My process doc is a compilation of all my hard work for the semester. This page compiles all of the pieces to my final project and helped me organize it to become what it is today. The process doc really helped me structure my final strategy and I’m excited to share it with everyone.
PROJECT PROPOSAL + INTERVIEW
BRAND/PERSONA ANALYSIS
I will be curating a brand strategy for the luxury online rental service called "Rent The Runway" but adding my own spin on the brand by expanding into men’s fashion rentals. Right now, the online boutique only caters to women from dresses to accessories but nothing for men who want to look trendy at an affordable cost. “Rent The Runway” is currently active on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter and have about 800,000 followers across all platforms collectively.
The Twitter account is pretty much used as a customer service tool, they are active everyday and respond to inquiries regarding bad service or orders. I really feel like they could use their Twitter to tweet out photos of items they are thinking about carrying and running polls to become more interactive with their audience. In terms of tweets not regarding orders or bad service, they tweet out magazine articles that have posted about RTR which is fine but there aren’t that many pictures of the products that are available on the site.
I do like that they have a lot of “How to style” articles to really help people know how to put things together. They are extremely active on Instagram where they do not post items that aren’t available on the site but fashion inspiration. I think this is very counterproductive because the followers would be more likely to visit the site if they see something they like and know exactly where to purchase it rather than playing “Google Image Search” to try and locate this amazing top that you can’t find anywhere... annoying!
Nonetheless, they are very active on Instagram, same thing with their Pinterest, BUT they actually post things from the site on Pinterest, which is great! Now the Facebook is a ghost town, which is understandable because a lot of people are not as frequently on Facebook in the past but they do update like once or twice on Facebook. A flagship store has opened for Rent The Runway in New York City so maybe they can Facebook Live any instore events to draw attention to their Facebook fans. Even if they connected their Instagram to Facebook that would be a great way to get the Facebook Fans to visit their Instagram page as well. All in all, the social media presence is there I just feel like there is a few things that would really take the brand to the next level.
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
A brand that is a close comparison to what I am looking to create is an online men’s tuxedo rental site called “The Black Tux”. They mainly cater to men who are getting married or going to prom but also have special event tuxedos as well. Surprisingly, they are on the same exact social media sites as “Rent The Runway”. I’m thinking that this is because they are selling pretty much the same concept so Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter do the best at displaying that they need to get across their audiences.
“The Black Tux” Instagram follows the same layout as Rent The Runway in terms of being dedicated to fashion inspiration and not really featuring items that are available on the site which to me is annoying, I feel like a mixture of both would be a happy medium. They are active on Facebook but use it as a tool for customer service while also sliding in some fashion inspiration as well. Their Pinterest has a very interesting setup for the fact that it’s broken into different events, locations, etc. I think this really simplifies the customers shopping experience because it makes what they are looking to create easier to find. However these are just inspiration so it would’ve helped out a lot more if their were links to items similar to the inspiration. The Twitter account is a mixture of site promotional photos and support for customer service.
Across all social media platforms they have less than 100,000 followers. “The Black Tux” was established in 2012 so I personally feel like they should have a little more than that but the brand is growing. I feel like my expansion of Rent The Runway would embody a more diverse version of “The Black Tux” by offering more than just tuxedos.
CONTENT EXAMPLES
1. Being able to shop on social media is essential in today's climate of internet usage. People are LAZY! They do not want to click the link in your bio. They do not want to visit some site. They do not want to download some app. The general public has the attention span of squirrels so the fact that they can like something and just tap on it to purchase it makes it the perfect experience. This is excellent content to me.
2. Polls! Polls are extremely useful when it comes to audience engagement because whether or not you actually care about their opinion the poll makes it "seem" like you do and just gives the general public a sense of involvement. Their involvement helps you make strategic decisions based on what you were or were not going to offer. They also help you decide what your clientele ultimately wants because they are the ones that choose it! At the end of the day, the customer is always right!
3. Now Beyonce is the queen of everything, but who knew she would end up being the queen of Instagram? These same style images make for a unique social media presence and also gives you the chance to post multiple photos at once instead of saving them and spreading them out through the week. I always hate taking multiple good photos and only wanted to post one out of fear of the other not receiving a good amount of likes but this 3 posts at once method helps that. It also makes your Instagram look very professional.
AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
In terms of discovering my audience for my brand I would assign “males between the ages of 16-30” as the audience in general. Mostly because these are the people I am trying to target. For the primary audience, I would dedicate that title to the late teens that are going to Prom/formal events, or guys who are into trendy fashions.
My secondary audience would be men in their early 20’s, gentleman who are getting dressed up to go out and enjoy nightlife with still an interest in high end designers from time to time. My tertiary audience would be the men in their mid 20’s to 30 that are looking for professional clothing for work-related events but typically aren’t into dressing extravagantly on a day to day basis, maybe they have a holiday party coming up or something that does not happen to often. In terms of demographics, I feel like age and gender would be the main focus, race would not really play the large of a part in what’s going on with my brand for the fact that men of all races enjoy dressing very nice.
The location of my target would be men all over the United States, mostly in New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta because these are cities where events are frequently happening so people need outfits to attend. Being that this brand takes place on the internet it’s virtually accessible to everyone so the location target is not that major only if I planned on doing Pop-Up shops or events, then I would focus on the areas that bring in the most traffic but for now the location is not a major factor in determining anything.
The interests of my clients would be defined as men who are into high end/runway fashions at an affordable costs, which ties into the behaviors of my clientele. The gentleman who likes getting more for less. Finally, the influence for the brand would come from celebrity socialites that promote via Instagram and will help make “affordable high fashion” a thing amongst consumers.
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
My social media policy would delve deeply into Copyright law and encouraging content contributors to own the content they are posting on social media. If employees or affiliates opt to create a social media account that has our brand likeliness in some way they are required to carry themselves in an appropriate manner online which would include not posting anything that would be portrayed as offensive in any way (racial, sexual, etc.)
Also, employees of the brand are not permitted to disclose any of the brands practices, upcoming launch information, or ideas that were conceptualized in the setting of the work environment online in any manner. Employees of the brand are also not permitted to take photographs or video recordings inside of the home office due to the fact that unreleased content may be present unknowingly.
As far as wearing items that are not from the site, that is completely fine to do on social media, HOWEVER if it is not for sale on the official website you are not permitted to tag any other online retailers in the post. Quite naturally, one should respect their place of employment and be aware that you should not be discussing work-related matters online nor bringing up work information to customers outside of the workplace.
It is highly prohibited to answer any questions, concerns, or inquires about the brand via social media. It is asked that you tell the customer (or whomever is inquiring) to reach out to our customer service team and their inquiry will be handled from there. To conclude, your social media is a reflection of you so not only are you representing a brand when you decide to log onto social media but you are representing yourself so be careful how you go about doing that in the online atmosphere.
STYLE GUIDE
Rent The Runway publishes fashion editorials in the language of luxury making everything sound as if you are spending the night at a five star hotel. When you step into my brand (Rent The Runway: MAN) you are entering an oasis of style and high class and the language presented on the site will reflect that. The voice and tone being utilized will come from a prestigious point of view, If you were to personify the voice for my brand, one would picture Chanel’s creative director, Karl Lagerfield.
He could be described as the male Anna Wintour, whom is the biggest name in fashion and chief editor of VOGUE magazine. Content types of my brand will include fashion editiorals, which showcase the latest styles that we have available. Instagram posts will play a major role in our brand due to the fact that the a majority of what we are offering relies heavily on visuals so making Instagram posts with the outfits from the site clearly labeled and easy for the audience to access would be great. I also would like to include “User Submitted” which would be a section dedicated to people who use the site to shop and email pictures of them in the clothes to be featured on this section.
Here, we would tag their Instagram and include their name and age. Using the audience as site models would help increase traffic because when they post images in our clothing they would tag us, promoting our site to their followers. In terms of grammar, of course the whole them is “luxury” so we would use words according to that standard.
For the website styling, the primary colors would be black and gold. Black to keep the site subtle, and gold to add that touch of luxury and exquisiteness. Header fonts should be in “Mistral” font and always bold, while the body should be “Times”. The only source used to create this was "Fenton" Ch. 12, Style Guides.
GOALS
My main goal is to create an online platform for men to rent high quality, luxury clothes at an affordable cost. I will be measuring my success through the analytics of site traffic and the amount of sales I make via the official website. These two items will help me determine if I am doing everything I need to do to make sure this brand is successful. I will also use the number of social media followers/interactions and tools such as Instagram’s “View Insight’s” tool to make sure I’m driving traffic through my posts online. I also wold like to reach out to influencers who can help grow my brand due to their already garnered stardom and bring them on to promote. Targeting influencers who are already active on the fashion scene would work out in my best interest because their audience would be interested in what I have to offer.
STRATEGY DISTRIBUTION PLAN & TIMELINE
The primary platforms I will utilize to execute the launch of my brand will be Instagram and Pintrest for the fact that they are primarily photo based and the foundation of what I am selling is solely dependent on the customer seeing the product. Instagram will work out greatly with it’s shopping feature which will allow customers to instantly purchase looks that they love without having to leave the app.
People today are very fickle and lose interest very quickly so to be able to just check out on the app will help my business flourish in more ways than another. I was just recently introduced to Pintrest but I feel like it would be a strong asset to the launch of my male perspective of Rent the Runway because a lot of people are not sure how to pair things together.
Which is where the styling team on my end would come in and be able to take items from our website and piece them together in different looks for different guys. For instance, if it was a white button up, that item could be dressed up, dressed down or worn by itself but it would be important for the customers to see those various options through Pintrest boards to really decide which would work out best for them.
It’s important as a clothing brand to be able to give suggestions to clients and help them achieve their desired look. In terms of goals, I feel that they will be measured based on Rent the Runway’s current metrics, I feel as though if I take where they are and divide it in half. If I could garner a least half of their social media following/sales I will have reached a good level of success.
CONTENT OUTLINE & SAMPLES
This is an Instagram ad, which I will run using my clothing and target men who have interests in fashion. These ad’s will be able to take the customer directly to the site to purchase items. Instagram ads are also a great way to view metrics on how the posts are going which would be a huge help for me to make sure I’m targeting the correct audience. I also will use Instagram ad’s to promote when the brand is having sales.
As I stated previously Pintrest will do an amazing job of helping me style different items from the sites to my audiences liking and pretty much use our company Pintrest as a mood board for any look they are trying to achieve. Pintrest will allow them to see what exactly a full outfit will look like before it arrives at their house and they can have a distinct idea of if they would like it or not before wasting time and ordering something that won’t look right together.
MEASUREMENT PLAN
Lastly, I will definitely use the updated Instagram shopping feature. This extension to Instagram is brilliant for the fact that people are extremely lazy on the internet and don’t often feel like traveling to another site to complete a task. The people having the ability to transact a purchase while in the same app will definitely help my business flourish. This is also beneficial because the customers know exactly where to purchase everything and do not have to go searching for something they found on Instagram.
Methods of Measurement:
· Instagram analytics viewing engagement to see which posts type are receiving the most likes, saves and comments. This will also help let me know which styles my audience are most interested in.
· Number of site visitors to view how much traffic is being generated.
· Number of new followers across all social media platforms.
· Impressions on Instagram
· How many people are pinning my outfit choices via Pintrest.
With merging the male perspective into Rent The Runway, the sales are not my top priority due to the fact that they will come in time. The most important thing is brining awareness to the fact that you no longer have to spend x amount of dollars on an outfit that you are only wearing once. It’s important that we promote the fact that the brand is available and get the social media presence built up first then the sales will follow.
I don’t expect the number of sales to be out the roof immediately as this service is very new to men and will take time to get adjusted to. Now in terms of measuring the analytics, the true growth will be in the number of followers and reposts we obtain. The more we can spread the word that this fashion service is available to men then more people will hop on the train. Now I know this won’t be an overnight thing, traffic to the site will be a gradual thing. I also will have the brand be featured in major men’s fashion publications which will help their audience become mine.
Gaining site traffic, more followers and engagement via social media are the primary goals of focus when it comes to solidifying the success of my brand. I look forward to seeing the growth through my measurement plan.
RATIONALE
I feel as though my decisions regarding my brand were justifiable in many ways. One of the readings we read and really helped me determine how I was going to structure my brand was from Ben Shields regarding audience. For what I’m trying to do in terms of incorporating the male perspective into Rent The Runway, the male population is huge and the description of different audiences really helped me determine who exactly I’m targeting. Ben Shields talks intricately about primary, secondary and tertiary audiences which prior to enrolling in this course I wouldn’t have had any knowledge about nor would I been able to implement the techniques for targeting into my brand.
Targeting is probably the most important part of my brand because I have to be knowledgeable about who I am selling to. In terms of Instagram ads and marketing via Twitter you have to have an audience that you are trying to appeal to so I feel like that reading was the most helpful regarding my brand. I did not think that facebook would be that beneficial to my brand until we were told about the article on big data and how Facebook helps businesses target audiences.
Shields writing made me want to find ways to incorporate it into my brand strictly for the purpose of being able to collect the data. Facebook and Instagram are partners so that would help me kill two birds with one stone in terms of targeting audiences. You can also run ads from Facebook that appear on both platforms.
Organic growth is important to me but in the society we live in today, numbers matter. The consumer today is far more intrigued by something that has a huge following rather than someone who doesn’t so paid promotions will benefit even if the followers are bots, the “illusion” that the company is more celebrated than it is will help generate more traffic.
In the end sales are important but they are not the driving factor for what I am doing with Rent The Way. Raising awareness for men in fashion is more important than sales to me. I want to create a platform for men to be able to have access to affordable high fashion clothing that they don’t have to spend a fortune on but look great. This service is not available right now for men and I feel like I would be able to take the men’s fashion world to another level with this brand!