How
Gucci Changes its Brand Image?
Bringing Innovation back to Itself
Angelene
LYU Xiaolin 1155081812
Gucci is
a luxury and recognizable Italian brand. It was founded by Guccio Gucci in 1921
in Florence and is widely known for its high-quality, luxury products including
handbags, shoes, clothes, sunglasses and other accessories.
Challenge Encountered
Dating
back to the 1990s, Gucci was considered as an aging out-of-touch fashion house
with scandalous Gucci family and boring logo pattern design. You can identify Gucci
bag very easily. Tom Ford, as the former Creative Director of Gucci, once rescue
this dying brand. After Tom Ford left Gucci, Gucci soon became a brand that only
old granny would purchase. However, due to the financial report delivered by Kering
(Gucci’s parent company) in 2014, the revenue of Gucci decreased 1.1%, while the
operating profits of YSL climbed 28.5%. Some analysts in fashion industry attributed
Gucci’s barely satisfactory performance to lack of innovation and homogenization
of its product designs，the out-of-date design as well
as its soared-up price.
Changing Brand Image
Brand Re-positioning
In order
to change the brand image, Gucci has to re-positioning itself. Although Gucci
had expanded his target market from businessmen and women who had high income
and high status to younger audiences, Gucci also needs to stress its brand
image that focuses on sophistication, high quality, high class, and innovation.
Product Design
A corporate image has many different components which could be
divided into tangible elements and intangible elements. Tangible elements include
the products and services sold under the brand. To rejuvenating a brand’s
image, selling new products is a feasible approach. In 2015, Gucci invited a
new Creative Director, Alessandro Michele, to inject this brand with fresh blood.
This incredible Creative Director did save Gucci with his vintage, genderless,
and younger design. Before Alessandro, Gucci was like an old-school middle-age lady.
But now, Gucci is a passionate girl who love everything vintage and creative.
The change can be identified through Gucci’s latest handbag trend. Some new It bags prevailed from then such as Dionysus, Marmont with
hearts, Sylvia etc.
Communication Strategies
In order
to build its Brand Image, Gucci opened many retail outlets at various strategic
locations in the world market. Some of its typical outlets are at London,
Paris, New York, Rome and Tokyo. Besides the sales conducted in the retailing stores,
Gucci is also doing online marketing work. It has an official website handle
Internet sales. On its official website, Gucci allows an in-store inventory
search which is allowed by few high-end retailers. Plus, to change its
traditional brand image, Gucci co-operates with some e-commerce corporations
such as Net-a-porter and Farfetch where trendy young people shop and buy
luxurious fashion products.
Gucci
also put efforts on innovative communication strategies. As for reaching
younger generation, using social media is an essential way to get in touch with
its target consumers. As one analysis posted on Talkwalker points out, the main
social media stream Gucci using are Twitter and Instagram, which suggests Gucci’s
communication is heavily based on images. Instead of direct advertising, Gucci
engages its audience not only through the contents it made on its official
social media accounts, but also through KOLs. Gucci sponsors outfits for some
popular fashion bloggers on Instagram and asked them to post the photos in
which they are wearing the items. For example, one of the most famous fashion
blogger (5.3M followers), Chiara Ferragni made a post of Gucci loafers which
got 51.4K likes and 813 comments as well as convey a message that leading It girls are wearing Gucci now.
Moreover,
Gucci made a change on its pricing policy. The company now offers discounts on
Internet purchases to increase its revenues as well as to diversify its
products. Gucci now tries to keep a reasonable pricing policy as well as a
premium policy of prices.
Result
With the strategies Gucci has taken, the
operation profits of Gucci in 2016 eventually began to go up.
References:
1. 5 Branding Lessons from
Gucci https://www.8ways.ch/en/news/5-branding-lessons-gucci/
4. Luxury Fashion Meets
Social Media: Gucci vs. Prada
5. Gucci Online: old-world
tradition meets modern digital marketing https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/gucci-online-old-world-tradition-meets-modern-digital-marketing/
6. Marketing Mix of Gucci
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