The Prada revolution: more than a customer experience

In the new Prada store, the technological side is not only there to make the customer experience in the store nice, but the other objective is to optimize the service and make every purchase more efficient and quicker too. This is explaned in an article from the Rfid Journal which incent other retailers to look at this very closely: “Learning from Prada”.
This technology is particularly adapted to Prada because it is a very expensive fashion producer, so the quantity of clothes in the store (and the quantity of items purchased by each customer) is globally lower than in a regular clothing retailer like Gap or H&M. Consequently, each item is very valued and expensive, and it is worth it to attach it an electronic tag; in a store like H&M, it would be difficult to have the same changes: this kind of store is not very tidy; there are clothes everywhere and everything is in a mess. It would be quite weird to have an expensive electronic tag for each little 5 dollar t-shirt.
Consequently, this technology is adapted to every similar “luxus” brand retailer, such as Louis Vuitton or Chanel, but not to other “cheaper ready-to-wear clothing” such as Gap.
The customer experience is really improved because the service is customized; most of the time the customer is taken care of by a specific sales associate, and each purchase behaviour is facilitated by this employee and also by the computer (which looks for assorted outfits, checks the disponibility of an item... all of this very quickly). This store is consistent with the company’s objective to gain insights because it tends to create a very personal relationship between the customer and the brand; moreover each customer’s previous purchase will be recorded for later so the knowing of each customer will be more and more accurate.
Besides, this is for the customer a really holistic experience, like entering a futurist world, with the video monitors everywhere, the fascinating dressing rooms (which turn opaque when you step in!)
To my mind this is a very interesting store because it launches a new retailing philosophy: the purpose is not only to help the customers, but also to help the employees of the store. Of course they have to learn how to use this technology, which can be difficult at the beginning, but at least they will have the feeling to do a more valuable and skilled job. Instead of carrying tons of clothes or looking for ages in the back room for a different size, they just have to rely on this new technology. So the result will be happiness for the customer and for the store associates, which is always a good thing in the retail area. After all, aside from all technology, the best retail service comes from a happy motivated employee.

The power of emotions

More and more marketing campaigns rely on emotions, and there is a scientific explanation to this trend. As it is developed in an article from “Forbes”, consumer behaviour relies on brain activities.
For instance, let’s look at the Magnum’s campaign. The Unilever brand invented a campaign based on the 7 capital sins. Each ad was focused on one sin and was very intense, showing beautiful people giving in to the temptation.The commercials could not be seen without a shiver.
As it is explained in the article, marketers try to study the activation of different regions of the brain when people are confronted to product images. The neuronal responses were the indications of which products really “touch” them. The interesting thing is that these products are not necessarily the ones that the individuals claimed to be their favourites. That’s the advantage of this method: brain cells cannot lie.
In my opinion, this kind of study is really not a waste of time, as human emotions are at the center of their life, and especially is their consuming habits. When they are looking for importants items like cars, they are motivated by fear (they don’t want an unsafe vehicle); when they are looking for entertainment items like MP3 players, they are influenced by fun and aesthetic brands like Ipod, which make them feel trendy and smart; and when they are looking for convenience items like laundry, they like humoristic commercials, even if there is no link with the product quality: they makes them laugh and think this brand is fun (and so are its consumers).
The Dove campaign is also a very striking example of the effect of emotions on brand loyalty. The “Evolution” commercial seen in class is very upsetting and leaves the spectators in a state of shock. This emotion is often followed by an admiration to the brand philosophy and consequently an attachment to the products… that are after all only moisturizing creams and other simple cosmetic products. But the idea that the people behind these products defend a respectable point of vue and mission (“No wonder our conception of beauty is distorted – Take part in the Dove Real Beauty Workshop for Girls”). The piano music of this commercial emphasizes the emotions, and is consequently a very important element. A beautiful piano song is often a good way to touch people in their deeper feelings, which the creators of this commercials have understood.
To my mind, playing on the emotions is a very efficient marketing strategy, but can also be tricky. Some marketers go really too far from their product by trying to touch people, and this seems to me sometimes a little arrogant or ridiculous. For example the Benetton visual campaigns were for me sometimes very interesting for the brand image: they showed for example 3 human hearts with labels “white”, “black”, “yellow”. These ads are coherent with the brand identity, “United colors of Benettons”, which brings a message of tolerance to different origins. But sometimes advertisers tried to excite emotions with absolutely no link with the product, like a person dying of AIDS or a man sentenced to death. I think these commercials have no objective other that shock people and can get some enemies easily by playing on these delicate matters.

Individual report assignment: «girl power» marketing.

This report will be the opportunity for me to study the specificities of marketing aimed to women:
- Which brands target woman and/or girls?
- How do they try to seduce them?
- Which are the most successful ones and of do they manage to create brand loyalty from women?
- Are there any new specific trends?
- What are the specificities of advertisting campagns and communication in general when it deals with women?
- Eventually, can we say that marketing to women/girls is close to tribal marketing, and if yes, why?

I choosed this subject because I realized that women are always associated with shopping, as if it was a hobbie which can sometimes turn into a disease (most of the “shopping fever” cases concern women). However, do marketers really know what’s in the head of a woman during a shopping trip? Furthermore, as more and more women work, their purchasing power is growing, because they have now their own money (and not only the budget given by the husband in order to provide to the family’s needs). That’s why companies have to find a way to attract them.

In an article from the Wall Street Journal Girl Power as Boy Bashing: Evaluating The Latest Twist in the War of the Sexes, the author underlines a new trend in marketing for teenage girls: some brands like David & Goliath attract girls with childish slogans on their clothes, like “Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them!”
This is one aspect of the development of a marketing specific to girls and woman, trying to bring back to life the famous War of the Sexes. It is a way to exalt women and girls self-confidence and to assert all the feminist values. The times where women were considered as inferiors to men is not so far, and these brands have understood that; now they try to let girls think that this injusticed should be reversed, and boys should be bashed!

Of course, brands have developed very various strategies to talk to women, from L’Oreal (“Because you’re worth it”) to Givenchy (“Very you”) or Vogue ("Vogue – for the overwhelming minority”).
In several cases, they try to create a link not only between the woman and the brand, but also between women themselves. That is why the marketing campains can sometimes look like tribal marketing campaigns.

The brands are now experiencing the same deviation than feminism: as they try to compensate the unbalance between men and women, and to underline that being a woman is a real blessing, some of them end up saying than women are better. That is what happens with this “Boy bashing” trend, as a young teenage girl explains in the article: "Girls used to try to be equal to boys, now they're trying to be better”.

Build-a-Bear : a model for experiential marketing.

A picture of a Build-a-Bear shop situated in Paris, in the Galeries Lafayettes Departement Store.

The american company Build-a-Bear is in my opinion one of the most innovative in the toy area. The founders have understood the special relationship that can exist between a child (or even an adult) and a stuffed animal. In the Build-a-Bear stores, you can “construct” your own teddybear: you choose one of the 30 animals existing, then you choose a sound to be put in the animal, then you assist to all the steps of its “birth”, from the stuffing to the dressing.
Build-a-Bear’s philosophy is articulated around 4 of the Strategic Experiential Modules that are described in the article “A framework for managing customer experience”. For each of these modules, one or several Experience Providers are used.

Sense.
All the Build-a-Bear spatial environment universe is built for the senses: the stores have very bright colors, there is a happy childish music. The product is at the core of the strategy: for example, when you build your stuffed animal, you have to give him a sound. It can be an animal noise, but you can also tape your own voice. You have to touch it during the whole process. Feel.
The company creates a very strong affectional link between the customer and his “new friend”. First, when you “build” your stuffed animal, a key step is to give it a “heart”: you have to rub it in your hands and then it is put inside the animal. At the end of the process, you go online and you create a birth certificate, as if it was really alive.

Act.
Of course, the Act SEM is essential in the Build-a-Bear experience, as you are the conceiver of the product. People are an important ExPro because they are here to help the customer in the building process.

Relate.
Enventually, Build-a-Bear has created a real universe around strong values: above all is the importance of fun. People of the company call themselves “Bear-Builders”. On the internet website, you can see that a lot of events are organized: for instance, you can participate to a “online Bearism contest” or you can schedule a party at the store. New animals are created for special occasions, like Valentine’s Day. They also build partnerships with other brands: a special “Hello Kitty” stuffed animal was created.

This whole marketing strategy illustrates to trend of experiential marketing. It is the same will than in the Texas grocery store “Central market”, as it is explained in article from FastCompany: the purpose of the store is to provide people a real “trip”, so that they forget that they’re just here to purchase. At the end of the visit to the Central market, people can say: “I have taken a cook lesson and brought my child to a birthday party there” and not “I have bought food for tonight”. That is the same for Build-a-Bear: I have been to the store in Paris and created a teddybear as a present for a friend. I had the feeling to experiment something special, as if I was creating myself the present, wich makes it more personal. I didn’t have the feeling to have wasted time looking for a present, but I really had fun. In my opinion, this is a very successful marketing strategy that more retailers should follow. It is for me one of the most important preoccupations of customers: they want to escape from everyday life, and shopping can be an especially boring activity. I don’t see any lack in the marketing mix of Build-a-Bear, unless maybe the choice of the size: you can have one size for your teddybear, so you can’t customize very small or very big stuffed animals. It would be a good idea to reach all the wallets.

It was quite easy for me to describe this experiment as I already went to the store and have been through the whole process as a customer, not as an observer (and before knowing that I would talk about it in a marketing class). In the experiential marketing area, I think it is difficult to evaluate without experiencing.

The Net Generation

According to marketers, a new generation is born: the Net Generation. They can also be called “Generation Y”, “Echo Boomers” or “Millenium Generation”, as it is explained in an article from Business Week.
This is a really interesting segment for marketers, who try more and more to understand them and especially to find out their needs.

- Demographic profile: as it is said in an article of Fortune, this segment concerns the people born after 1977 (under 29). I think we can say that the minimum age to be put in this segment is around 4, the age where children begin to understand what happens and can have some preferences and tastes. Nowadays they are exposed to marketing strategies very soon, especially through the television. They belong to middle-class or wealthier classes, and they have a real consuming power.

- Psychographic profile: They are very aware of trends and fashion. Most of them have very strong opinions about what is “out” or not, and they have a high influence on their parents (if they are not independent yet). As the journalist of Fortunes underlines it, they all want to change the world. They seem very independent from their parents in matters of opinions and tastes, often rejecting what the former generation liked. They use new technologies very easily and they are extremely pragmatic, as it is said in Business Week.
I think there is a very interesting paradox which appears in these two articles: these children are very idealist (they want to change the world) and meanwhile pragmatic (they already have long-term plans). That shows that even if they are rather mature comparatively to their parents at their age, they are still children with all that it means: they are not totally disconnected from the “fairy-tale” world that they see in all children books and Walt Disney films. It think this is quite relieving because these kids who are informatic geniuses and active consumers can be sometimes a little frightening, and I think it is important for children to have a “innocent soul” as long as possible

- Behavioural profile: they do a lot of activities outside of school/work: sports, music, and of course shopping. They do not like to be said what to buy or not. That is why they are not so fond of the traditionnaly popular brands (like Nike) and they prefer more subtle ways of advertisement. I do not totally agree with that point (developped in the Fortune’s article) because I think these brands will always have a strong power over the segment. Teenagers like to identify themselves with brands and logos.

- The underlying needs of the Net Generation: they have a strong need of identity which they express a lot through shopping. They also want to be successul in life with a work that they really like and a happy family life. I think what they are looking for when they shop is a brand which has a real ethics (they are for instance very sensitive to environment problems) and also a very strong and original identity. They need to find marks because it is easy to feel insecure especially when they enter so young in the “adult world”.

In my opinion, this process of describing segments is very interesting because it requires thinking very deeply. However it is also difficult for two reasons: firstly, I feel like what I say is very subjective, based on what I personnaly saw in real life or read in the articles. Secondly, a marketing segment is by definition not entirely homogeneous.
As a conclusion, I think that this is really a psychological work and that is what I find interesting in marketing. It can be the first step before launching quantitative and qualitative studies: first trying to build hypothesis about the segment just from articles and personal thinking, and then try to confirm or infirm them thanks to figures.

Customer Insights

This blog is one of the assignments of the Customer Insights course.