Superdry UK Annual Marketing Plan

1.0 Introduction

This document is an annual marketing plan for the Superdry company in the United Kingdom. The report contains information about the company, its surroundings, customers and competitors. Subsequent sections outline our marketing objectives, guidelines on how to achieve them, costs, as well as how we aim to control the effectiveness of our actions.

2.0 Context analysis

In order to undertake any steps involving business decisions with regard to marketing, first and foremost it is necessary to understand what the given organisation is and how it functions within the macro environment. It is necessary to establish what its mission is, its vision and goals with regard to how it earns money, and who its customers and competition are. In other to create an effective marketing plan, it is essential to establish the organisation’s position in their market segment as well as to understand who the target customers are (Bochenek, 2017).

The company operating under the name Superdry had its beginnings in 1985 in Cheltenham, UK when Julian Dunkerton and Ian Hibbs began manufacturing clothing. The first shop under the name Superdry was, however, not opened until 2004. Superdry PLC is a corporation which produces and distributes clothing on an international scale, selling in 46 countries where they own 515 shops.

Additionally, Superdry sells its products directly via their website to over 100 countries worldwide (Sharma, 2016). The company’s products are modern items of clothing of a high quality with rich prints in Japanese and American styles. Superdry places a large emphasis on the quality of products by using “authentic vintage washes, quality fabrics, world leading hand-drawn graphics, unique detailing, and tailored fits with diverse styling” (superdry.com). The company invests in their infrastructure and focuses on its expansion with its main goal to be considered a producer of high quality clothes dedicated to creativity.

A large number of competitors exist in the clothing manufacturing and retailing industry, and only a few brands break their way through to a level which allows them to exist as a high street brand. The current position of the Superdry brand in the UK can be observed by its presence in shopping centres and the fact that it competes with brands in its own segment such as Top Man (revenue: £933.6m), River Island (revenue £970.5m), Jack Wills (revenue £142.4m) or Ted Baker (revenue £530.9m). Taking the revenue these companies produce into account and comparing it with the £323.4 generated by Superdry, the level of the company can be described as being a market challenger (appendix 1) which wants to grow.

A survey carried out among students in November 2018 revealed that only 50% of those questioned recognized the Superdry brand, compared with 90% for Top Man, 75% Jack Wills and 75% Ted Baker. These results were gathered by interviewing 50 people at the University of Chichester and suggest that in this regard, Superdry holds the position of a challenger (appendix 2).

Level of involvement in Superdry products is medium-to-high taking into consideration the material situation of the consumer as well as the given product, for example winter coats range in price from £54.99 to £450.

Risk perceived by customers may come as a result of doubt regarding the quality and workmanship, namely whether the brand’s items are worth paying such a sum for while cheaper substitutes exist on the market.

Decision making process in the case of these products solely affects the buyer, or in certain cases a consultation with an accompanying individual, therefore decisions are rather simple, quick and do not involve a large number of people.

Our target market group are both women and men, with the difference that among men the age range is from 15 to 50 years old, thus being representatives of generations Y and X. However, among women, the age group is from 15-35 years, i.e. generation Y. As the founders decided to open their first shops in student cities, this clearly shows that students tend to represent their target group. The style of the products, namely the fact that they are full of loud colours with printed slogans means that “Young boomers”, “Old boomers” and “Mature traditionalists” are not going to be considered as a target group in this campaign, and a communications plan for the campaign will be outlined such as to reach to a broad extent members generation Y and X living in the UK, meaning that we will be trying to reach women aged over 35 as well.

3.0 Communication objectives

Having seen from our market analysis that recognition of our brand is lower in comparison with competitors, our main aim now becomes increasing awareness of both the brand and its products. As a brand trying to create an image focused around innovation and “obsessive” quality, our next communication objective shall be to strengthen the conviction that Superdry is focused on Creativity and Quality among both those who already are familiar with the brand as well as those have only discovered it due to the campaign.

4.0 Marketing communication strategy

Seeing as the goal of a profile strategy is to increase awareness and views on business (MBASkool.com 2018), as a market challenger will use this strategic approach to achieve the desired position which is to be a recognizable brand and one which is associated with high quality products and their variety.

5.0 Integrated promotional mix

When it comes to the choice regarding communication channels, the extent to which those channels are optimal for our target group will be taken into consideration, as well as the reliability for our message. The channels which will are to be used will allow us to control both the costs and the effectiveness achieved thanks to their usage.

Two methods of promotion will be used to complement one another, namely PR and advertising. A major tool will be an event entitled “£40,000 in 5 minutes”, organised once a week in different parts of Great Britain, advertised via Facebook, fashion magazines as well as on Radio Heart.

5.1 “£40,000 in 5 minutes”

This is the main element of the campaign which consists of visiting competition winners in their homes. In the course of a visit the winner has the chance to win as much as £40,000. The first £10,000 will be a guaranteed prize for being chosen and will be awarded regardless of whether or not the Superdry team is granted entrance to the winner’s premises or not. The next £10,000 will be awarded to those people who invite the Superdry team inside and are able to demonstrate that they have set the homepage of at least one PC to superdry.com. Another £5,000 will be given to those who are able to show that they own any Superdry item, whereas should the winner be wearing a Superdry item of clothing at the moment of visiting, this amount will be doubled to £10,000. There will be a chance to win a further £10,000 if the winner is able to answer the question “What do we value at Superdry?” The correct response is “Quality – Creativity – Quality”. These three words will be the leading tagline for the campaign, and listeners will be inundated with the slogan in all media and announcements. Visits will take place every Sunday. Each of these meetings will be recorded and photographed for use in future campaigns. In order to register for the competition, it will be necessary for the person to simply set Superdry.com as the homepage on one of their devices and enter their personal details, i.e. name, address, sex and contact email. In order to encourage people to register, a campaign will be launched on Facebook and in magazines. Radio Heart will be the media patron of the entire campaign (Moriarty et al., 2014). Having participants set Superdry.com as their homepage will bring an additional advantage, in that we will be able to send various forms of promotional material, which will influence the behaviour of these people.

5.2 Advertising - Radio Heart advertising and coverage of home visits

Radio Heart will be involved in three ways, by broadcasting 15-second adverts, informing that Superdry sponsors the weather forecast with the tagline “Superdry for every weather”, as well as coverage from our actions involved with the “£40,000 in 5 minutes” campaign, i.e. highlights of visits to houses will be broadcast throughout the entire week, growing in intensity as the day of the visit, namely Sunday, approaches (Parente & Hutchinson, 2014).

Radio Heart broadcasts throughout the whole of the UK and is the largest commercial radio brand, reaching 9.8 million listeners a week. Heart’s core audience are aged 20-45, both male and female and are “very social individual who enjoy going out, shopping, and spending time with their family as well as friends (heart.co.uk).

5.3 Advertising - Facebook

Social media has gone from strength to strength and has become an indispensable element of any marketing campaign. Facebook is the biggest player, which in the UK alone brings together almost 40 million people, a number that is forecasted to grow by 3 million in the next 4 years (statistica,2018). This number represents two thirds of the UK population. An additional benefit which advertising on this platform brings is the ability to adjust the budget used as well as adjusting the group targeted by our adverts (Facebook, 2018).

5.4 Advertising- Magazines

For the purpose of magazine advertising, two magazines were chosen, Glamour in order to reach women and GQ to reach men. Both magazines are read by the age group which is our target market and in the case of Glamour, these are women with an average age of between 16 and 44 years old (Erdneeva,2018) and for GQ men aged 34 years old (statistica,2018). According to flipp.com which references studies carried out by Static Portal – statsta.com, adverts placed in magazines yield the greatest return among all forms of media, with a return of $3.94 for every dollar invested. (Flipp, 2016)

Due to the fact that the lifespan of a magazine is much greater than that of, say, a newspaper, our advertising will be located on the covers of these magazines. At the beginning of their lifecycle, magazines find themselves on display in shops, later exchanged between members of the household, before ending their lives landing in places such as waiting rooms in doctors’ surgeries or beauty salons (Fill, 1999). By placing adverts on the covers, we will ensure that even people who are not interested in that magazine will still see our ad over time.

5.5 Email advertising

During the campaign, we will be using two email databases. The first of these will be a previously acquired database, while the second will be email addresses collected from those people who have registered for the competition. Once a month, emails with offers will be sent out to all of these users.

6.0 Scheduling and implementation

The campaign is due to launch on 1st April 2019 and shall last for 12 months.

Information regarding the length of the planned campaign, especially “£40,000 in 5 minutes”, should remain confidential in order to allow it to be halted should it not bring about the desired results. Three people will be employed on a full- time basis to carry out the campaign. These people will be responsible for preparing the advertisements, contacting advertisers, handling emails, and carrying out duties associated with the weekly “£40,000 in 5 minutes” event. The skills of those people will be chosen so as not to incur additional costs which would arise from the need to delegate certain activities to those outside this group.

The annual costs are as follows:

1. 3 full-time employees £75.000

2. Creating advertisements will be covered by a discount negotiated with the advertisers, which amounts to 15%

3. Travel expenses relating to visits to winners, 52 trips x £300 = £15,600

4. Prize money to be paid to winners £2,000,000. This represents the maximum amount which could be claimed by the competition winners and will not be fully used, while the guaranteed sum is £10,000. The minimum budget for prize money is £520,000.

5. The cost of advertising and transmission on Radio Heart - 20 x 30-second adverts daily for one year = £260,000 - 12 daily alerts that Superdry sponsors the weather forecast =£ 156,00 - 7 x 3 minute weekly broadcasts (visits to winners) throughout the year = £547,000

6. Facebook costs amounting to £2,000,000. This money will allow our adverts to be displayed one million times per day, as this number will decrease because Facebook charges a higher fee for adverts clicked on (approx. £0.20) than for those which are not clicked (£0.0054).

7. Magazines – Glamour – comes out twice a year and the cost of a half front cover ad is £114,547, roughly translation to a yearly fee of £230,000 (Glamour media pack 2018) – GQ – appears 11 times a year and the cost of a full back cover ad is £24,197, thus giving a cost of £266,000 for a year.

The above calculations indicate that out of a budget of £10 million, £5,549,000 would only be used should the winners all claim the maximum sum available. As such a situation is unlikely, it can be said that £5 million is the amount which will be held in reserve, and its use will be decided upon during the campaign as we observe the results.

The campaign is set to launch on 1st April across all platforms, i.e. adverts in magazines, adverts on Facebook as w well as adverts in podcasts and on radio. The first home visit to a winner will take place on 7th April 2019, i.e. 6 days after the beginning of the announcement. Coordinating these activities will allow us to achieve a “boom” effect, thereby hitting the public with an integrated marketing campaign at the same time from various sources.

7.0 Evaluation, control and feedback

The number of people registering on the website will serves as a reflection for the level of interest generated by the campaign, and the answer to the question if these are people who have had prior contact with the brand will be revealed during the registration process when they answer the question “Do you own any of our brand’s clothing?” In the case of Facebook, we will be able to make use of data concerning the number of views our ads receive, as well as the number of clicks on our post as a way of attaining further information (Hansson et al., 2013). The number of visitors to our site will be recorded in order to compare it with results prior to the beginning of the campaign. We will also be tracking the time spend on the site as well as actions with visitors take, e.g. making purchases. The number of correct responses during the visits to the question “What do we value at Superdry?” will show us how the slogan “Quality, creativity, quality” gets through to the consciousness of our customers by means of radio. Those people who are inners in the competition will be asked a series of questions to allow us to establish which of our actions spurred them to take part in the competition, in addition to how well they know our brand (Ottman, 2017) .

8.0. References:

Fill, C., 1999. Marketing communication: Contexts, contend and strategies. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall.

Hansson, L., Wrangmo, A. and Solberg Søilen, K., 2013. Optimal ways for companies to use Facebook as a marketing channel. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 11(2), pp.112-126.

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R., 2014. Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia.

Ottman, J., 2017. The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for sustainable branding. Routledge.

Parente, D. and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, K., 2014. Advertising campaign strategy: A guide to marketing communication plans. Cengage Learning.

Sharma, B., 2016. The high-end fashion retail perspective. Retail Design: Theoretical Perspectives.