W- Women’s Wear

[2010]

Submitted by:
Jagrati Gupta
2009B42
Contents
Background..........................................................................................................................................3
Purpose................................................................................................................................................3
Long term communication objective for W......................................................................................3
Brand Personality for W.....................................................................................................................3
Brand Identity of W.............................................................................................................................4
Explanation of the Element of Brand Prism....................................................................................5
Target Customer Group of W:...........................................................................................................6
Marketing communication Mix:.........................................................................................................6
Advertising:......................................................................................................................................7
Sales Promotion:.............................................................................................................................7
Personal Selling:.............................................................................................................................7
Events and Experiences:...............................................................................................................8
Implementation plan for Integrated Marketing Communication Mix.............................................8
Advertising.......................................................................................................................................8
Sales Promotion............................................................................................................................12
Personal Selling:...........................................................................................................................13
Events:...........................................................................................................................................14
Ensuring Communication Model is working in favor of W:..........................................................14
Various Touch Points for W:............................................................................................................14
Partners in Marketing Communication Plan..................................................................................15
Evaluation of the Results:................................................................................................................16
Bibliography:......................................................................................................................................16

Page 2
Background
W is apparel store targeted for modern yet tradition women. It opened its first store in
2001-02 in delhi with an aim to provide fashion in a modern retail environment to the
Indian woman. Today W has 51 Brand Stores and a total of 500 touch points across
India. Initially W had chic and urban Avatar of tradition Indian outfit – Salwar –
kameez but in these 10 odd years W has evolved with all sorts of attire which a
modern women may want i.e. trousers, skirts, tunics, tops and tees along with an
exciting winter outer wear line. Today W boasts to the only national brand providing
total wardrobe solution under one roof to the modern Indian woman.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to utilize integrated marketing communication tools to
build a strong brand name for W. Being one of its kinds, though W has not faced any
tough competition so far but scenario may change keeping in the mind the dynamic
nature of the market with so many new players coming in. Hence for its survival and
future growth it is important for W to build its brand in such a way that it occupies a
distinct and special place in the minds of Indian consumers amongst today’s
cluttered market.

Long term communication objective for W

W was created for the progressive women, who broke the shackles of and evolved
as a new power. The apparels found at W were aimed at providing ready to wear
fashion with functionality. Hence the long term objective for W will be to position itself
as a one stop solution for all the new age women for fulfilling their all kinds of needs
related to the traditional yet modern clothing. The women should find W to match
their contemporary choice. They should find just right fusion of past and future which
suits their personality when they come to W. An extension of this objective would be
to occupy a unique and distinct brand position in the minds of women such that for
chic and urban clothing, they think of W.

Brand Personality for W

Brand personality is an important parameter for any brand as it can provide a vehicle
for customer to express their own identity. A brand personality metaphor suggests
the kind of relationship that a customer has with the brand. Brand personalities serve
to represent and cue functional benefits and product attributes well. Most importantly

Page 3
brand personality is often a sustainable point of differentiation as it is difficult to be
copied.

Brand Personality of W will be a fashion brand which reflects an Indian essence

imbued with modernity. A brand for the women of new era who is rooted at home
and taking on the world with panache, playing myriad of roles with style and taking
on the challenges in her stride. W epitomizes the fusion, the paradox of modern yet
traditional contemporary Indian women who desires sensibly designed, comfortable
and chic clothes. W personifies the innovation in fashion keeping in the mind today’s
women. The brand’s personality is self-explanatory by its tag-line only which is
“Make every step a fashion statement”. It makes the women feel important and
potent who can take her own decisions. In short we can say that W mirrors the new
age Indian women.

Brand Identity of W
The brand identity prism for W will look like:
Picture of Sender

Personality
Physique
Suave, Women of new era
Contemporary, Chic and
Urban, Sensible Design

Culture
Relationship
Modern yet
Spirited Traditional, Innovative

Reflexion Self Image

Reinventing Indian Fashion, Confident and empowered

woman with an unmatched taste
Total wardrobe solution

Picture of Recipient

Page 4
Explanation of the Element of Brand Prism
Physique:

Brand Physique is a set of independent characteristics which are prominent or

dominant but distinguishable. We define the brand physique of W as Contemporary,
Chic and Urban brand with sensible designed clothes

Personality:

With the help of communication brand character is being developed and brand
personality is a way by which any brand “talks” about its goods and services and
indicates a particular human person. This helps in aligning the product with the target
customers. As discussed earlier personality of W is suave representing the Women
of new era.

Relationship:

Brand includes relationship as brands frequently take the most important place in the
process of human transactions and exchange. This feature emphasizes the way of
behaviour which is identified with brand most of all. W has spirited relationship with
its customers which means the environment inside the store is always lively spirited
and encourages women to visit W again and again.

Culture:

 Brands possess that culture in which they originated. Brand is a representative of its

culture, including communication. From this perspective culture entails a lot of values
that provide brand with inspiration. The aspect of culture enables to discover
differences between other competing brands. 

The culture followed in W is modern yet traditional. Innovation is the key. Every
merchandise shows innovation in various ways i.e. colour, design, pattern, fabric
etc.This culture is very pertinent for the women which W is targeting. The women are
progressive and are bored with repeating stuff. They want to stand out in the crowd
hence innovation enhances the culture of modern yet traditional view of today’s
women.

Reflection:

Reflection is another angle in brand prism. A consumer has to be reflected in a way,

which would show how he or she could image themselves consuming a particular
good. Consumers use goods of certain brands seeking to create their own identity.
Brands should control their consumer reflection.

Page 5
The reflection which W is creating for the consumer is reinventing the Indian fashion.
The women wearing W apparels are icons for Indianness. Modernity is reflected in
the Indian attire which was never done before. Earlier when thinking about fashion,
Indian attire never used to come to the mind, but W has changed the definition of
fashion in a different way.

Self Image:

Brand is closely related to the understanding of consumer self-image that is the

features with which consumers identify themselves and the very same features they
would like to be reflected by the chosen good and its brand. This is the
understanding of an individual about his ability, semblance and characteristics on
personality.

In case of W these characteristics are confident and empowered woman with an

unmatched taste.

Target Customer Group of W:

W is mainly targeted to the women:

 Age group of 18 to 40
 SEC A and B
 Like to be associated with india and progressive in their thoughts
 Students, working professionals or even housewives
 Want chic and urban fashion which can make them feel comfortable
 Think fashion to be a personality enhancer
 Experimental and like the innovation in fashion
 Like to socialize with likeminded people
 Conscious about the surrounding

Marketing communication Mix:

Marketing communication mix for any brand should be such that it should reach to its
target customer segment effectively. W positions itself as the mirror of the new age
Indian woman. Hence its communication should reflect the same. The message
should be classy and the way it reaches the its target customer should convey its
sophistication. The target group of W is affluent upper middle class to upper class
women with propensity to spend, and are keen on having Indian attire. So the
marketing communication mix should follow consistency with the positioning
statement.

Hence the communication mix of W should consist the following:

Page 6
P
r
t
I
l
u
C
o
ti
a
s
R
e
c
n
p
v
Advertising:
Since reach of advertisement is wide and penetrating, it is an important media for
communication. It reaches to geographically dispersed consumer and helps building
a long term image for the product. Advertisements help in dramatizing the
communication and hence linger for long in the memory of the viewer. It helps
influencing consumer to try the product. Hence we will be using print and TV
advertisement for W.

Sales Promotion:
Sales promotion is the process of persuading a potential customer to buy the
product. Sales promotion as a competitive weapon provides an extra incentive for
the target audience to purchase or support one brand over another. Unplanned
purchases may be directly related to one or more sales promotion offers.

Sales promotion if done wisely fosters an immediate sale, and contributes highly to
profitability. It has three distinct benefits:

1) It gains attention
2) It offers an additional incentive
3) It invites the customers to transact now hence are time bound.
For the above mentioned reasons sales promotion is a very important part of
marketing

Personal Selling:
communication mix.

The objective of personal selling is to build up buyer preference, conviction and

action. It takes place as

In the context of W, Personal selling would take place through the personnel within
the stores which will help in helping the consumers to choose their products through
an effective interaction by understanding the requirement and then educating the
consumer about various pattern which will suit her personality (only if asked for) and
help consumer make a wise purchase decision.

Page 7
Events and Experiences:
Even if being in the market since 2001, awareness for W isn’t very high. Hence W
will be associating itself with events to draw attention of its TG and hence lead to
increased sales and positive image for the brand.

Implementation plan for Integrated Marketing Communication Mix

Advertising
Since the merchandise sold at W is fashion apparel, It has to be seen more often so
that people want to buy them. The fashion apparels are seasonal and vary for every
occasion. Hence advertising becomes important for the TG to know that W has
something for them for every occasion.

Before designing the advertising campaign for W, the message that needs to deliver
about the brand through advertisement needs to be designed. It would involve
following three elements:

Style of the Message: Style of the message would be chic & urban and ethnic

Tone of the message: The tone of the message would be positive and exciting.

Message Text: “Make Every Step a Fashion Statement” – This single line statement
would convey that W has some offering for you for every occasion.

Advertising for W will be done in TV as well as print media.

Print:

Print ads of W will be aimed mainly at the awareness creation about the brand itself
which will then be transformed into the awareness creation about the versatile
offering by the brand. The print ads for W will appear in;

 Women’s magazines (Famina, New Woman, Women’s era, Gladrags etc,)

 In-flight magazines
 Newspaper glossy magazines (i.e. Times Life)
 Local newspaper(e.g. Mid day)
Again the headlines for the ads would be catchy and feministic so as to catch the
attention of its target group. Some of the examples of the headlines for such ads:
 Like a Lady
 Sense ‘n’ Style
 New Look
 It’s a woman’s world

Page 8
The ads which are aimed at educating the target group about its offering will have
the headlines such as Chic Style/All in One

Page 9
Television:
The television ad for W would be in two ways:
a) Informative about the current fashion and how W can help you to keep up with
the fashion. Such shows would be:
 Lifestyle shows (MTV Style Check, NDTV Good times)
 Business shows
b) General ads which will be shown in the commercial break during some
program on various channels such as MTV, Channel V, Trends, NDTV good
times.
The ad will be such that it will show a women who is modern yet Indian at
heart. She wakes up in the morning and goes to work wearing W’s formal
wear. In the evening she goes out with friends to hang out wearing skirt from
W store. Again she is attending some wedding wearing ethnic salwar kameez
from W. Thus showing that W has everything for you suiting at every
occasion.

Billboards:

Road side advertisement will take the form of road side billboards which
would be displayed at prime locations in the cities and towns conveying the
central idea of W of modern yet traditional fashion apparels. The hoarding will
be placed at:
 Near MNCs
 Busy commercial places (e.g. Connaught Place)
 Near Affluent housing societies
 On the walls of big buildings in IT parks(e.g. big office buildings in DLF
city in Gurgaon allow to paste huge posters)

Page 10
Theme for the apparels:
Along with all the advertisement, and versatile collection for every occasion
such as festive collection, mansoon collection, summer collection, winter
collection, spring collection etc. W can also launch theme based collection to
drive the consumers curious. W should launch such theme based collection at
the time when the consumers are expecting it the least and not planning to
buy such as in September, end of November etc. The ad for such collection
can come like:
1) If the theme is colors:

Page 11
 2) If the theme is ‘what makes you smile’

Sales Promotion
Sales promotion for W should be less frequent. I propose three kinds of sales
promotion for W.

Page 12
Gift Vouchers:

W can keep gift vouchers in the denominations of Rs. 1000, Rs. 1500, which can be
redeemed on any merchandise available in any store across india. This will
encourage consumers to give W’s gift vouchers to their friends, family as gift.

Price Reductions:

Price reductions should be organized only twice in a year and the price reduction
should not be more than 30%. This will make existing customer to buy more and
induce trial for new customer.

Contests:

This contest will mainly take the theme based launch into consideration. The
customer will b asked to send their entries suggesting and guessing what is W’s next
theme. W can also implement some ideas regarding the theme and then award the
customer who has proposed that idea. This will increase consumer engagement as
well. The consumer will think about W more seriously.

Personal Selling:
Personal Selling becomes more relevant and important when the product is of
fashion type and there is a possibility that the consumer is not very well informed
about the current trend and the kind of apparels which will suit her personality.
Hence in W, personal selling would aim at educating customer at the point of
purchase and help them making a better purchase decision. This would help to build
consumer satisfaction and give consumer a feeling of having made a right decision.
The prerequisites for influential and successful personal selling are as following:

- Well trained staff

- Motivation to employees to think out of the box and take innovative steps.

Training is of extreme importance here as not all the customers would like to be told
about what suits them. Educating customers about the fashion trends might give
them a feeling that they aint up-to-date which might go against the image of the
brand. Hence adequate training should be given to the staff right from the fact that
which kind of customers should be told about fashion trends to what suits which kind
of personality and further training about persuasive and communication skills should
also be provided in order to interact effectively with the buyers. Training would be
provided to the sales person at the store evaluate buyers’ preferences for a
particular product, build conviction about the brand and influence the buyer to
purchase the brand. While doing this, a continuous effort would be made to educate
the buyer of the core culture of W of modern yet traditional fashion apparels aimed
for women of new era.

Page 13
Events:
The objective of conducting events as a marketing communication mix for W as a
brand is to establish good-will in the minds of the consumers. W should conduct and
participate in events such as

 Women oriented Movie reviews

 Art exhibitions by women artists
 Book Launch by women author
 Corporate Events
 Fashion shows such as Wills India Fashion Week

W can also sponsor the reality shows such as:

 Indian idol by providing the wardrobe for all the female participants, hosts and
judges for one episode which has ethnic wear as its theme.
 MTV make overs.

Ensuring Communication Model is working in favor of W:

To ensure that the communication model works for W, we need to continuously
monitor the progress in terms of awareness of the brand as such, within the specific
target group.

We need to ensure that the message which is sent across by various communication
channels is consistent with the brand values. W stands for women of a new era
which embraces modernity with an essence of traditionalism. Hence all our
communications should have the elements of modernity as well as tradition. All the
communication mix elements should have synergy in spreading this message about
the brand.

Further we have to monitor whether the channel is reaching to the target consumer
group or not. Also we need to know whether the way the message is communicated
is appealing to the target consumer group or not.

Also, care would be taken that all elements of brand building exercise appearing in
the correct sequence with awareness followed by personal selling efforts along with
appropriately timed sales promotions.

Various Touch Points for W:

 Events: The events conducted by W and where W has participated will be
primary touch point for the consumer where she will come to know about the
brand.

Page 14
  Environment: The in-store ambience, service, music, peculiar fragrance, staff
uniform, and the store layout will form another form of touch point which a
customer feels very closely.

 Company Website: This can be called a secondary touch point, as if only a

customer is willing to know about the company, will he be making an effort to
know about the company or product.

 Calendar and Carry Bags: W can start its calendar which the models
showing its various seasonal collection e.g. in the months of Jan and Feb. it
can show models in winter collection of W again in March and April month
models will be wearing spring collection and so on. The calendar will be given
to the customers shopping beyond a certain amount. Calendar can be a touch
point for the women who haven’t shopped with W but are the prospect as
calendar will show the kind of apparel which one can get in W stores.

Again carry bags having W logo printed on it is another touch point.

 Sponsored events: When W sponsors the wardrobe in some reality show,

many people come to know about the brand.

 Existing Customers: The existing customers are very important touch point
as they are the source of word of mouth publicity.

Partners in Marketing Communication Plan

Customers: If the customer feels the way brand wants them to feel then they are
true partners for the communication as they will be the once who are going to talk
about the brand positively.

Celebrity Endorsement: For the fashion related product it is important that people
get to see it more often and associate it with someone whom they aspire to. Hence
W has to have some woman celebrity associated with it so that it brand image of
women of new era is enhanced and communicated. They can use Priyanka Chopra
who embodies modernity as much as tradition.

Partner with Designers: W can also associate it with the designers which don’t
have their own brands or store. W partnering with them will enhance W as well as
those designers equity as well.

Media: They can be a major help to build a brand and should also be informed about
any news, through a press conference or press release, so that no false news goes
in the market. Media can also be used to inform the public about any change in W
offering i.e. all in one ad.

Page 15
Evaluation of the Results:
A successful integrated market communication is one which communicates what it
was intended to, communicated to the right audience in a comprehendible manner
and all the communications are consistent irrespective of the media. Hence
evaluation of the result is of extreme importance to find out whether the integrated
marketing communication has been successful or not.

To evaluate whether communication has been successful in sending across its

message, consumer survey and market research should be done to assess the
brand awareness and brand identity before and after the communication.

To measure the effectiveness of the communication we have to do brand recall and

recognition tests about W. We should also have random surveys from the
consumers to understand where they have seen the W ads most frequently. We can
also ask them few questions regarding their lifestyle as to where they like to hang
around most during the weekends and which channel they like to watch in their free
time so that we again cross check whether we have placed the ads on the right place
and the right channels or not. The survey should also contain the questions to check
consumer satisfaction index which ultimately gives the indication of customer loyalty
for the brand.

To measure the effectiveness of the sales promotion, we can observe the footfall
during sales promotion and monitor the sales during this period.

Ultimately sales turnover (year on year) and market share are two indicators of
success of the marketing communication.

Bibliography:
 www.wforwoman.com
 www.customerthink.com
 Strategic Brand Management – Kapferer
 Advertising and Promotion – an IMC perspective by Belch & Belch
 Integrated Marketing campaigns – Tom Duncan

Page 16