Berska Club Launch/Sofia 1

The Event is The Product

Bershka Club Launch Event in Sofia

Designed by Teodora Kostadinova for Special Events Communication/NBU 25/04/10

According to Wikipedia:

“Bershka is a company belonging to the Spanish Inditex group (owner of Zara), that was created in April 1998 as a new store and fashion concept, aimed at a young target market. It now has 508 stores in 36 countries…”

This year the brand decided to enter the very potential Eastern- European market starting with the Bulgarian capital Sofia. Additional factor fostering the new entry is the latest fashion mall in the Bulgarian capital officially opened in March to host more than 20 new brands.

The first clothing store of Bershka will be opened there on the 21th of May. Since the brand is relatively new and unfamiliar to the local market, the company needs to organize a special event launching the new shop that will also promote the original product.

21.05. Mall Serdika 1st floor

Berska Club Launch/Sofia 2

Bershka is a fashion leader that targets these new and increasingly demanding consumers.

This project proposal is aimed to develop and design a special event for the opening of Bershka Club in Serdika Mall with the long-term objective to create a stabile brand awareness and loyal customer segment in Bulgaria among their traditionally under 30 target.

Research

Market research

Even that, there is no sufficient data on Bulgarian apparel market, it is relatively clear that it is most concentrated in the capital and it is getting bigger with many potential clients and comparatively less choice for brands than in Western Europe. With the opening of several big city malls in Sofia many western European brands saw a good opportunity to enter the new market and to foster their sales in times of crisis.

Its clothing prices are generally at the mall’s lower end and range from BGN 20 for T-shirts and run up to BGN 150 at the top end, putting it a notch or two below the offer from sister Inditex fashion brand “Pull and Bear”, further along the shopping mall.

Why Bershka Club Launch? Even with high competitive environment, a new brand like Bershka is expected to be successful in this market since it offers a new variety of fashion appeal for the very fashion-conscious Bulgarian youngsters. Crucial for this success is to create long-lasting awareness and brand loyalty among target groups. For this objective is highly recommended that Bershka organizes a special event to promote itself. The feeling that will remain afterward has to be

Bershka Club Launch for who?

energetic, entertaining, and consistent with the feeling of the brand.

Potential customers, journalists, fashion bloggers and most of all young people from high school and university are the target group of the event. The relatively cheap prices of Bershka combined with the latest fashion design make it very attractive for these publics, who are characterized with more free time and less revenues. All the contractors involved have to be consistent and informed with the overall message of the event, which is that the brand is fresh, affordable and must have for fashion seekers. When will be Bershka Club Launch?

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Naturally the event will coincide with the opening of the first Bulgarian Bershka shop in the Serdica mall on 21 May, Friday at 19h. Since the working time of the big mall is extended till 22h we have to possibility to use the late hours for the opening event which has to bring the feeling like attending a night club – with the appropriate lights, DJ, celebrities, nice dressed models and a club design, providing a obvious contrast with the white interior design of the mall.

The Event is the product The event will create the ambience of a nightclub in the shop and this atmosphere has to create a lasting memory and feeling of a cool place among the potential young customers.

Furthermore they are expected to spread the word of mouth around their friends and to build a community of brand-lovers for Bershka.

The store has to become a kind of a dance floor during the event and definitely the place to be for fashion seekers. This will be not the next big opening of a fashion shop in the mall attacking with aggressive commercials and cheap and useless take-aways.

SWOT analysis

strengths weaknesses

- Strong funding - Good media relations - Developed web-site of the brand

in Europe - Strong brand identity in Europe - Big young clothing market in Sofia

- Poorly trained staff - Heavy rivals –other shops opening in

the mall – Zara, etc. - Unfavorable economical situation

opportunities threats

- Celebrity appearance - Tie-in with media - Developing loyal customers - Word of mouth spread

- Celebrity canceling or not attending - Other special events in the mall can

take the attention of the public - Poor attendance and early leaving

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Instead of assuming that a bunch of 30 somethings sitting in an office know how students want to be communicated to, our alternative strategy is to use their preferred environment to generate their own content. If we come to them with a retail event, we’d be just another clothing company telling them what to do.

Design

The difficult question is, “How do we break through with consumers who are used to a certain grouping of brands and introduce a new brand into that arena?” This generation has a lot of brands targeting them and is pretty jaded when it comes to traditional advertising. A favorable factor is that they talk to each other, and they make a lot of buying decisions based on what their peers are wearing. That is why the Bershka Club seeks a way to connect with them on a level that is more emotional. The only way to do that is to get in front of them with a face-to face event and communicate its values not from a commercial aspect, but through a voice-of-brand approach built around a subject that they care about. And of course Bulgarian teenagers today are not very different from their peers from the rest of Europe, they fancy fashion, they respect being cool and like to go to night clubs, where eventually celebrities can be met. So that’s why a celebrity will be the host of the Bershka Club Launch event. This has to be someone famous and liked among young consumers and in the same time consistent with the brand identity, like for example the Bulgarian singer Rushi Vidinliev. He will be contacted well in advance and asked to take part in the event. In case he is not available or refuses, other celebrity choices can be other famous singer, male or female. Like every promotional event there will be branded gifts for free like bags and hats. Hence, purposefully this won’t be mentioned in the flyers and advertisements to avoid people outside the target coming only for the take-aways, which is not the point.

EVENT AT A GLANCE Objective: Create brand awareness and loyal community of customers from apparel-industry trade show Strategy: Launch a fashion show to focus attention on Bershka products and promote modern and urban lifestyle. Capitalize on the celebrity club appeal and energy of the brands. Tactics: Create an immersive excitement that allows buyers to experience the attractive brand messages through live performance, celebrity appearances, and club-like events.

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Then, through a traditional print and PR campaign, we will drive traffic to a custom built microsite where a full description of the campaign, a discussion forum, and invitation applications and forms will be housed. Finally, a series of billboards and magazine advertising will be designed to bring the message directly to students. Respectively they will be placed in around main school and university areas, the city center and in fashion and lifestyle magazines with mainly young readers (e.g. MODA, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, INTRO, Go). Paid publications can be also published where possible. One radio advert will be recorded especially for radio Nova, which is famous among this specific target for the music and famous DJ’s shows. A lot of awareness is expected to be gained through it, so it has to be regularly one week prior to the event. Invitations fliers will be distributed in Serdica mall, the city center and University areas. Viral marketing Young people in Bulgaria are also online generation. Many are expected to tap into their MySpace ,facebook and twitter accounts to launch micro viral campaigns that will generate a big amount of awareness and attendance. They can do so when sharing the posted event from Bershka club fan page in the social networks. Bloggers who are specially focused on fashion topics have to be identified and contacted in advance. They will be the professional opinion-leaders who have to attend and assess the event. Personal invitations have to be designed and distributed to them.

Social media will be also used for pretesting of the event design. Posts, which will generate potential viewers’ feedback, will be pictures from the store, the DJ set, regular updates with celebrities’ attendance and others.

50 people or fewer might show up physically for the event, but hundreds more will be touched indirectly through Facebook and MySpace, Twitter and all of the grassroots networking. Bershka Club Five Senses experience In order to create a memorable event we will try to involve as much senses as we can. The atmosphere has to remind a dark and ultra-modern night club. In this case the normal lighting in the store, which is quite dark, won’t be enough. Additional colorful projectors have to be installed. Of course the general idea comes from the brand identity and the store design itself that is made to look like a clubbing spot. The interior design is conceived to give maximum prominence to the fashion display. The layout, music, lighting,

Berska Club Launch/Sofia 6

furniture, wall-prints and materials used are carefully conceived from the decoration team to offer the greatest freedom to the customers. Like in every other night bar there will be music and there will be a DJ that is famous and liked among young Bulgarian clubbing scene. The music in Bershka club store is traditionally laud and similar to what is listen in nightclubs, so the DJ will not need long briefing about he has to play during the party. The center of the shop will be lighted with projectors and will create the illusion for a dance floor. Models dressed in Bershka clothes will walk around and dance. The atmosphere has to be informal and friendly, while attendees will straw around shop latest cloths.

One professional photographer from online based party photos agency (tillate.com) will be hired to take pictures of attendees and create an online report of the event, that later will be posted on the fan page in facebook. It will be negotiated with them all the pictures to be branded with Bershka logo.

The visual part will be stimulated additionally with the 3D technique used to garment printing in the collection for boys like the ones in the picture below. To see the difference customers will have to get glasses with lens in each colour for free.

Regarding the catering no food and drinks will be served since the expected age of attendees will be under 18.

Planning

The event will start 19:15 with 15 minutes delay after the announced time to allow more people to gather together for the beginning.

Berska Club Launch/Sofia 7

Timing prior to the event

Campaign April May

Website update In Bulgarian

01.04 must be online Regularly updated

Social media Campaign/ pretesting (facebook, twitter)

From 12.04.

regularly

Regularly updated

Invitations flyers distribution

01.04. Ordered in ads agency From 10.05 distributed

Radio ad 01.04. ordered in ads agency / radio Nova contacting

From 01.05 regularly on air

Magazines ads/ billboards

01.04. ordered in ads agency/ magazines PR departments contacting

From 01. May in every weekend issue; at least two promotional texts

DJ booking/

Photographer agency

Contacted and booked from 05.04 Confirm attendance – 03. May

Models agency contacting

05.04. contacting and giving exact number and preferences of models

03. May - final selection of models 17.May – in store rehearsal, Bershka stylists decide clothes order

Lights 05. May ordered, 21. May installed

Celebrities contacting 01.04 – 05.04 03.May – confirm 17. May 18:30h – in store rehearsal

Timing during the event

Time

19:00- 19: 15 Waiting for the guests to arrive, laud music and gifts distribution,

19:15 h – 19:35h lights go darker, celebrity guest makes short introduction, fashion show starts

19:40h - Fashion show ends, models melt with the guests, people start walking around the rows, laud music

20h – 20:30 Promotion girls start giving away free gifts and discount vouchers, photographers go around and make pictures of the guests with Bershka clothes, laud music

20:30 Celebrity closes the show and invites guests to stay till the closure at 22h, DJ stays till then and plays music

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Evaluation

The evaluation of the Bershka Club Launch Event will start well ahead of the actual event.

Pre-testing posts will be published on the fan-pages in facebook and twitter, as well as in the website. These include new collection pictures, DJ guest update, celebrity host update; musical sets from the DJ; free gifts announcement; final remind in the date of the event, as well as after-party summary and pictures from the event.

Feedbacks, membership’s ratio and sharing of content will be included in the final evaluation.

No evaluation surveys will be distributed on the event.

They will be sent online afterward to the members of Bershka fan page in facebook. The survey template will be a mixture between ‘thank you for attending’ note and a short questionnaire. This will be sent only to visitors who indicated that will attend.

Questions will include multiple choice answers like following:

1. Did you enjoy attending Bershka Club opening party? Not at all very much

1 2 3 4 5

2. Do you like Bershka clothing and style?

Not at all very much

3. Will you visit the shop in the future? Not at all definitely

4. Will you buy something from Bershka Club?

Never definitely