Before reading this blog post, I ask that you take a moment to think about your favorite clothing, shoe, and accessory brands. What about them drew you in? Would you consider yourself to be a loyal customer?
Why is branding so important?
In today’s market of fashion, it can tend to seem a bit oversaturated and highly competitive. Brands can either get lost in the shuffle, or you continue to hear about the same ones over and over again. Creating a branding strategy in the business of fashion is so vital to getting your company’s name out there and solidifying a loyal following of shoppers. Branding is what drives customers to your store instead of competitors. When it comes to fashion, people are looking for a way to define and express themselves through clothing. It’s more than just selling a product, it’s about selling an entire lifestyle that customers can resonate with. Your branding strategy helps to define what lifestyle and aesthetic you’re trying to sell and what value it brings to your target customer’s life.
The Key to Good Branding
If you’re considering opening your own boutique, or you’re responsible for the brand management of an existing fashion brand, here’s a guide on how to hone in on your branding. To start out, you need to review your company’s values and goals are. This encompasses your overall brand Identity. How you present your brand is important to attracting customers with the same values. For example, TheRealReal values sustainability and luxury, and they’ve become one of the largest luxury resellers on the market with those values.
The next step in honing in on your brand is deciding what your brand story will be. Remember, you need to sell an entire lifestyle, not just a piece of clothing. In order to build your brand story you’ll need to determine who your target audience is, why your product can fulfill their needs, and why it stands out among competitors. For example, while Hermes is outrageous and likely beyond the budget of the general population (including me), they’ve created a compelling story and overall brand strategy that has allowed them to continuously be a success in the luxury market. Hermes has been hand-crafting leather goods since 1873, originally selling products meant for the equestrian arts. The Iconic Birkin bag and Kelly bag weren’t introduced until much later, but today are highly sought-after and recognizable items without even having any logos. The company won’t sell bags just to anyone, and in many cases you have to “play the game” of making other purchases from the brand and build up a relationship with a sales associate over time. These bags can be considered the epitome of luxury and many attribute them to the “old-money aesthetic” which could be considered the lifestyle that Hermes is trying to sell.
After deciding on what your brand’s story will be, you can consider what your message and tone of voice will be and your visual aesthetics and positioning within the market, which is what gives you a lot of opportunity to stand out and prove why your items are worth the money as opposed to what your competitor is selling. A company that I believe has mastered this is Canadian store, Aritzia. Now widely popular In America, Aritzia has positioned themselves in the market as a go-to for upscale and elevated basics. And according to the Financial Post, it’s Gen-Z’s version of Gap. Sure, you could get plain clothing items from Walmart or Amazon, but that’s not promoting the lifestyle of the clean-girl who goes to pilates in the morning and has a green juice for breakfast before heading to the office, and after goes to happy hour to get her dirty martini and salad with a side of fries for dinner. Does that sound incredibly specific? Yes it does, but that’s the point. The moment they decided to brand themselves as elevated basics, women with this lifestyle gravitated towards them and through social media, others looking to emulate that persona became interested too. And that’s the epitome of a great branding strategy. At the end of the day, your product is only as good as your branding strategy.
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