Market positioning: How to be relevant to Generation Y

Week three is now completed here in Melbourne. It's been filled with office move, promotion-preparations for a huge sample sale and some digital strategic work. Unfortunately we haven’t had very much time for actual marketing work, although I believe being exposed to other areas of the business is as an intern as valuable. I certainly have been lucky to get exposed to every side of this small business. 

This time I would like to discuss brand positioning. This relates to where the brand is positioned in the market place in the context of competitors, and concerns the brand personality, brand promise. As in any industry, in fashion the market and consumer demands are constantly changing. In order to be a successful business being flexible and paying close attention to these changes are key. This means, sometimes it is more important HOW something is being communicated rather than what it is. 

NEUW approaches the market exactly this way. Let me show you an example of their innovation. 

The weekend just gone they held a massive sample sale. This is perfectly normal in retail. The not-so-normal is that NEUW came up with the idea of an ‘All you can wear sale’ together with a ‘Undies Special’ offer. Basically, each customer paid 50 and could walk out with anything they could wear. The ‘Undies Special’ meant if you entered the store in your underwear you got an outfit for free. 

The feedback was fantastic - an enormous amount of half-naked people showed up and the one's who didn't dare came anyway just to check it out just because the idea was brilliant. I'm sure many of you would have done that too? A very good deal especially for students!

Having this spread over social media and through word-of-mouth, the effect was magnificent. How will the consumer's impression of the brand be after this one action, do you think? Innovative, to say the least. By changing a normal sample sale into crazy fun Saturday afternoon, NEUW shows that the brand put more effort into the execution part than what it actually is about. 

(Source: http://facebook.com/neuwdenim)

As I've pointed out before - this internship is providing me with many excellent insights into a small business in a very fast-paced industry. It has made me look at things from a different perspective, and provided me with more life experience relevant for my future career.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Sara