proportion of luxury expenditure increasing exceed the cost of non-luxuries raising about 43% during the period from 1994 to 2004[3]. In recently years, basing on a report from[4], the total sales of garments and shoes in Europe and North America has declined from more than 50% of global market in 2017 to less than half in 2018, because of the distinctive trend of economy, digital transformation and the continuously shifting of consumers’ tastes and preference, the control of luxury consumption has switched gradually from west world to emerging market, such as BRIC. Apparently, many challenges will appear for luxury fashion brand, except the transfer of the supply chain and regional trade differentiation, the style of products of luxury fashion brand will become an essential factor to adapt to new customers from emerging market. Therefore, global luxury market is full of competition. A majority of luxury fashion brands tend to concentrate on a series of necessary revolution about design in order to catch the potential market. Part of luxury brands appointing a new designer, part of brands assimilating their logo into public trend, part of brands subverting the style of the product line. However, success and failure always appear together, certain brands obtain the rebirth, but some brands are in a dilemma. This investigation will present an issue in luxury industry facing, which is considering other approaches to maintain luxury brands image and value when brands revolutionizing. The authors 251 will concentrate on a special situation of luxury fashion brand encountering, which is major designers of changing or the style of the product line shift. This research proceeds first by a number of case studies to show the influences of designer and design on the brands, then analyzing the reasons that success or failure of brand revolution. Next, the author explores solutions from a marketing perspective. Finally, the paper will outline the research methodology employed, discuss limitations, brief timetable and conclusion. 2. Definition of Luxury, Luxury Brand and Visual Marketing Luxury is a considerably complicated notion, Multifarious definition will have from different people and different perspectives. “Although some semiotics scholars have argued that there are certain “codes of luxury” that are consistent across disciplines and ages[5]” Many people attempt to give a definition to luxury, such as luxury is a relative concept. Yeoman says “the concept of luxury is incredibly fluid and changes dramatically across time and culture.[6]” In addition, luxury once has a metaphor of mirror that reflects the continuously changing of humans’ desire, which a description from historical perspective[7]. Kapferer and Bastien consider that luxury is no longer a material stimulating social hierarchy, it becomes a type of goods of the public[8]. While a majority of customer believe luxury is a symbol of high-quality and professional craftsmanship. On the other hand, what is a luxury brand? Ko and P. et.al defined that “A luxury brand is a branded product or service that consumers perceive.[9]” A luxury brand should be high-quality, offer aesthetic value via desired benefits, whether functional or emotional. Also, Luxury brand should have a prestigious image within the market built on quality and be worthy of commanding a premium price, moreover, luxury brand should be capable of inspiring a deep connection, or resonance, with the consumer.[9]” Visual marketing is a kind of marketing that synthesize marketing information and image materials such as photos, graphics, infographics, videos, logos, signs, and more. Visual marketing concentrates on an object, not text, “because human beings respond best to nonverbal (without words) communication”[10]. Psychologist believes that visual material could help people to memorize and keep more details, meanwhile, visual signal could help observer to absorb more attention on certain object, also focus on consumers’ mood. In addition, for luxury brand, visual design is one critical part to present brand image. Also, visual marketing is not just for publicity, it could be visual guidelines[11]. Johnson said that “visual content proves to be more shareable, persuasive, and easy-to-understand than written content, making it a key piece of any retailer’s marketing strategy in 2019 and beyond.[12]” 3. Case Study of Calvin Klein and Gucci Although the academic provided many definitions and notions about ‘luxury brand’ and ‘designer’, but less literature could clearly evaluate the relationship between designers and brand. In order to positioning the role of designer and explore methods to maintain brand equality, this part will be a literature review about brand case study of two Luxury brands, separately is Calvin Klein and Gucci, to discuss the balance between designer and brand. The first case is Calvin Klein, which the synonymous of voguish American minimalism and the modern, neutral lifestyle in 70s. In 1968, Calvin Klein established this brand with his friend Benny Schwartz. In 2016, Calvin Klein hired Raf Simons as creative director on August 2nd[13]. But, after 28 months, before the end of three-year, this promising cooperation break out. This suddenly terminating an agreement make a great impact on whole fashion industry undoubtedly. The chief executive officer of PVH (Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation) Emanuel Chirico said “While many of the product categories performed well , we are disappointed by the lack of return on our investments in our Calvin Klein 205W39NYC halo business and believe that some of Calvin Klein Jeans’ relaunched product was too elevated and did not sell through as well as we planned.[14]” Because PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein, poured money that over $6000 million to Calvin Klein 205W39NYC during the past three years, especially the expenditure of product development and marketing work increased which higher 252 approximately $1000 than the prior-year period. Chirico further presented that the CK jeans with new design is ‘fashion miss’, he told investors, form product perspective, they experienced an overdevelopment period on fashion and price. Apparently, Calvin Klein hopes Simons could renew and upgrade brand as splendid as Alessandro Michele rescuing Gucci, but, the CK jeans and underwear labels are a deep impression in mass cultural and distribution, expecting a creative and brainy like Simons leading in mass filed could be risky, the filed that he has little experience[15]. In addition, observers query that because Raf Simons is not a household name, thus, “that halo effect” whether worked effective and helpful for brand sales is a question. Morris Goldfarb, CEO of G-III Apparel Group indicated “Today, if you took a poll on the Calvin Klein customer, who’s Macy’s and Dillard’s, and ask them who Raf Simons is, I think you get a zero. I think you probably get less than 10 percent of the fashion population that knows who he is[16]” Market source showed Calvin Klein and Simons is a wrong match, Simons has background of Haute-couture and advanced ready-to-wear in Dior and Jil Sander, he might unfamiliar with mass market, also, after Simons joined the company, he rebuild his team, changed activities of advertising and basically reinvented the business. Although Calvin Klein has an expectation of upgrading brand, leaving much power to Simons may be an inappropriate decision. Robert Burke, CEO of Robert Burke Associates, reveals that a business like the size of Calvin Klein to relinquish entire creative control power is “a huge leap of faith”, Calvin Klein should implement a sires of measures to keep the power of scrutinize in order to avoid the product development part out of control.