INTRODUCTION
Brand management is a professional practice that involves managing or handling the brand reputation in the market (Dong, 2022). The current study is based on the Gucci Company’s brand management practice in the market. The organization was founded in the year 1921 by the founder Guccio Gucci. The headquarters, of the company is located in Florence, Italy. Currently, the business is at approximately 487 locations. In the world, the organization is a global brand in the fashion industry. The organization holds more than 17000 employees in the market, which makes the organization an entity holding g a considerable employee base in the market (gucci.com, 2022). In 1921 the company owned its store to deliver its products and services to the end customers in the market. The brand has a slogan: Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten. Gucci has a meaning of being fancy, very fashionable, and such other traits. The company’s logo carries a double G which demonstrates the brand image. The company is a premium brand that targets customers in the fashion industry with immense buying power or capacity. The target market of the company considers the premium product range that can favour the brand to contribute to the growth of the brand effectively.
Task Assessment
Media strategy
Media strategy is about to us the different forms of media in order to deliver or execute the promotion and operations of a business. The Gucci Company is one of the premium brands involved in the fashion sector, which requires the brand to utilise an effective form of media promotions to be involved with the buying behaviour of the end customers in the market. The company is focused on the following media platforms to deliver or execute a firm’s operations in the market.
Traditional Media
Gucci Company uses traditional media channels to deliver brand promotions or advertisements. The company is involved in doing a television advertisement to attract the buying behaviour of the customers in the market. Television advertisement is one of the most trustworthy platforms or approaches to delivering the campaign (Amatulli, De Angelis and Donato, 2021). Even after the presence of digital channels, customers in the United Kingdom get along with a minimum of 41 television advertisements in one single day.
Television advertisements are an effective mode of advertisement as even today; the channel is very effective in the market. Especially in the e-commerce business, television involves £25 million and £32 million. The contribution of the advertisement in sales involves £23 million and £36 million. The total contribution of television advertisement in e-commerce is £49 million, and £68 million in total numbers improve marketing.co, 2022). Television, even today’s time, accounts for 37% of the viewer base, accounting for 95% of the video advertisement in the market. Gucci Company is also involved in doing television promotions as a part of a traditional form of advertisement. The other models, like radio advertisements, are another effective medium for brand promotions. The radio is one of the most effective traditional mediums of brand advertisements in the United Kingdom today; people prefer listening to even radio channels. Gucci Company emphasises going for brand advertisements and promotions with radio advertisements to gain a competitive advantage in the market (Javornik et al., 2021). The company also uses holdings and pamphlets to indulge in brand promotions through traditional mediums and channels. People carry trust in the traditional advertisement method more than the modern marketing tactic. The trust of the people is more which always inspire the brands to be involved in traditional form of promotion or advertisements to attract the buying behaviour of the end customers in the market.
Internet, digital and interactive media
Internet keeps growing in the United Kingdom, allowing brands like Gucci Company to get along with this advertisement. In the country, the total number of internet consumers is 66.99 million, which is approximately 98% of the country’s overall population (improve marketing.co, 2022). The number is so massive, which allows the brands to get along with the modern form of advertisement and the use of the internet, social media and digital channels to entertain the brand promotions in the market. Facebook holds a total of 35.05 million users in the market. The data showcased that Facebook advertisements hold a reach of 51.3% population which is an effective way to approach brand promotion in the market. The United Kingdom resulted in the sue of Facebook in the country for the age group below 13 years; hence, in the country, Facebook has a reach of approximately 60.5% population who are eligible to use the platforms.
The above-stated chart showcased that Facebook is the most preferred channel for brand promotions across the world. It has a global reach of 2.93 billion people (shopify.com, 2022). Youtube is also one of the key platforms for doping brand promotions. That platform has a reach of 2.52 billion people across the world, making the platform very engaging in brand promotions. Youtube has a total customer base of 57.6 million people as per the recent record of 2022 (improve marketing.co, 2022). Whatsapp is an active user of 2 billion worldwide and in the United Kingdom. Instagram is a platform with a user base of 31.75 million in the country, making the platform very engaging in brand advertising. The platform also holds a global customer base of 1.39 billion people, which makes it very preferable for companies to do brand advertisements.
Gucci Company is involved in digital promotions by approaching Facebook, Instagram and search engine-like platforms. The above-stated image is an Instagram handle of a company which is having total followers of 49.7 million people across the world. The reach of the company is allowing the brands to involve in doing brand promotions over these platforms to attract a huge customer base in the market (Lyppert, 2021).
Critical analysis advertisement
As per the views of Armitage and Roberts (2021), brand promotions are defined as projecting the products and services of the business in front of the target customers in the market in such a way that the company ends up attracting the buying behaviour of the end customers in the market. Today, doing promotions, companies have multiple channels, such as traditional as well modern marketing approaches. Concerning traditional platforms, channels like television, radio, print media and others are approached by the business focusing on brand promotion in the market. On the other die, the digital channels for brand promotions involve Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, search engines, and many other platforms promoting the brand’s promotions in the market. Huggard, Lonergan and Overdiek (2022), has argued that marketing directly impacts the organisation’s performance, but the availability of multiple platforms is always a challenging position for companies. Multiple campaigns require better engagement and control, which is challenging for companies to do simultaneously. Many times it leads to a failure for the company in the market.
Jansom and Pongsakornrungsilp (2021), has stated that social media and traditional promotional tools have an excellent opportunity for the business to improve sales in the market. It is also a great way to cherish brand promotions in the market. For example, Gucci Company could grow its sales in the business and also grow its brand reputation in the market. The campaign related to promotions directly developed the brand reputation in the market for the company. They also have an opportunity to improve, such as crate better engagement with customers on the campaign, trying to convert leads into sales in real-time and others. The company’s advertisement campaign is integrated at some level, but the brand still needs to focus on integrating all the channels of brand promotions. Gucci Company usually highlights the company’s slogan in its brand advertisements. The company’s focus is to design the campaign concerning the slogan to demonstrate the brand’s identity in advertisements. The objective of brand advertising is to increase awareness, change the customers’ beliefs, influence the purchasing intent of the end customers in the market, and stimulate the trial in the market.
Bratcher (2021), has argued that the brand must focus more on data analytics than just the hypothesis in the modern marketing campaign. Using the data will allow the brand to know more about the market, and it will allow the brand to focus on making real-time changes in the advertisement campaign. For example, due to not being focused more on data analytics, the Gucci Company could face issues in repeating the purchase made by the customers; they suffered from brand switching by the buyers and also faced issues in increasing sales of the company.
The Gucci Company focuses on projecting a specific theme in all its campaign and designing the campaign around it. The company also project the tagline in the campaign to make it look more engaging or attractive for the target customers in the market (Ni, 2021). All these are the critical tactic the company is currently using to improve the brand’s reach, increase customer engagement with the brand, facilitate better sales in the market, and achieve other objectives that can meet by the company.
Competitor Analysis
Gucci Company is competing with brands like Christian, Dior, Prada, Armani and Chanel (craft.co, 2022). The company is dealing with aggressive competition with Channel, a United Kingdom-based firm indulged in fashion. On Twitter, Gucci has a total following of 7 million, whereas the Channel has followers of 13.5 million, which is way more than the company. In the last 30 days, Gucci Company made a total tweet 54 whereas the other brand had a full tweet of only 13, which shows that the company is more active on social media channels. The company has an average like per tweet of 1.1k, whereas the Channel is getting average likes of only 441.9, which is also half of the Gucci Company. (craft.co, 2022). The competitors like Channel are also using th social media strategy for brand promotions. However, Gucci is found to be more precise and active on social media platforms for its brand promotions. The competitors also have a similar strategy for handling social media; engagement is the only difference. The Gucci Company is capable of holding a better engagement with the consumers in the market.
The above statistics show the popularity level of different luxurious brands on social media. The Channel is a United Kingdom-based organisation with a total following of 89.1 million, whereas Gucci has a second spot in the list with 78.2 million followers. The numbers show that the Channel is the closest competitor for the company, and it is also very engaged in the market. The recent campaign made by the Channel is also similar as it is a theme-based campaign similar to Gucci. Both brands focus on objectives like increasing sales and awareness, changing consumer beliefs, attracting the buying deacon of customers, influencing customers’ purchases, stipulating the trial use, creating a repeat purchase in the market and boosting sales and profits (Andò and Campagna, 2022). The Channel and other competitors focus more on modern marketing approaches, whereas Gucci is trying to establish a relationship between traditional and modern marketing approaches. In that area, the social media promotions of other competitors are far superior to then of the Gucci.
Media and advertising recommendations
It is recommended that the Gucci Company focuses on doing more influencer marketing, which the company needs to follow more thoroughly in its marketing campaign. The company focuses more on social media campaigning with the support of platforms like Instagram, Facebook and others. The company can focus more on doing influencer marketing or affiliated marketing in which the company can approach the social media influencers and celebrities active on social media. The company may also emphasise making videos for advertisements based on customers’ perceptions. They can focus on making advertisements based on recent incidents and events in the United Kingdom (Gattuso, 2021). It will allow the business to go viral in its campaign, which will undoubtedly positively impact the brand’s performance in the market. The current strategy is more of a balance between traditional and modern marketing approaches; hence, the Gucci Company can focus more on promotional over social media and modern marketing channels, just like other brands’ channels and others are doing now in the market. The company’s marketer can also involve the loyal; customer videos in the form of feedback in its campaign to improve customer loyalty towards the brand.
Usually, the views given by customers precisely influence the buying behaviour of the new customers. Involving consumer reviews in the campaign will make the campaign look more authentic to the customers. The company can also use the local people using products of Gucci in its campaign instead they including models and actors to film the entire campaign. Usually, the customer wants to connect with the brands and adding the local customers who have genuinely bought the company’s products will improve the connect5icvioty of the brand with the customers in the market. This will undoubtedly create positive impacts and influence the brand’s performance in the market (Widyani, 2021). Consumers want to connect with the customers, and this approach will improve connectivity between brands and the customers in the market. Gucci and its current practices can use all these approaches to improve the profitability and performance of the campaign in the market for the brand. Focusing on trends currently going on in the fashion industry is an essential factor that the business can consider to improve its engagement. This is recommended that the Gucci Company also emphasize doing content marketing in the business. It will support the business to attract the buyer’s decisions with the support of the content. Email marketing can also be sued by the business to improve a brand’s reach in the market (Song et al., 2021). Email marketing is a personalized form of promotion that will allow the business to give attractive discounts and offer consumers via email. It will support the brand to enjoy a competitive edge irrespective of the level of completion present in the market. This is one of the most suitable strategic choices available to the business to improve its performance in the target market. All these approaches will; support the business to sustain the existing customer along with attracting top new ones to engage with the trade made by the business.
CONCLUSION
Brand promotion is about projecting the products and services of the company in front of the active customers in the market to attract the buying behaviour of the end customers in the market. Gucci is one of the luxury brands active in the United Kingdom and its global operations. The company is one of the social media’s most famous luxury brands, with 78.2 million followers worldwide. The company is following Channels among luxury brands in the market. The company may focus on specific approaches like affiliated marketing, including the actual customers in the campaign and other approaches to improve the reach of the advertisement campaign in the market. The Gucci Company can also focus on email marketing, and content marketing to improve the brand’s positioning in the market. This will support the business to improve the performance of the company in the market.
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