EOC Week 7: Trader Joe's

Market Research Questionnaire:

Hypothesis: If Trader Joe's were to create an organic baby food, sales would increase dramatically due to the consumer market they have established.

1. Do you have children?
2. Would you shop at Trader Joe's for baby food?
3. Where do you currently shop for your baby food? Wal-mart? Target? Dollar store?
4. Do you feed your baby organic food currently?
5. How often do you shop for baby food? Less than once a week? More than once a week?

EOC Extra Credit

1. Inditex, 4,000,000 friends on facebook is a Spanish holding company that is the world's largest fashion companies.
2. H&M, 3,000,000 friends on facebook is a Swedish fashion brand that competes with Forever 21, focusing on trends in apparel.
3. Gap, 600,000 friends on facebook is the American fashion brand that focuses on basics and family oriented lifestyle branding.

EOC Week 5: Polls

My first poll is a pretty good Marketing question. It reads “What fashion editorials are you most likely to pick up?” If I’m working in the Marketing Dept. of a company I’m going to need to know what my consumer is reading. If I can’t focus on all of them then I would want to know which publication I should go after the hardest so we can get placement, editorial reviews, and advertisements. I listed the top four fashion publications in the world, Vogue, Elle, Nylon, and Harper’s Bazaar. These four magazines all cover fashion but each of them cover the topic in a very different and unique way, some have more typeface than others, some have more photographic spreads then others, some have more ads then others, covering these magazines are crucial. The second question was a very simple question, yet one that people have debated about for decades. Which fashion culture is most influential? I listed out the four most dominant and prevalent fashion cultures and styles of the world, Parisian, Italian, British, and American. The only ones I didn’t list were the Japanese, this is because I feel like the Japanese fashion is so new and they barely broke out internationally as a fashion capital of the world. I don’t know how the outcome will end up, I’m betting on either American or Parisian fashion. American style and fashion is very similar to Parisian in two very interesting ways. Both have two sides, one side is a very classic iconic style, one that embodies what that culture is and what it forever will be. The other side is a very cutting edge, modern, contemporary, edgy take on what is going on in the streets of the cities of the countries. This is a question that have lingered in my mind for a while, I’m eager to find out the outcome.

BOC Week 5: Trends in Men's Styles

In the 1950’s the Greaser and Preppy looks were a big part of mainstream men’s fashion and hairstyles. The Greaser’s hair was long and slicked back into a pompadour, the Preppy look was a little shorter than the Greaser’s and had a little bit of a comb over. In the 1980’s guys were growing out their hair even longer, a trend taken from the rise of rock music. The look was a bit grungy looking and usually uneven. In the 90’s is when we started to see a more contemporary look come into mainstream culture. Men were more clean cut and haircuts such as the fade and taper cuts were made a comeback and are still very much alive today. The 2000’s brought new trend’s to men’s hairstyles, one called the faux-hawk. Reminiscent of the British punk Mohawk earlier decades, the faux hawk was not as wild but still went against normal contemporary hairstyles.

Midterm: SWOT Analysis for Nothing Else Matters...

Strengths:
•Unique style and design of brand as a whole, even more specific to the fragrance is the scent and the niche it fills.
•Strong clientele training within company in order to capture customers and build strong positive relationship to make them clients.
•Brand feels strong connection with younger demographic whose buying power is building.
•By wholesaling to department stores, Nothing Else Matters… will get that much more exposure.
Weaknesses:
•Marketing strategies are new and barely being implemented and introduced to the market so the amount of acceptance is unknown.
•At the same token, wholesaling to department stores could hurt our brand if they end up profiting more than us or even if they put our product on sale it could damage our brand image.
•Customers are evolving as a whole but on different levels so this presents a challenge, we must find what our customer’s buying habits are and cater to them.
Opportunities:
•In doing research, we have found that the country should be coming out of the recession right around the launch of the product.
•The first impression means everything, especially in fashion. If we grab the customer’s attention and help them to fall in love with the brand it could mean the success or downfall of the company.
Threats:
•Pinpointing a price range that our client can afford while still maintaining our luxury brand image and keeping the business profitable.
•Staying true to our brand. The basis of Rayne & Rose and more specifically Nothing Else Matters… is that buying our product is a step out of the crowd and expressing one’s uniqueness. Staying true to that is very important for the integrity of the brand.

EOC Week 4: Market Research Concepts in the movie Big

The movie Big demonstrated several market research strategies. One of the first strategies being the focus group, while two of the characters were talking about George, the main character, they were standing in front of what I believe to be a one way mirror. On the other side of the mirror were a large group of kids playing with toys. This is a classic way to test out a product or service on a random group of people in order to see what their response is. Another market research strategy was when the President of the company stumbled on George in FAO Schwartz. The President of the company was conducting research in the store; he said that he came to the retail store every Saturday to watch the kids and their reaction to the toys. The more he watched and listened to George, I believe he believed that George was doing some serious market research by tapping into the mind of a child and thinking, playing, and even acting like a child. The very next day George was promoted to Vice President of Product Development. The movie continues to show a group of people in a meeting that I’m going to assume were the board of executives of the company. One of the characters in the movie was doing a presenting on a new toy that the company was about to introduce, a building that turns into a robot. As he was doing his presentation, George was doing his job in other words he was playing with the toy and testing it.

EOC Week 4: Beautifulstranger.tv

The website beautifulstranger.tv is a website dedicated solely to style, not so much fashion. The website does multiple things including: video profiling, picture profiling, current trends, celebrity interviews, and blogging. The part I find the most interesting is when they profile the “beautiful stranger.” They track down people who have an interesting and unique style; they take pictures of them and ask them questions about their own personal style. I particularly like that they ask the person where they’re from and what their occupation is. The person that is being profiled and also the site then becomes a little bit more personal because it’s the everyday person. Another interesting thing about the website is that they interview people that have a career in the industry and a lot of the careers seem to have something to do with marketing. Beautifulstranger.tv asks the interviewee questions about their personal life and also questions about working in the industry. Overall, the thing I like about the website the most is what I stated in the beginning, the fact that it’s about style and not fashion. Even though the website goes into current trends, the only reason a trend is mentioned is because it is found in someone’s personal style. The difference between fashion and style is a big one. Fashion is the now of the industry; it is what comes out in each new collection of the designer. People that concentrate solely on fashion will stay up with designer collections and if they have the money to do so, purchase pieces from new collection and throw out pieces from old seasons. Style has more to do with the person himself and the image that fits that person. The website does a good job and differentiating the two.