Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Marketing Assignment: The Evaluation


PR is all about building relationships to advance, promote, and benefit the reputation of you yourself, your department and institution. PR is about communicating your message to gain allies, advocates, supporters, etc. in the community and the institution. PR is often needed when the relationship between customers and consumers is broken, which could be due to brand damage, bad press, loss of sales and profit, and many more. 

Within the creative industry, PR and marketing are very much relied on by those that work within it as it is the key to selling almost anything. Marketing and PR is beneficial in many different ways, one example being the way in which Mcdonalds has sufficiently made a successful comeback after it's bad press problems. With it's updated menu, TV ads, price list and overall appearance, the company has never been more successful. 

Within this assignment I was set the task to create my very own PR and Marketing agency that would help to deal with a company that was facing downfall. GoldMasters Agency, the company I created, is a well known and very successful business that deals with the failures and complications other companies within different industries are facing. I have chosen to deal with Missguided, a highly popular online fashion etailer. Missguided had recently begun to slip into the dynamics of bad press and brand damage. This was due to the company becoming inadequate and unsuccessful in delivering their customers orders in the selected time frame they had been paying for. Among the highest of this was next day delivery. Missguided were constantly being bombarded over social media (their key to advertisement and promotion) by angry customers making complaints about their failure to deliver. They had began to lose trust with their customers and potential markets. All the meanwhile, whilst their competitors such as Asos and Boohoo were continuing to succeed within their business, Missguided were slowly falling behind. 

A creative brief was created which was written from the clients perspective. This was presented to the company to address the requirements Missguided have in relation to bettering the problems they were currently having. GoldMasters took extensive research to come up with a final solution; the strategy and the plan. We did this by focusing on the current issues and coming up with ways to resolve them. We also kept in the mind the fact that the ultimate aim was to gain customers trust again, because if Missguided failed to do that then the company could face a huge loss in sales due to lack and loss of customers. We researched statistics, and presented illustrated examples of unhappy customers and their complaints. We were only able to present a certain amount of complaints as examples as their were so many of them. GoldMasters and Missguided then went on to discuss the target market and audience research. Even though it will always remain the same, it is important to still consider who we will be creating the promotional materials for. Overall, tit was decided that the main goal was for GoldMasters to create a campaign that advertises the improvements within the business that have been made to transform our delivery system. 

Once all the background research had been completed and the goal had been set, GoldMasters were then able to create the action plan for Missguided using a variety of creative solutions. The solutions that I was going to create (and have created) needed to have realistic ways of happening. The time frame that we allowed for the campaign was only a week and 3 days long. In this type of industry, fast updates throughout the fashion world will attract many peoples attention, so if things went to plan and happened quickly, it would keep people more intrigued and interested instead of dragging it out and making people wait 2 or 3 weeks to have an insight about what is happening. 

The first objective GoldMasters had for Missguided was to get feedback on their new and improved delivery services. Without doing this step first, their would be no point combining the second strategy we have planned. The first strategy and the second were combined together. To do so, we came up with the idea of creating a competition for the first 100 customers to sign up for Missguided's Newsletter or create an account with them, had the chance to win a free £50 voucher. The winners will receive their voucher by email, which will be in a code format. In order to claim the full £50 voucher, they will only be given £35 of it first. This is because the customers have to of actually bought something in order to have experienced the new delivery system. After they have completed that part, they will then be able to claim the other £15. Before doing so, they must answer a short survey GoldMasters and Missguided have come up with together, in order to get feedback about the new delivery services. 

The reason we would urge customers to sign up for the newsletter as a way of entering the competition is to increase sales generally for Missguided. The number of sales they make is not a great concern to Goldmasters by any means as they are very successful in that aspect of their business. 

The second part of my action plan is to offer a writer from Glamour Magazine a voucher for an article review. I chose Glamour Magazine because they share the same age demographic as Missguided (16-34) and have been featured in the magazine many times. It is also very popular and successful, and has good feedback on the types of reviews the magazine includes. By having a third party opinion, it allows Missguided to claim that little bit extra of expertise to let their customers know that the company have made some serious changes. 

And finally the last part of the action plan was to just create a TV advert to increase sales generally. My marketing strategy & plan states and explains in depth the stages GoldMasters will be taking Missguided through in order to achieve the goals set. 

To publicise my campaign, posters have been created that will be advertised in bus stops and on buses, billboards and adverts on TV. But more importantly, GoldMasters felt by taking advantage of free promotion, a press release should be conducted in order to give an outline on the events that will be going underway. Also by releasing the press release and allowing people to know what will feature in the next issue of Glamour Magazine, which will be the review, GoldMasters and Missguided also open an opportunity for Glamour Magazine to reach an increase in sales due to public interest and curiosity about what Glamour had to say about the new delivery services. 

The strengths of my products are as follows. The posters that I created were bright, attractive, fun and eye catching. They looked good and included information that got straight to the point. I didn't want to give too much away on the posters, which is why on one of them it simply just tells you to go to the website to 'find out more'. The weaknesse's was that I didn't take my own photos.

The strengths of my press release were that it gave clear and uncomplicated outlines as to what the campaign involved. It included key dates and gave quotes from the company which allowed for a more professional overall discussion. The weaknesses were that I could have elaborated a bit more on how customers felt about the bad delivery services. 

Overall, this assignment has been challenging but a great deal of fun at the same time. Trying to make decisions on the right ideas for a campaign was tricky, as the ultimate goal was to make the company I had chosen successful in every way possible. I think due to having such a short time frame for the campaign, if I had maybe produced more material such as radio advert or even conducted an interview with the PR team of Missguided, I could of taken things a lot further and gotten a lot more success and gained even more customers than what we have. 

I was happy with my ideas in the end, I thought i had created a good solid campaign that will be remembered as the start of progress Missguided will continue to make for the first steps of their new delivery system. I was happy with the way my products turned out and I enjoyed creating them. 

This assignment has potential to help me in the future because it has allowed me to further my understanding about PR and Marketing on the whole, which I believe is due to having such practical tasks, it was obviously almost like I was the actual business and my job was to be creative, understanding, smart and confident in order to help another company out. I feel I have gained skills that will stick with me, such as time organisation, clear planning, being able to work as a team and work well under stress. 

Creative Material: Posters




Tuesday, 12 May 2015

Assignment 2 - Marketing Stratergy - Missguided

Product Definition


Missguided is an online fashion retailer aimed at women aged 16-34. It was set up by Manchester-based entrepreneur Nitin Passi in 2008. The etailer, which employs over 300 people, sells celebrity inspired products at reasonable price points. It operates a fast fashion model bringing hundreds of new products to its site each week. It sells own brand product and, despite requests from retailers including fashion giant Asos, it has shunned wholesaling in favour of growing its own retail operation.
After a Red Hobbs dress by Pipa Middleton sold out, it took Missguided only five days to have a similar one on sale, according to Passi. 
He said: 'We are very reactive and quick to market. We can turn round a product in three days, which is important in fashion. We can also offer next-day delivery to America compared with Asos's four-day delivery to the US

The etailer is achieving 20% sales growth each month. Passi expects to unveil sales of £50m to £55m for its year to March 2013 which he predicts will grow to over £100m in its current financial year. Missguided ship to 160 countries and have celebrity ambassadors such as form pussy cat doll Nicole Sherzinger. 
With Missguided attracting more than eight million website visits a month, which included a record 265,000 orders made in December 2013, the Missguided business sees significant opportunity to grow into a prominent global player as it moves into its sixth year of operation.

Overall, with the growing demand for young women to have the similar wardrobes to the celebrities they idolize, Missguided have become successful in giving their audience what they want which is one reason as to why they are so successful. Their buisness is constantly expanding and gaining more and more customers each month. 

Situation Analysis 

With the buisness expanding and demands booming, the pressure for Missguided to meet the expectations of their customers has become difficult. With large numbers of orders they recieve during the week and more importantly, for the weekends, it's become difficult for the company to meet their given delivery time brackets. Missguided are failing to deliever their customers orders on time, or even deliever the correct items. 1 in 8 people recieve their 'next day delievery' orders whilst the rest are still left waiting days later. This has resulted in a lot of negative press and damage to brand reputation. The aftermath of missguided not delievering properly, literally, leaves angry customers to take to twitter to express their anger and upset towards the company. by simply typing in 'Missguided' into twitter, thousands of tweets and photos appear from angry customers with nothing but bad things to say. This has left Missguided with the problem of damaged trust with existing and potential customers. 

Competitive Enviroment

One of Missguided's main competitors is ASOS, with others being 'Boohoo' and 'Pretty Little Thing'. With customers being presented 4 powerful and successful fashion etailers, their comes a rival when decisions need to be made by the public on which company they should buy their products from. They each become threats to each other as they all want to be successful in having a large number of sales, as well as good press and brand recognition. With Missguided recently slacking more than usual to deliver their customers items on time, better delivery services from the other etailers such as Asos and boohoo are winning the publics trust as they are viewed as better companies to shop at. 

Target Market/Research data

Missguided is a company that exists to bring customers not only the latest trends in fashion but celebrity inspired fashion trends and items of clothing. Missguided shadow the rich and famous on their red carpet debuts to offer their customers extremely precise dupes of their clothing. That is what they offer. 

Another platform that helps missguided understand their target audience and little bit more is that as they are an etailer, one of their key elements of advertisement is through social media. When customers tweet about Missguided or tweet too them, Missguided can check them out and see what type of people are buying their products. It's highly unlikely you'll get somebody in their 50's on twitter, tweeting Missguided about a kim kardashian inspired pencil skirt they just purchased. Missguided already expect for young women and teenage girls to be using their products. This also allows for missguided to target their chosen target audience, which is 16-34 year olds, repeteadly. 

Missguided use young, popular and attractive celebrities as their inspirations and ambassadors. Besides Nicole Sherzinger, more recently 'Pia Mia', a young teenage music artist from the USA has just made a collaboration with the company. Missguided and there customers know that she is close friends with the kardashians, especially Kylie Jenner who is one of this generations biggest beauty and fashion inspirations. Missguided already know that customers are going to want to be wearing what Pia Mia is wearing, they're going to want to know where they can get what she has on, they're going to adapt their style to hers, and for Missguided, it means lots more sales and a lot more popularity and brand recognition. The other positive to this for Missguided is that in the celebrity world, other celebs will be asking or finding out that Pia Mia is wearing clothing from Missguided which means even more recognition on a much higher level. 

Action Plan

First thing is first, GoldMasters believe the campaign promotion of the advert and the release of the £50 voucher needs to happen first. This is because its very important Missguided get their feedback from the public about their new delivery services so they can get an understanding about whether the changes that were made were actually beneficial and if they need to solve any other problems, and so they can do it quickly. 

The advert is their to increase sales overall and remind customers that missguided may have lost due to poor delievery services, and exisiting customers, what we have to offer. The press release and the advert will be released on the same day, July the 25th. The campaign will be ongoing for around a week. This gives Missguided time to recieve in their feedback and to finalize their response back out to the public about what was said about the new delievery services as a whole. 
The reason it is being released so specifically on the 25th is because the other startergy we have which is the article for Glamour Magazine must be released in a new issue of the companies magazine which will lead us up to july 1st which will mark the end of the campaign, so it will last a week. The article in Glamour Magazine will be the last thing to be released as having an opinion and review coming from a third party, especially someone like Glamour, will allow people to understand how successful Missguided have been with the new delievery services.

Campaign Schedule:


Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Assignment 2 - Press Release

Press Release - Missguided's New and Improved Delivery System




Due to the rise in popularity Missguided and endured on their journey to international success, it has become the centre of negative press due to its failure to deliver peoples orders on time. This problem also includes delivering the wrong orders, and items that are not well crafted. It was announced today that Missguided have now improved their delivery by choosing a different company 'ESD Delivery' who they feel are more reliable and better suited for their type of business. With the option 'Next Day Delievery' being the most popular selected time bracket, Missguided needed to make a serious change as customers were not getting 'Next Day' delivery at all.

From this change we are expect that our new improved delivery system will gain existing customers and potential customers trust again. 

In aim to achieve that, Missguided announced earlier today that featured in this event they will be giving away a £50 voucher to the first 100 customers that register an account with Missguided or sign up for their newsletter. We feel that this would be the perfect opportunity to experiment the new delivery service, and then go on the gain customer feedback on the new delivery system. 

Glamour Magazine will also be releasing an article review on the new delivery system as Missguided are also giving a £50 voucher to one of their contacts at the magazine. 

The campaign will begin on the 25th of July, 2015 and last until the 1st of August, 2015. Missguided themselves have stated that they are "Excited" for the future of the company, and "Feel as if the air between upset customers and Missguided has finally been cleared'' due to the improved services. They are 'hopeful' and 'Confident' they can gain customers trust again.

Friday, 1 May 2015

Assignment 2 - Task 4 - Marketing Plan: Missguided

Product Definition

Missguided was founded in 2008 by Nitin Passi. The company ships to 160 countries and has launched websites in the US, Australia and Europe. This retailer offers catwalk looks and celebrity inspired fashion to women aged between 16 and 35. It is endorsed by former Pussycat Doll and X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger, who launched her first collections with Missguided this year. More than 2.7m customers have registered their details with the Salford-headquartered company since it was founded by Nitin Passi, 32, five years ago. Missguided has attributed annual sales of £51m partly to its ability to list 200 new products a week. 

Missguided has become an international fashion retailer when it comes to wanting the latest celebrity inspired styles and items. Missguided base many of their styles on Kim Kardashian who is one of this generations biggest fashion influences. They also base styles on Vanessa Hudgens, Kylie Jenner and Cara Deleveigne. 

This is a definition of who Missguided are from their website:



However, behind all of the companies success, as they have expanded to being an international retailer they have began to come into serious issues with delivery failure, and it's damaging the brands reputation. 
Here are so illustrated examples: 









These are only a selected few out of the hundreds of complaints people have sent in about the company. These are all from twitter, and with Missguided having a massive 300,000K+ followers, these complaints are exposed and visible to thousands of people. This also includes any celebrities or other fashion retailers that may follow them. As Nicole Sherzinger having an existing endrosement with Missguided of a clothing line of party wear, It will look bad on Nicole Sherzinger if Missguided are failing to deliver her items of clothing and that can result in bad press for Nicole and Missguided, and the more bad press Missguided get, the less other celebrities will want to be a part of it in the future. 

Assignment 2 - Task 3 - Marketing Strategy: Missguided

Missguided Marketing Campaign

The first strategy:

Objective:  To get feedback from customers about the new delivery services.

Marketing Stratergy + Plan combined: Missguided want to put to the test their new delivery system and want customers and new individuals to test it out. They are going to do a competition where 100 customers only will get a chance to win a £50 voucher to spend at Missguided. The winner will enter by signing up for either their newsletter or an account by submitting their email, name, address and phone number (optional). The winners will receiver their voucher by email which will be a code form to enter when it comes to checkout. Before they can get access to their code, they will need to fill out a short survey regarding the delivery system. After completed, they can claim their voucher and spend it on whatever items they like. The voucher will cover delivery, unless they go over the £50.

The survey will consist of the following questions:

1.) What type of delivery service did you choose?
- Standard Delivery
- Next Day (Premium)
- Saturday
- Sunday

2.) Did Misguided deliver your order on time within the selected time bracket?

3.) Out of 5, what would you rate our new delivery system?

4.) Would you recommend us to a friend?

5.) Are you satisfied with our services?
Yes (Tick)
No (Have a comment box to explain why)

When all of the data has been collected from these surveys, Missguided will then continue to discuss their results with the public to let them know that successful changes have been made. This leads us to strategy 2.

The Second Strategy:

Objective: To have professional and solid feedback from an already existing successful company; being Glamour Magazine.

Stratergy + Plan: Missguided will team up with Glamour Magazine and select a journalist from their fashion column and give them a £50 voucher so they can review the delivery service and write an article about it to confirm the excellent delivery services. I have chosen Glamour Magazine because it is read by the exact same demographic that misguided have (ages 16-34) which means the same type of audience will be exposed to the review. Also, its a popular and very successful fashion magazine. Included in the Glamour magazine edition, Missguided will include a free gift for the magazine which will be a pair of pink or black knickers, especially from misguided that have 'delivery' on the back of it. 

The Third Strategy:

Objective: To increase sales.

Stratergy + Plan: We will create a new TV ad to increase sales generally. The advert will consist of Missguided models dressed head to toe in the current and most popular trends, all items from Missguided. It will advertise new clothes. The style of Missguided's already existing adverts are very young and modern with tasteful music, beautiful models and eye catching set design. We felt it would be a good idea for the Missguided advert to sponsor 'The Kardashians' on channel E! as again, the similar sort of age demographic watch that show, its a young and popular celebrity dominated channel which fits in with Missguided perfectly. 


The overall achievement is that Missguided want to achieve successful and positive press on their new delievery service along with increased sales and re-established bran popularity. The company need to remind their customers and potential buyers that they are still worthy of using and that they are still capable of being a company that can satisfy their customers. The content of Missguided is never a problem as customers love the clothing they provide and the styles they have.