Jeffrey Campbell Brand Extension Report

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Jeffrey Campbell Brand Extension Report

FD Fashion, Business and Promotion

Keshia Wilson

Date: 12/05/14

Word Count: 2,488

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Introduction

This report has been created to discuss a brand’s diversification into a new market via the use of brand extensions. A brand extension is the company’s choice to create a new product under the brands original identity and market it to a new consumer segment within the market, also known as market diversification. Jeffery Campbell showed potential as a brand that would benefit from extending its product category. The proposed brand extension for this brand would involve Jeffery Campbell who currently retail women’s shoes moving across the market into Jeffery Campbell Kids retailing children’s footwear. In this report the reasons behind Jeffery Campbell’s potential within the children’s footwear market will be explored, along with the benefits and reasons for the brand extension, with an in depth overview of the proposed extension campaign and the objectives the company would wish to achieve by doing this.

Three main objectives have been highlighted for the brand as goals to achieve by undertaking this brand extension. Firstly the brand extension should build brand architecture by diversifying product range, secondly, gain market share, loyalty and profitability and lastly by extending the brand into children’s footwear the brand plans to increase brand awareness, online visibility and web presence.

Reasons behind the choice of brand

Jeffery Campbell is a women’s footwear retailer that was first founded in the year 2000 in Los Angeles. The company is a family run business with all the designers’ immediate family members having vital job roles within the brand. Despite the brand’s globalisation it has only an estimated 10-20 employee’s which helps maintain the small company mentality and vision in which it operates under. The footwear designs are highly based around vintage inspiration, creative catwalk trends and the essence of street fashion. The company does not make traditional collections but concentrates on making unique one off designs for each shoe manufactured. This allows the brand to execute a new style of shoe at a faster rate if a new trend has been recognised rather than creating a whole collection. The brand has earned its place as a successful competitor in the footwear industry and has begun expanding into Asia, Australia and is rapidly growing within the Europe (adorableshoes;Online).

Jeffrey Campbell’s main competition is imitations of its footwear by numerous retailers that sell the styles at a lower price however customers will still purchase authentic Jeffrey Campbell’s for the quality and ownership of the brand (jacobkistner; Online).

Jeffery Campbell’s break through style, the Lita Boot, first emerged on Nasty Gal, a global e-commerce site which has recorded sales of $100 million annually (businessinsider; Online). This style became popular with bloggers and celebrities with the Daily Beast reporting at the beginning of 2013, “Litas have been produced in 164 different colours and 65 different versions so far, amounting to 160,000 pairs sold” (thedailybeast;Online). This suggests the brand gained loyal customers repeat custom. Nasty Gal is now a loyal stockist of the brand which has proven to be advantageous for Jeffery Campbell, giving the brand exposure and increased brand awareness. Brand awareness is described by Piotraschke (2008) as the realisation by the consumer of the existence of a brand, which Nasty Gal helped achieve.

Jeffery Campbell’s target market is young adults and teenage girls who want to keep up with the latest fashion, and pay a little more to do so. Jeffery Campbell’s footwear design reflects this target market. The styles are high fashion and operate a more affordable pricing strategy then high end designers, making it more attainable for its target market.  The brand is positioned on the high street in popular stockists such as Office within the UK.  Kerenha Davies, an Office sales assistant claimed Jeffery Campbell sell very for the brand (please see appendices). This suggests Jeffrey Campbell promotes its products through retail channels that best fit the brands identity and customer. (jacobkistner; Online)

 The brands main source of marketing is social media and blogs which fits accordingly with the modern way this specific targeted consumer now browse trends. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become an extremely successful way to market ones products and campaigns directly to the target consumer.  The business of fashion supports this suggestion by stating new designers declare getting garments on celebrity Instagram accounts is a more successful driver of sales than the traditional method of being featured in established fashion magazines(businessoffashion; Online). Jeffery Campbell has utilized this marketing method and has a huge social media following with A list celebrities endorsing the brand.

Jeffrey Campbell has achieved a loyal fan base, celebrity endorsements and began its diversification internationally which puts the brand in a good position to continue its expansion by extending into Jeffrey Campbell Kids.

Proposed Brand Extension for Jeffery Campbell

The proposed brand extension for Jeffrey Campbell is for the brand to move across the market and extend into children’s footwear, calling this extension Jeffrey Campbell Kids.