Tag Archives: strategy

Tommy Hilfiger’s social media strategy

September 30, 2014 efbusinessschool Leave a comment

The customer base of Tommy Hilfiger is women, men and children. The Hilfiger followers on different social medias are women and men who seems to have the same age as the models present on the brand web site. Followers and models are in their twenties and thirties.

The fact that the followers and models used by Tommy Hilfiger brand are the same, shows that the brand knows their customers. An other evidence of Tommy Hilfiger working strategy is that we know they have 9,500,000 people who like their facebook page, they have 720,000 followers on Twitter, 364,000 on Intagram, etc… That means a lot of people are following them through the social media and they are connecting with the brand.

But we don’t have enough information to know if their social media strategy is working or not to increase the sales of the brand. We can suppose that Tommy Hilfiger is learning a lot of information through social media about their customers. How they react after a new post, which one they like more, which one they like less, what about their age, gender, country, etc… If this hypothesis is correct, Tommy Hilfiger would have a lot of followers to know which way to go.

The Tommy’s Hilfiger social media strategy could be a source of inspiration for our journal by following simple rules like :

To be on different social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc…

To animate the different media with a daily content, like promoting our articles, our website, our events, etc…

To diversify the content, with text, photos, videos,…

To answer quickly to the followers

business, Company, World

Heineken – Open your world!

September 29, 2014 efbusinessschool Leave a comment

One of the most famous beer brands in the world is definitely Heineken. Nearly everyone either knows this brand or has at least heard of it. Now with more than 8 million likes, Heineken is by far the most liked beer on Facebook. On Twitter it has even more likes. Therefore the question arises why this is so? What makes the iconic green beer bottle so popular?

Well, Heineken at least posts once a day on its Facebook page, inducing likes and comments with pictures or videos. Moreover, the brand uses 15% of its marketing budget just for social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or Instagram. Heineken doesn’t want its users to leave the brand behind by just clicking like. Pressing the like button should basically be the beginning and not the end. The user should think “this brand speaks to me”, and therefore Heineken has to create a dialogue with the consumer. Furthermore, Heineken is known for sponsoring soccer events, such as the UEFA Champions League for example. Thereto, I have to add that soccer is still the most popular sport in the world. Lots of pictures or video spots, which are published on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, still deal with the sport.

Customer base of Heineken:

Nearly everyone who is allowed to drink alcohol has drunk Heineken, no matter what gender. So the customer base of Heineken is basically everyone who is legally allowed to consume alcohol.

Target audience of Heineken:

Heinekens target audience is not the same as its customer base. The brand focuses on men of the age between 18 and 45. Heinekens ads (e.g. pictures or videos) on Facebook or Youtube often show either students who are having fun with a bottle of beer at a party, or middle-aged men who are meeting their friends at a bar after work. There is a famous spot of Heineken on Youtube for example which first shows a group of women who are entering a small unknown room. Inside this room are hundreds of shoes, which makes the group completely freak out. Next to this room is another one, which is entered by a group of young men. Inside this room are hundreds of Heineken bottles, which make the men completely freak out. Through this ad spot Heineken’s target audience can easily be explained.

Heinekens social media marketing strategy will most likely work in the future. Though, there are still a few things Heineken has to think about, such as the demographical change in some countries. Less babies and more elder people would mean that they lose customers, because their targeting audience is between the age of 18 and 45. Anyway, why are they just targeting men between the age of 18 and 45? Heineken considered that and has recently started to target also elder men at the age of 50 and beyond. That’s a good start for a successful future.
Furthermore, as I already said, Heineken focuses on soccer. In Europe, soccer is already the most popular sport, whereas in the USA or in Asia it is not. But it is slowly getting more and more popular there as well. So by focusing on soccer they could definitely increase the number of customers.

It would be good for a small company to create a “like page” on Facebook, as well as one on Twitter. Daily posting pictures or videos of the products or services the company provides would help to get more and more popular. After a certain time, the company could also think about investing in those networks. By investing in Facebook for example, more and more random people will see the pictures or videos you post, because Facebook helps you to make your site get more popular.

M.V.

business

Marc by Marc Jacobs

September 29, 2014 efbusinessschool Leave a comment

Introduction to Marc by Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs is the founder of the diffusion line Marc by Marc Jacobs. This extremely popular and trendy brand has over 200 retail stores in 80 countries.

They not only have fashionable clothes, but shoes, jewelry, bags and accessories as well.

Assignment

Marc by Marc Jacobs’ customers are young men and women between the age 14-30. The type of customers that buys Marc Jacobs could be Veblen or Band Wagon. Veblen are those with the motivation of showing of[f] that they have the income to buy such an expensive and luxury product. Band Wagon are those customers who want to look like others and also to show off[1]. Their reference group could be celebrities or someone they look up to. You can discuss whether they use undifferentiated marketing or differentiated marketing.

Because they sell product in many different countries, which means that there are a lot of elements for instance, culture, size, weather etc. that can be barriers for the company and therefore has to make some changes in either the collection or the way they marketing or both. This is what Marc by Marc Jacobs is doing, but then again you cannot customize your clothes like you can with Nike shoes.

According to Minerva model their customers are the green segment[2].

Every new Marc Jacobs product will be added to Marc by Marc Jacobs official website with a YouTube link with a 30 second long video about their new collection and in conjunction with that they also announce it on their international Facebook and Twitter. The target audience of their social media is clearly young, fashionable people who wants more of Marc Jacobs and who wants to be in. They don’t advertise in newspapers or such. What they do take advantage of are all these celebrities that wear Marc Jacobs . The reason why Marc Jacobs is so into social media marketing is because luxury brands like Marc Jacobs attract more than 20 times likes or share on facebook compared to other brands[3]. Affluent customers are more active and vocal they are engaged and want to share their favorite products or brand and therefore Marc Jacobs gets a lot of ‘word of mouth’. Marc Jacobs job is to stimulate new wants by launching new product or seasonal updates. Marc Jacobs always follows the new trends to be up to date which is also very important for luxury brands like Marc Jacobs for instance their Instagram profile has more than 1.15million followers.

My conclusion is that their customer base and target audience are the same. They want trendy affluent consumers and they got them.

Their strategy works and it shows. They number 8 worldwide most talked topics on Twitter[4]. If you look at the link you can see that their annual results have only gotten more positive by the years[5] [6]. Beside the evidence you can also see that they have a 10-year plan that will keep the business successful[7].

Basically what Marc Jacobs is doing is to create awareness of their new collection through social media. They have understood their target group and how to reach them and in this case it is through social media. They know how to stimulate their new wants.

For a blog like The Hyde street journal who wants more ‘likes’ or fans has to get out there. It means get an Instagram account if they don’t have one and a Facebook account. Also Let the people be a part of it, let them be able to comment, share or maybe even post on the blog. Another thing blogs could do is to recommend places or put relevant topics that people want to know about. If it’s a blog about California then make a competition where you have to like and share and you can win a California t-shirt. You have to catch their interest.

There are many different ways even though Marc Jacob and The Hyde street journal Blog is two completely different things they have one thing in comment which is getting followers and increase awareness towards the brand or the blog.

Conclusion

Marc by Marc Jacobs understands their customer[‘]s needs and therefore has such a successful social media strategy. They know how and where to attract their consumers. Their method is also very cost effective. It is a lot cheaper to promote on Facebook than to promote on TV. Their strategy can be used by other brands and even blogs.