Consumer & Brand Exploration

BACKGROUND:

Despite growth in the premium denim category, a luxury denim/fashion brand was experiencing significant decline in sales. To better understand their brand position, they wanted to understand why they were losing market share, how consumers perceived their brand now versus when the brand was growing, and what could be done to recapture their “lapsed customers.”

RESEARCH SOLUTION:

A large-scale program of in-home ethnographies among diverse consumer segments of premium denim buyers (females/males, ages 23-45). Program focused on current style, fashion trends and influences, and deep brand, category, and product exploration to understand target consumer perceptions.

IMPACT:

Discovered that while the denim category was evolving, the target brand was not – product was off in terms of style causing past premium-value perception of the brand to shift (to gaudy, loud, and “not for me”).

Based on research insights, brand began taking steps internally to 1) re-orient their style guidelines and design team toward new, on-trend products; 2) develop on-tone and on-trend communications to communicate the brand’s new direction to consumers.