Executive Summary.
This strategic marketing campaign aims to reposition Balenciaga in the mind of their consumer, through demonstrating new reevaluated morals to fall in line with their target consumer, a preference explained in situational analysis. Smith’s SOSTAC walks through implementing the new humanised tone of voice in their communication strategy and new art direction projecting focus onto the clothes, the two goals will achieve the main aim of repositioning, following 4 specific objectives to sizzle, serve, speak and sell from Chaffey et al (2000).
The reasoning for repositioning comes from lack of consumer trust and desire for the brand post scandal, despite growing rapidly before, Balenciaga need to regain their consumers trust and doing this will ultimately recreate relationships and generate sales as the situational analysis found the target consumer value this.
The situational analysis has led to clear opportunities Balenciaga should take, to maintain ahead of competition and front of consumer minds, looking at their style habits, spending habits even their geographical location to best cater for the audience, this relates to urban offline marketing assets, pop-up stores and other tactics including social media and email marketing, after finding the audience is most active here, bringing in online traffic.
Mango S/S18 (2018)
Balenciaga should home in on archetypes based off competitor analysis, demonstrated by other companies capitalising on this like Tommy Hilfiger. Other factors include the desire for timeless and trendless pieces justifying why Balenciaga should move into the new elevated essentials suggested in the campaign. The report also addresses Balenciaga’s own weaknesses and suggests turning these into strengths and opportunities, touching on imagery to reflect the new personality, distancing from avant-garde designs and creating for physical touchpoints for consumers with Pop-up stores.
The strategy implied stems from Ansoff’s market penetration and product development due to the nature of the suggested tactics, also addressing the minimal risks that are accounted for, to avoid the failure of repositioning Balenciaga. As for market penetration the product relates to the communication strategy adopted by Balenciaga and addressing the same audience; and as for product development this is developing on their best sellers like blazers and t-shirts but modifying to fall in line with the new art direction, this involves earthy, muted tones, simple silhouettes, and minimal branding, all demonstrated in the visuals on the website.
Massimo Dutti S/S18 (2018)
The tactics define the specifics to achieve each objective and the resources allocated with justification as to why the budget is £4 million annually, based off their parent brand, KERING, total marketing spend in 2022, divided by all houses in the group. The tactics are, as mentioned, offline and online for maximum exposure and reach. They relate to creating awareness, interest, desire and action, motivating customers to purchase. The tactics also suggest how they will achieve the goal by finding justification for each tactic. Actions supply even further details of the tactics and provide example visuals of the tactics, created on Canva and photoshop, helping visualise the intended aim of the new direction and repositioning, all featuring a slight grain to demonstrate the imperfect nature of Balenciaga.
The control aspect relates to the Bison Grid (2023) of creating awareness and retention through the tactics it also suggests how to monitor the success of each objective, from ensuring a number of emails are sent weekly, certain number of posts are uploaded or number of click through rates needed to generate the target sales. All actions are measurable to ensure Balenciaga rebuild that relationship with their customer, all tactics are based off the target market preferences and the aim itself stems from weaknesses and opportunities found from Balenciaga and competitor analysis with the consumer at the centre.