Week Five

WEDNESDAY –

Today we had our formative assessment; we presented our findings so far to the tutors. After speaking to the tutors for a while explaining our ideas and thoughts for rebranding Boy London as a group we thought it would be better to choose a different brand because the tutors highlighted possible issues we may face because we have found little quantitative research about Boy London failing, our research so far was based more on qualitative research that we gathered from our Shoreditch research.

We thought about what other brands we could focus on, therefore using resources online like LSN Global and articles, we noticed that brand Bench has recently been failing highlighted by the following:

1.    Benchs’ owner Americana had a fall in profits of £24m

2.    Last year their revenue fell from £147m to £125.2m

3.    Staff levels dropped from 560 to 405 year on year

4.    Bench closed all major stores only focusing on outlet stores

5.    Couldn’t keep up with competitors

- Source - http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/north-west/88079-/

Week Four

THURSDAY -
My group and I after doing brief research have decided to research further into brand Boy London. So far we know that this brand was once hugely popular but in recent years has started to become more unpopular amongst its target market. With this in mind we decided to go to Shoreditch where its flagship store used to be located, and where we could visit Box Park, which has many independent and chain pop up street wear brands. First we went to where Boy London used to be but has now closed down, I decided to take some images of the area that the store used to be in. I found that this area was not really the best area for any brand as it was out of the way, not so easy to get to, compared to their competitors.

Boy London old flagship store

Shoreditch

 We then started visiting other streetwear shops in this area,we mainly looked at hype and carhartt to understand how they present themselves as a brand. We looked at the brands aesthetic such as store layout, colours, branding as well as how the products we presented. We also interviewed several storeowners. First was talking to the hype store manager, he talked to us about hypes popularity and it as a brand. He mentioned that hype wasn't a brand concerned with establishing its name in high quality products but was more focused on fad fashion, appealing to a large market selling a large quantity of stock but only for a short amount of time.

Hype (outside)

Hype (inside)

Carhartt

Carhartt shop aesthetic

By interviewing a variety of different people who all have an interest in streetwear I believe that our group understand our market much better, we have also learnt that many people used to be a fan a Boy London but have started to go off them because of their more ‘commercial aesthetic’, ‘over branding with the logo’ and turning into a brand that was ‘more concerned with making sales than sticking to its heritage’. I will make sure to consider these points when in the rebranding phase of the project. 

Week Four

WEDNESDAY – 

The group today looked more into the street wear market and key players within this market, we made a Brand Matrix that represented the different brands, we have shown where they sit in relation to their competitors in term of high to low end and high to low price.

Week Three

THURSDAY – 

After yesterday I decided to separately visit Urban Outfitters, this store stocks a variety of streetwear brands, it was interesting to see the difference between Selfridges yesterday and Urban Outfitters today. I felt that Selfridges provided a wider variety and a higher quality and price of products compared to urban outfitters. I think this point really highlights the difference in markets for both stores as Urban Outfitters main consumer will be younger than Selfridges and will spend less on their average shop.

Additionally I conducted a SWOT analysis on urban outfitters, this helped me to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that a brand can face and how to avoid them. By understanding this I believe I will be able to apply it to my own rebranding:

Strengths:

1.     High Quality products.

2.     Wide variety of products and brands, to therefore appeal to a wider market.

3.     Offer 20% student discount, targeting their main market 18 -30 year olds with promotions to entice them.

4.     On trend and up to date with changes within the street wear segment.

5.     Clear aesthetic through out all stores in keeping with the urban, ‘hipster’ and street wear style of the store

Weaknesses:

1.     A large variety of products and brands, no clear cash cow within the brand.

2.     Pricing varies greatly from having cheap products alongside designer brands, suggesting too much variety, and possible confusion amongst consumers.

3.     Recent criticism for producing and selling offensive and inappropriate products.

4.     Store ambience and visual merchandising is dull and not very eye catchy.

5.     Their main street wear brands have a small range of products, which is may not meet consumer demand.

Opportunities:

1.     Creating a cash cow product in order to guarantee constant profits, as the large variety of products may become question marks and not produce a reliable source of revenue. 

2.     Change store aesthetic to a much more eye catchy and visually pleasing store in order to attract more consumers.

3.     Focus on a smaller variety of products instead of supplying lots of products/brands in small quantities.

Threats:

1.     Competitors are more established and well known amongst consumers and have a larger online presence.

2.     Too much diversity amongst products may drive customers to competitors that provide more focus on their brands/products.

3.     Due to high end products and expensive pricing it may not appeal to their market of 18-30 year olds as the majority are students who have less income and would therefore shop else where with cheaper pricing.