MARKET POSITIONING AND COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Researching and looking into competitors that Fortitude would be positioned against in the market is key for this brand development.

As aforementioned, Fortitude desires to be a high-end, luxury womenswear brand sold in third party retailers such as Selfridges. Fortitude stands a strong place in the market being highly sustainable as well as stylish and desirable. To solidify my understanding and acknowledgment of Fortitude’s market positioning, I have looked at and researched into a multitude of brands to be considered as Fortitude’s competitors.

In the first meeting with my designer, Evie provided me with two designer brands that she would consider her competitors. These included Charlotte Knowles and Molly Goddard. After gaining a deeper understanding of Evie’s designs and the brand that I will create for her, I began to think of other existing brands that would also be of Fortitude’s competition, including international, renowned brands as well as slightly smaller, less established brands. These brands include:

• Adidas

• Stella McCartney

• Chromat

• Alexander McQueen

• Pangaia

For the presentation we were required to visually show our understanding of the market positioning for our brand, and a wise and suggested way of doing this was through a perceptual map (see below). I enjoyed creating this perceptual map, using interesting and relevant axis labels that have allowed me to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor to identify gaps in the market.

As evident in the perceptual map, Stella McCartney is probably considered as one of Fortitude’s biggest competitors. Stella McCartney is renowned for responsible fashion. As a brand it explores modern femininity, but at its core is sustainability and creating “beautiful, desirable products with the least impact on our environment” (Stella McCartney, 2021). Charlotte Knowles is also a very key Fortitude competitor, especially according to the designer. However, it can be noted that Charlotte Knowles still has work to do regarding sustainability and ethics to be put on par with similar brands who are more environmentally conscious. Charlotte Knowles as a brand is inspired by the sexual expression of a woman. It is heavily influenced by lingerie and aims to reinvent revealing dressing for a modern woman.

As a new brand in a highly, increasingly competitive market, Fortitude needs to be confident in trying to do things better than their competitors. Being compared with Stella McCartney, Fortitude must aspire to make the brand highly distinguishable from its mission to values. More and more brands are claiming sustainability because they know it is what consumers want (reference to my ‘Kill Them With Kindness’ trend), but it’s about proving that and making it obvious and prominent in the brand’s operations. Being compared with Charlotte Knowles, Fortitude can be confident in exploring the notion of the strengths (and potential weaknesses) of femininity in a more emotional and thought evoking way, as well as exploring another just as significant social issue that needs seriously acknowledging and awareness raising about it; plastic ocean.

TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS

As highlighted in one of my previous blogs, one part of the research that I have found difficult is identifying, analysing and creating trends that are relevant for my brand to adopt and apply.

A couple of weeks ago, we had another guest lecturer, Els Draagt, come in to teach the FMB cohort. Her sessions were incredibly insightful and informative about all things trends and trend researching, and I really enjoyed it. The key takeaway from this session was the step by step process of ‘scanning’, ‘analysing’ and then ‘applying’ when researching trends. As much as the sessions were helpful and intriguing, I have admittedly found it difficult to apply to my own learning and development in relation to this project.

For the presentation, we are required to analyse at least 2 trends relevant to our brands, demonstrating how the trend would translate to our brand development. The 2 trends that I have come up with and discussing in my presentation to then hopefully take further into my Brand Launch Pack are ‘Conscious not Conspicuous’ and ‘Kill Them With Kindness’. I like both of these trend names how they have alliteration; I think this makes them really catchy and memorable.

Conscious not Conspicuous

I was able to identify and create this trend based on the observations surrounding luxury spending since COVID-19. Since Fortitude aspires to be a high-end luxury brand amongst competitors in retailers such as Selfridges, looking into insights surrounding luxury spending is key for the development of this brand. According to Forbes, the year of 2020 essentially reset the world’s luxury market, with travel being stopped and shops being closed. Luxury consumers subsequently reassessed their values, priorities and spending habits and spent time evaluating their priorities and what is really important. This trend sees customers being deliberate and careful about purchasing and indulging in luxury goods, particularly high-ticket fashion. As part of this conscious attitude, affluent consumers are increasingly inspiring to buy fewer but better luxury goods, according to Luxe Digital. These types of shoppers are willing to spend a premium for the very best version of luxuries that have purpose and create added value.

Kill Them With Kindness

This identified trend surrounds social responsibility. According to the Global Web Index, brands have become more vocal about their sense of purpose and their commitment to social and environmental responsibility over the years, but companies need to be even more creative in how they distinguish themselves from competition. I remember at the beginning of 2021, brand transparency and authenticity was a key marketing trend that was forecasted to play its part this year. I think this has been prominent this year already and the ‘Kill Them With Kindness’ trend nicely branches off that. Consumers are caring more than ever, and desire to see that brands actually care. This is something that I personally have seen with my attitudes towards brands that I shop from. My attitudes towards sustainability and trying my best to make conscious decisions has upped in the past year. Fortitude’s mission and vision revolve around inspiring change and making the world a better place by acting as a medium to raise awareness. This trend is key for the brand as it reflects very strongly in the brand’s vision and what it stands for.

LOGO CONFIRMED? POSSIBLY

I had not been thinking about logos until I realised it was a week before the presentation to present my initial ideas…

The lecturers thankfully provided us students with past year examples of Brand Proposal Presentations to help us and use as a reference point. These given examples I thought were really good and so well presented, and I was slightly worried as to how I would create mine. I noticed that they all included already designed logos and created a consistent colour palette that was consistent and tied all of their work and slides together.

At this stage, I hadn’t particularly thought about a logo; I was instead focusing on the brand foundations and confirming a name. However, I realised that it was about time to create a logo. There is no reason that this could be better changed or altered at a later stage before the submission of the A3 boards and Brand Launch Pack, but I came up with something.

As aforementioned, my designer envisions her brand being very high-end and luxury. When I thought about it, I realised that most luxury brand logos are very minimal and mostly consist of the brand name in a simplistic font. Therefore, I decided that that would be the route I would likely go down with a logo for Fortitude. At first I was a bit unsure about this, and was worried that I should be pushing my Adobe skills to design a creative, visually impressive logo. But that is not always necessary; it really depends on the brand. I recently conducted an online survey (see methodology section for further details) to gain insight into thoughts and opinions surrounding brand names and logos etc. to aid my brand development strategy. One question asked what characteristics people think a logo should have for an extroverted, statement fashion brand that is also high-end/luxury. The survey is still open for respondents so the results cannot be properly finalised, but as of the moment, the most popular characteristic with 63% of respondents selecting is ‘simplistic’, followed by ‘bold’ with 47%. Therefore, I thought the best route for a logo would be the word ‘fortitude’ in an appropriate font.

I spent some time looking through lots and lots of fonts, and highlighting those that I thought would be most fitting for the Fortitude brand. As a form of primary research, I conducted two Instagram polls to help confirm my ideas and to see what the external public think. The first contained the word ‘Fortitude’ written in 4 different fonts, and I asked people to pick which they think best suits a statement, colourful, luxury, womenswear brand. To further consolidate this, I took the font that proved the most popular, and I posted a second Instagram poll, then asking people if they thought upper or lower case would be best. Upper case stormed ahead with more than 90% of people selecting it.

I have taken these insights and used them to finalise a logo and font choice for my presentation. I may wish to change this at a later stage when completing my brand boards and Brand Launch Pack, but for now I am happy.