As the society recently turns into a so called smart technology society due to the development of state of art technology in the late 20th century, it affects people's overall life style. In addition, as the cultural economy era emerges in the 21st ce...
As the society recently turns into a so called smart technology society due to the development of state of art technology in the late 20th century, it affects people's overall life style. In addition, as the cultural economy era emerges in the 21st century, the company which is doing well in reflecting the consumer's emotional culture values tends to be more successful. Parallel with this trend, the customers desire to purchase trendy products more quickly than others. In particular, fashion companies create a new form of firm to meet the needs and further wants of the consumers. It is SPA fashion brand which emerges as such a new form of company.
SPA (Specialty Retailer of Private Apparel) refers to the brand focusing on global retail which supplies 'trendy apparel' in the latest fashion 'quickly' at low price. The representative SPA brands include H&M, MANGO, UNIQLO, ZARA, GAP and Forever21. In recent these overseas SPA brands note that they can't survive the fiercely competitive fashion market only with their trendy product lines and fast supply capacity. To complement it, they began to introduce collaboration since 2000. Through this collaboration, the overseas SPA brands enhances their images and sales as well as produces high value-added products. On the contrary, the domestic SPA brands were launched by large companies such as E-Land, LG Fashion and Cheil Industries. However, it seems quite insufficient in terms of brand identity and collaboration. Thus, it seems to be necessary to study the cases of brand identity and collaboration of the overseas SPA brands for the further development of domestic SPA brands.
For this purpose, the present researcher conducted both theoretical study and case study. This study examined the concepts of SPA, brand identity and collaboration. Then, this study examined the cases of three brands (H&M, MANGO, UNIQLO) which are actively involved in collaboration. Based on these results, this study analyzed the collaboration cases divided into year, relationship between brand identity and collaboration, and characteristics (differentiation, premium marketing strategy and sensibility marketing strategy). The study results are as follows:
While H&M maintained its basic concept pursuing trendiness, it expanded color, design and item and performed the collaboration which can highlight the signatures of the collaborators. Through this, H&M emphasized the concept design which is intended to create the best value by creating trendy fashion image. In addition, H&M upgraded its brand image through the works with premium brands and high fashion designers to provide the customers with the sense of satisfaction that they can have famous designer's apparel at a low price.
MANGO was involved in the collaboration which emphasized multi-cultural images of Spain and urban style brand identity. MANGO utilized promotion effects by mass media through the works with various celebrities to sho high connectedness with CMM Design. In addition, with the ethical design strategy that consumption can put sharing into practice, MANGO stimulated the customer's sensibility and upgraded its brand characteristic and philosophy through various collaborations with other areas such as novelist, beauty brand and fashion blogers.
While UNIQLO maintained its simple and modern brand identity, it strengthened its brand identity through the collaborations with premium fashion designers and brands which pursue the similar concept with it. Afterwards. UNIQLO performed 'UT Campaign' which is the collection of sub-brand products to revitalize its brand itself through the collaboration using basic, pop art-like sense of color and sensibility. In addition, UNIQLO performed premium marketing strategy through ethical sensibility design. This Concept, Color, Coordination, as well as strengthening the CMM Design strategy.
Throughout these analyses, this study found that the overseas SPA brands are involved in a variety of collaborations, which are closely related to each brand identity. Thus, collaboration is not a simple cooperative work but an important strategy to provide positive effects on both the company and the customer.
Therefore, it is hoped that these study findings would help the domestic SPA brands which are intended to perform collaboration. In addition, these study findings would provide a good guideline for the domestic SPA brands to grow as a global company.