Brandy Melville Marketing Analysis Essay Example
Market Description
Brandy Melville operates in the fashion retail industry. The retail industry is one of the biggest industries in the world and is still growing and expanding. Globally, the fashion industry is valued at 3 trillion dollars and employees millions of people all over the world. Whether they are making, selling or working in a cooperate setting they are all helping brands take more market share of the fashion industry. The market structure for the fashion industry is monopolistic competition. The barrier to entry is relatively low and hundreds of brands try to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The trends in the fashion industry are always quickly changing, most of the recent trends have been throwbacks or nostalgic designs/prints, more sustainable products, comfortable/leisure clothes, as well as a more size inclusive products.
Product review
Brandy Melville products include tops, dresses, accessories, pants, and sweatshirts. Their products are targeted at young girls who are looking for vintage, trendy and reasonably price clothing piece to wear. With their current marketing of one-size-fits-most and their trendy vintage clothing has helped differentiate themselves from other brands. Their clothes and accessories are position within the product category as exclusive sizing, high quality vintage and trendy clothing for young girls. Brandy Melville’s use of marketing their product as one-size-fits-most makes the brandy more exclusive and alluring to young girls. Their clothing size ranges from extra small to a small which is a unique characteristic only found in the Brandy Melville brand.
Review of competition
Some of the biggest competitors of Brandy Melville would be H&M, Urban Outfitters, Zara, forever 21, and American Eagle. In 2020, brandy Melville’s revenue was 332 million dollars or about 0.01% market share of the retail industry. In comparison, Zara had a revenue of 27.7 billion dollars and occupied about 0.92% of the fashion retail industry. These company are offend called fast fashion which means that brands come up with new designs to keep up with new trends and produce those designs at a low-cost rate and sell them as soon as they can. One of the substitutes for brands that are considered fast fashion is thrifting or buying secondhand clothes. Goodwill and Depop are some of the brands that sell secondhand clothes or used clothes for cheap. In 2021, Goodwill’s revenue was 6.1 billion dollars or about .2% of the market share of the retail industry.
Review of distribution
The brands distribution strategy consists upon selling online, or at one of their stores, or through an 3rd party vender. In 2009, the first brandy Melville retail store opened in Los Angeles, California. Now Brandy Melville has 97 retail stores throughout the United States of American which they sell and distribute their clothes to their loyal customers. The brand also uses intermediaries to sell their clothes. The brand is exclusively sold at either Nordstrom or Pac-sun. Brandy Melville has an online website where they ship their clothes to their customers. Most of Brandy Melville’s clothes are made in Italy however some pieces are made in China. Once the pieces are made, they are then shipped to one of their stores in the United States or are sent to their intermediaries.
SWOT Analysis
Some of the strengths that Brandy Melville has is that they have a strong social media presence, loyal customers, high quality, and stylish clothing. On Instagram, Brandy Melville has 3.3 million followers and have been tagged in over a million photos as well. They also don’t rely on traditional advertising methods but rely on their social media presence and word-of-mouth to help sell their products because of this they have cultivated a very loyal customer base. Their clothes are made with high quality materials and very stylish and on trend as well. Their weakness are they only carry one size, and they don’t market outside of social media. Since they only carry one size, they are limiting who they can wear and buy their clothes. One of their strengthens can also be seen as their one of their weaknesses, since they rely on social and word-of-mouth adverting it limits of customers, they can reach Opportunities include online shopping is becoming more popular and improve brand visibility. Online shopping is becoming more and more popular, so they have opportunities to sell more through their website than their stores if customers continue to use online shopping than in person shopping. They also have the potential to improve brand visibility by either using traditional marketing strategies like advertising one television or billboard or get a celebrity promote the brand. Threats that Brandy Melville face is competing with companies who have more resources and money and trends that change fast. The competition in the fashion retail industry is very aggressive. Companies like H&M or Forever 21 might try to copy Brandy Melville’s trendy and vintage aesthetic and because these brands have more money and resources, they can produce new designs at a faster and cheaper rate than Brandy Melville can. The fashion industry trends are rapidly changing, and Brandy Melville Aesthetic might become unpopular or not cool anymore and they might struggle to find a new aesthetic that appeals to their target demographic.
Marketing plan, Objective, and Marketing Strategy
The marketing object would be to increase sales. I would increase sales by expanding the current products in different size options. The products would come in extra-small, small, medium, large, and extra-large size options. By doing this, Brandy Melville products would be able to fit young girls of any size, thus increasing the number of customers that would be able to shop there. I would use the product-market expansion grid strategy because their products would be entering a new and wider market. Instead of occupying a occupying a niche market for young girls that are extra-small and small. They would now be adding 3 new size options and entering a new market as well. The new market would consist of all different body types and sizes. This object of adding new sizes would add value to new and former customers who previously couldn’t wear Brandy Melville’s clothes but now more sizing options, thus increasing the chance of them buying their clothes. Existing customers would now have the options of more sizing as well.
Action programs
The product would become more inclusive which would help increase the amount of customer that could buy the products. The message strategies would also be changed from one-size-fits-most to we-fit-all. I think this would also help create a better relationship with customers as the brand has faced heavy criticism in the past for promoting only one body type. The brand also had controversy because parents felt like the Brandy Melville’s brand was pushing a stereotype that an extra-small or small was the ideal body type. The advertising would mainly take place on social media because they have already have a huge following and they have an established social media presence. This type of advertising has been proved very successful for the brand in the past and I think it would be very successful in the future as well. Especially, with the announcement of brand adding new sizes, I think that existing and new customer would spread the word rather quickly because of how limited the sizing has been which would help increase the brands visibility. However, I would also implement traditional marketing methods like television advertising and billboard advertising. I would create television and billboard advertising that features different sizes of models to help advertising that Brandy Melville’s is body positive and has wide range of size options available. As well as have promotional deals available for online shopping only to help increase the number of online sales. For example, I would implement a buy-one get one-half off sale for their clothes and accessories. I believe, this will help drive more traffic to their online store and will increasing the number of items sold online. I would also continue to sell at their retail store and their intermediaries store but I would change the current marketing to feature diverse models to create a more inclusive and positive shopping experience for their customers.
Budget
The cost of implementing this plan would be the cost of producing multiple sizes for each design and style. For example, the cost of a dress would now have to consider how much it would cost to make the same dress in 5 different sizes instead of making it in 1 or 2 different sizes. There would also be the additional cost of making new advertisements. The cost of an advertisement can be different depending on how much a director, crew and model are willing to work for. Then, there would be the cost of running the advertisement, luckily the brand can promote the advertisement on their website and social medias for free. Plus, promoting the advertisements on their social media their target demographic will see in instantly and they already have a strong and loyal customer base the advertisement will probably be very successful. However, they would have to pay to run a couple of advertisement on televisions and billboards.
