“Roses and Thorns”

Creative Strategy Document

Belle Ang Yen Chein / 14037756Concept Realization / Semester 2Module / DE0931Module Tutor / Gayle CantrellBA (Hons) Fashion CommunicationUniversity of Northumbria2014/2015

1. Concept2. Mission Statement3. Vision4. Rational3. Target Market 3.1 Consumer Analysis 3.2 Target Audience 3.3 Market Segmentation 3.4 Target Market Analysis

4. Market Research 4.1 Market Research Analysis 4.2 PEST Analysis 4.3 SWOT 4.4 7ps

5. Competitors 5.1 TOOSHAAYA 5.2 UMASAN 5.3 Katharina Gruber 5.4 Neemic

6. Logistic 6.1 Logistic 6.2 Budget7. Creative Implementation Strategy 7.1 Augmented Reality Billboard 7.2 Promotional video 7.3 Lookbook

Table of Content

1. Concept

‘Roses and Thorns’ is a new online independent fashion designers label. Roses and Thorns produces ethical apparel and breaks the mould for affordable design. We emphasize the importance of sustainability as it now become a concern of virtually every sector of human society. We strongly introduce the brand message “waste is last season” by im-plementing sustainability into the fashion world to achieve long-term improvement for people and the environment. ‘Roses and Thorns’ offer collections that are wide-ranging from organic material like cotton, hemp, bamboo, seaweed and many more. All our designs start from the inspiration of sight, shapes, textures and colors of nature. At this early stage of business, we offer only womens apparel and accessories that are varied from top, bottom, shoes, hat etc.

Roses and ThornsIt Makes you who you are.

2. Mission Statement Roses and Thorns exist to encourage a healthy and inspiring living. We’re passionate about sharing fashionable ideas along the way and fully engaging people with sustainable clothing. We want people to gain more knowledge about the relation between fashion and nature in order to uplift the lives of our customers. 3. Vision Our vision is to grow Roses and thorns into a brand that will always be remembered as a fashion label that brings peaceful and trendy. Roses have Thorns will positively influence people through genuine val-ues and continue to bring you confident from within.

4. Rational

Before consumers decide to adopt an in-novation they need to be knowledgeable about the innovation. When consumers make a nonsustainable fashion decision, their behavior may not mean so much as they do not value sustainability or they are not conscious of being ethical con-sumers, but, rather, their biased decisions are only insofar as a reflection of their lack of adequate awareness. Consumers are willing to pay higher price for sustain-able products but most of the customers will not take the initiative looking for such product.

So, consumers need to be taught and be educate on the importance of sustainabil-ity and they need to be aware product that they are buying is something recyclable that not only benefits the environment but also has benefits for the next generation.

While many fashion brands talk about corporate social responsibility or ethical fashion, we go further. Roses and Thorns shows the way of garments transform from ethical fashion into something that is de-sirable. Not only showcasing the beauty of nature being transform into a piece of high quality, fashionable products but also col-laborate with leading designers to produce unique collections. Customers will have the opportunity to value the considered nature of the brand, and to allow a transparent and honest contact from production. This will help your customer to connect deeper with the brand and to have a growing interest in dressing sustainably.

“Be the change you want to see in the world ”

Gandhi

3. Target Market

3.1 Consumer analysis Roses and Thorns is a eco-friendly fashion la-bel that adds social and environmental values to women’s daily wear and that allows our custom-ers to recall how satisfying it feels to do a good deed. Our Value Roses have Thorns share a genuine belief in ourselves, each other and our ability to make our lives better by producing sustainable products and spread to the world a reminder to peoplethe awesomeness that life has offer. Lives could be more livelier with just a little effort that everyone could put in and be a part of it.

3.2 Target Audience

1. Primary Established consumers of ethical fashion Characteristics: / 25-39 / Have supported social/ environmental issues for 5-10 years or more / Willing to pay a bit extra for ethical fashion / Professionals with disposable income A high de gree of loyalty / Not generally followers of fashion

2. SecondaryA new emerging market of younger consumers Character istics: / Early 20’s, Fairly new to sustainability issues related to fashion focused and trend aware / Will commit to a higher spend on fashion products / Have some awareness of the ethical issues behind fashion

3.3 Market Segmentation

Primary Target AudienceDemographic / Professionalism / Women age 25-39 / Financial independent / Large social network / Highly ambitious

Geographical / Climates differences- Northwest & Southwest: Mild winters, cool/warm summers / Northeast & Southeast: Cold winters, cool/warm summers Behavioral / Shopping is a social activity / Quality and ethical consciousness / Feminine and elegant image / Smart and sophisticated look requirement Secondary Target AudiencesDemographic / Students / Women 18-24 / Impulse buyer / Ensuring value for money

Geographical / Climates differences- Northwest & Southwest: Mild winters, cool/warm summers Northeast & Southeast: Cold winters, cool/warm summersBehavioral / Shop at lease once a week either online/instore / Fashion trend pursuer / Brand conscious / Have some ethical consciousness / Individualistic and fashionable image / Modern and chic to be

3.4 Target Market Analysis

Potential ConsumersPrimary target group are rational and ethically con-scious, they are willing to pay more for a eco-friendly garment that adds social and environmental values to women’s daily wear. It also allows our potential cus-tomers to recall how satisfying it feels to do a good deed. Furthermore, primary target group emphasizes on social status as they need to look smart and profes-sionals to maintain a good impression. On the other hand, secondary targeted groups are relatively impulse buyers. Style and trend would be the first to consider whether to purchase it or not. They are fairly brand conscious but not too much on ethical and environ-mental friendly conscious. At this stage, Roses have thorns serve the brand purpose of affordable design and uniqueness.

4. Market Research

Fast fashion has monopolized the fashion industries by moving trends from the cat-walk to the consumer at a rapid pace, with a affordable price point. The ultimate goal is to create more consumption, generate more sales and keep their market position. Retailers tend to make people feel like out of trend after one week and this has created more desires for the shoppers to keep in pace with the continuous change in trend. People have changed the relationship to clothing.

According to weebly.com, a survey given to 100 West Chester students found that16% of those surveyed admitted to having thrown out clothes in the trash (In Britain) On average, about “65 pounds of clothing and textiles a year” are improperly discarded, and “only an eighth of that goes to chari-ties for reuse.” (Fastfashion.weebly.com) So imagine how many 20 years we need to fully biodegrade those last season clothes.

McQuillan says that, in 2015, the fashion industry will produce 400 billion meters of fabric — just for apparel.

This is roughly the amount of fabric it would take to cover the entire state of California. Fifteen percent, or 60 billion meters, will be wasted during the produc-tion phase (extra fabric, itself a finished product, that ends up on the cutting room floor), before the garments even reach a consumer. The number of garments created each year is the equivalent of everyone in the world having 20 new items annually. This excessive oversup-ply is driven by pressure on consumers to buy large numbers of garments and frequently replace them in order to keep up with changing fashions. (Newell)

4.1 Market Research Analysis

It is the world of growing populations, increasing urbanisation and resource short-ages. Hence, other than raising awareness of sustainable clothing, we are looking forward to develop a longterm marketing plan seeking for a new stream of revenue. As a startup business owners, we are able to determine there’s room for growth in sustainable fashion markets throught these market research data. To us, we should offer products that benefits people and the planet. By injecting more eco conscious information to the society, they would feel this is an obligation to act for the bene-fit of society at large. Meanwhile, this creates new market segments and strategies, which introduces fashion items that combine both fashionable and environmental friendly that do not contain chemical processing and which provide sustainable products that leave the wearer feeling proud and full of positive vibes.

4.2 PEST Analysis:

Political / Change in Government could affect levels of VAT on clothes mak ing products more expensive / Tighter legislation on part time workers could increase costs due to higher salary and compensation for holiday and sick pay.

Economic / Interest rates on borrowing could increase resulting in increased costs for loans which would affect growth and expansion / Increase inflation and or low economic growth could affect levels of disposable income on clothes / Higher labour costs could drive up prices for products / Due to globalisation and health of economy in UK, workers in fashion industry could emigrate overseas to take advantage of higher salary and better benefits

Social / Working in the fashion industry may become less popular result ing in less graduates and more difficulty in finding suitable staff / An aging population or a more youthful population may not have a demand for products / An aging population may result in smaller workforce and in creased costs due to higher salaries for older workers. / Other products may become trendy and fashionable making com pany products more difficult to sel

Technological / Research and development activity into sources of new materials and methods of preparation of clothes would add cost to sale price of goods

4.3 SWOT

Strength / High quality sustainable fashion brand with afford able price. / More than 3 senses (sight, touch, smell) included into each piece of garment. Product will be designed according to the materia used, shapes of natural resources and natural scents will be added / High accessibility (online next day delivery) / Using safe and natural dye. / Using dry dye to reduce consumption of water using. / We use only fabric that can be 100% biodegrade.

Weaknesses / The limitation of material used / High material and manufacturing cost / Time consuming in manufacturing

Opportunities / New design concept for sustainable clothing, trigger impulse buying in potential customers / Creates a new sensation to sustainable industry; pro viding consumers a whole new concept of sustainable products / Increase credibility by collaborating with fashion brands / Reduce impact on global warming by reducing sweat shop, child labor

Threats / People take times to realize the importance of sus tainable products. (Effect of biodegradable products comes after) / Differences on garments between recyclable or non-recyclable are very difficult to tell. (for customers that never come across to similar products) / More than 120 sustainable brands in the UK (compet itive market) / Economic downturn. This will restrict consumer’s spend ing)

4.4 7ps

ProductOne of the selling points of our product is to maintain the right level of quality and design to build brand image and to meet customers needs and wants now and in the future.

PriceA product is only worth what customers are prepared to pay for it. Most of the people are not aware of the sustainable clothing or not ready to pay more for the sake of the environment yet so it is crucial to set price at the right price point. Other than that, the price also need to be competitive as we are yet to be recognize by the industries and the public but this does not necessary mean to be cheapest. We may be able to compete with larger rivals by adding extra services or details that will offer customers better value for money.

PlacesWe will have our online-store selling all products. Products can be search through our website easily and this has saved us some capital from setting a brick and mortal store.

PromotionRoses and thorns main promotion is advertising. One of our main adver-tising methods is to creates a billboard with augmented reality technic. We want our audience to get the message we are trying to portray directly and efficiently through the augmented live video showing the effect of decomposed clothing. Therefore, word of mouth (WOM) is being formed as this is something unusual for the customers. Roses have thorns aim to accomplished word of mouth as one of our bridge to connect us with the target market. Billboard will be placed mainly in some high human traffic places. On the other hand, promotion booklet will be distributed through-out the promotion period.

PeopleWell trained staff will be placed at the pop up store to make sure informa-tion being delivered to the customers accurate and reliable.

ProcessPromoter should be aware and obtain enough knowledge of ethical fash-ion in order to serve and convince customers better. It is very crucial to be helpful as well as to have a pleasant behaviour to keep customer happy and satisfied.

Physical EvidenceSample of raw materials of the products that they are going to buy should be displayed where customer can be reached as most of the customers are at the stage of confusion due to the message and awareness we are trying to raise is intangible. For instance, customer wont be able to imagine the process of transforming a plant into something wearable.

5. Competitors

As sustainable fashion is a trend now, there are many types of stores in the market that are under the same category. Roses and thorns’s clothing are organic, inspiring and eviromental friendly. There are a few main competitors which fall under the same category such as Jewish independent design studio “Our Art comes form Nature” , Germany based ‘Umasan’ , ‘Katha-rina Gruber’ and NEEMIC from Beijing. These are the poten-tial competitors that Roses have thorns faces.

5.1 TOOSHAAYA-Touched by nature.

Our Art comes from Nature. Tooshaaya is a family brand, a partnership of mother and daughter. They produceproducts that is Eco friendly and made of natural materials with a handmade touch. The unique character of each item from TOOSHAAYA is achieved through special knitting techniques using fine and delicate threads, hand dyed, embroidering, weav-ing, and felting. Each item’s design integrates selection of a unique yarn (fiber) and consideration of texture to the final desired shape of the garment. The unique design is characterized by softness, comfort and flattering style. Nature inspires us, excites us, and makes us feel connected to ourselves and to the world, evokes in us passion to create. (Tooshaaya Eco Textile Design)

5.2 UMASAN is the first and only vegan High Fashion label that satisfies the needs of the new health style generation. The vegan label attaches a great importance to eco-logical and human production processes as well as the natural, sustainable and animal friendlyuse of resources. (UMASAN)

5.4 NEEMICNEEMIC is a designer brand initiated in 2011 by Amihan Zemp and Hans Martin Gal-liker with three visions at heart: Creating beautiful design, making the industry more sustainable and providing a platform for artistic exchange. (Neemic.asia)

5.3 Katharina Gruber is a young independant German de-signer based in Paris. She launch her own label in 2012. For her 2nd collection, she keeps her natural inclination for move-ment, deconstructed cuts and a beautiful melancholy to which she also brings fresh tones and airy fabrics to emphasize even more her feminine and mineral world. (A SHADED VIEW ON FASHION)

6.1 Budget

6. Logistic

All garments are sourced in Valencia, Spain. Size of 20ft container will be ship through sea transport every month. We will make sure to keep our inventory on track to eensure a smooth distribution process from our suppliers to the end user. It is also important to maintain sufficient inventory level to avoid sales loss in the future.

7. Creative Implementation Strategy

7.1 Out put 1/Augmented Reality Billboard

Roses and Thorns will produce 3 outputs for the brand launch-ing. Augmented reality billboard will be the main output that showcasing Roses and thorns featured products. As such, more money will be allocated into it to ensure we deliver the best visual experience to the public. The aim of this out put is to incorporate graphic techniques and digital content into the real world. We tend to create a new visual experience for the public. We will have big screen on billboard near the beach (to capture sea view in order to merge with the virtual) and AR technique will be applied on the screen showing the combination of a real scenery with an augmented reality video edited by Adobe After Effect software. We are trying to gain more attention and create WOM by using this technique.

7.2 Output 2/ Promotional video

Roses and Thorns seek to engage people into sustainable fu-ture. The ultimate goal is let the public knowing that we offer inspiring and eco fashion as meeting today’s needs without scarifying the natural resources of future generations. They should be aware of people and organization must behave ethically by performing this duty so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the ecosystems. Therefore, from this video, people are able to see the real decompose process-es. Other than that, video will be the best to show and make our product more appealing, by presenting the warm, soft yet simply chic of our organic apparel.

7.3 Output3/ Lookbook

We will convey Roses and Thorns directly to consumers through different media, and lookbook will be one of the important promotion mix. We will produce a very clean and simple lookbook with some organic plants image included. By showing the raw material of the fabric that we are using, consumer are able to feel and imagine what is it like to wear something which is made from trees and plants. We tend to create a close to heart promotion item to get consumer emo-tionally attached with our product. It is very important for our target consumer to feel s. Research shows, purchase decision are made based on a emotion. (Savypanda.com)

Roses and Thorns2015/Lookbook

March / 2015