posted by Hannah


Meeting Minutes so Far

Tuesday 8^th May

We all met to discuss how to begin the project; we decided what research we needed to undertake in order to find out what we wanted and influence our overall strategy. We created the following headings on which to base our research:

·         Where are we now?

·         What do we want to achieve?

·         Why is it important?

·         What will be our big idea?

·         What will be the outcomes?

·         What is the plan?

Between us we decided on work to begin on and split it accordingly:

Hannah

-  construct consumer profiles for both Ann Taylor and Loft using people we know so as to get the most valid representations

- write a press release for the brand entering the U.k market with Lisa Snowdon as its ambassador

- find information on a brand or product that has failed to transfer successfully from the U.S to the U.K market

- take pictures of examples of store layout and visual merchandising in department stores to back up the images we have already taken of individual competitor stores

Amy

- construct perceptual maps for where Ann Taylor is positioned in the U.S market, and where we feel it could potentially stand in the U.K market

- look at ‘Benefit’ as a successful U.S brand in the U.K market, collecting primary research though interviews with ‘Benefit’ ambassadors

- collect primary research from any relevant brands around Nottingham through recorded interviews from which transcripts can be formed

Emily

- construct Aaker models for both Ann Taylor and Loft

- look into ‘Gilly Hicks’ as a case study of a U.S brand in the U.K, collecting primary research and documents after visiting the store launch

- create P.E.S.T and S.W.O.T analysis documents for Ann Taylor entering the U.K fashion market

All of us will be collecting more research and examples of anyting that may be relevant to our investigations or discussions, including P.R stunts and marketing campaigns that we feel are very effective, and any design ideas for our booklets.

Thursday 10^th May

Today we decided that ‘Club Monaco’ may be a good case study to consider as it is very recent and successful, and has marketed itself in a way that sends the brand apart.

We have decided to look in the relevant books at brand extension and marketing theories so that our ideas are based on strong concepts and are therefore justifiable and more likely to be successful. Alongside this we will look at the concept of brand loyalty and how this is affected, as U.K consumers will have no current loyalty or in fact knowledge of Ann Taylor as a brand.

We are going to research into brands that currently push the ‘real woman’ and ‘confidence is beauty’ as their brand concepts to see what philanthropic marketing and what communication methods are used.

As part of our primary research we have decided to show the website or promotional leaflet to members of the public and ask their first impressions in one word. We feel this will give us a good idea of how the brand comes across on face value, purely based on the aesthetics, and how these come across to the U.K public. This will help us pinpoint anywhere where change is needed. As we do this, we will ask specific questions to members of the public that are willing to spare some time. We have scheduled this for Saturday.

Saturday 12^th May

We met today to carry out our investigation in Nottingham Town centre. We took Ann Taylor’s promotional leaflet as an example of the brand image and positioned ourselves outside stores we felt would be the brand’s main competitors. We stopped any women who were willing and asked them for one word which they felt best described the portrayal of the brand. We established limited results as many members of the public were not willing to spare the time, but any results we did get we have displayed graphically, and we feel they help greatly in recognising how the brand would currently communicate with its U.K market.

We then constructed a plan of what we felt needed to be included in both our strategy and research packs and the order in which things would feature with the plan to begin designing on Monday. We felt more research was needed into previous cause related marketing as this features in our ‘Big Idea’, and statistics needed to be found in relation to the current U.K market and the difference between value, mid-range and luxury brands. After investigating these, we feel we have all the relevant research to begin putting everything together.