Supreme - Branding, how it's done.

Branding 

Supreme - How its done.

I have deliberately left this for my final blog as I know I’d have the most pleasure writing about this brand. Supreme is a brand that I have huge respects and desire for. In my eyes, and it terms of brands I have witnessed, Supreme play the role of a brand the best and most effective by far. They have a huge loyal following that don't only like their products, but worship the brand and support and stand by any move they make. 

Supreme 

Supreme was established in April 1994, originally as a skateboarding brand in New York. The brand was created by a guy called James Jebbia, who was born American but lived in England between the ages of 1 and 19. It was the gang of rebellious young, New York skaters and artists that became the store crew, staff and customers. The first Supreme store opened on Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan. It was designed with skaters in mind, with a unique design on the store layout, the clothes arranged around the outside of the store with a large space in the middle. This meant that skaters with backpacks on could skate right into the store, and still feel comfortable. There are now other stores in Paris, London, Tokyo (Harajuku, Daikanyama & Shibuya), Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka. These modern stores still try to imitate the original Lafayette street store design. Unlike other clothing brands, who release their new collections all at once, Supreme releases a small number of items at a time, typically five to fifteen. This "drop" occurs online and in store once every week on Thursdays at eleven in the morning (eastern US time). This strategy maintains the aura of "hype" that the brand creates. Their shoes, clothing, and accessories create a big secondary market for supreme clothing, because items are produced to a very limited quantity and also because there are only ten stores worldwide.Supreme has a line of collaborations with brands such as Nike, Air Jordan's, Vans, Clarks, The North Face,  Hanes, Playboy, Levi, Timberland,Commes des Garçons, Stone Island, UNDERCOVER, White Castle as well as many more. Fashion photographer Terry Richardson has produced some of the most notable pieces which include photographs of Michael Jordan, Kermit the Frog, Three Six Mafia, Lou Reed, Lady Gaga, Brandon Taylor, and Morrissey.

Target Market 

Supreme originally started off by targeting skaters. Every shop had areas for their customers to skate in, and the style of the clothes appealed to people who skated. Now they have broadened their market and Supreme is now bought by punk/hip hop heads, who are possibly seen as ‘hipsters’. Because their prices are so high, this makes it harder to poorer people to buy and makes the brand image more high end and wealthy. The standard Target market these days for Supreme would be ABC1, males slightly more than females, aged between 16 and 30. 

Effective Methods of Marketing 

As the brand grew, Supreme established itself as a brand known for quality, style and authenticity. Over the years, Supreme has worked with some of the worlds best designers, artists, photographers and musicians - who have all helped continue to design its unique identity and attitude. 

Supreme products have always been out there and controversial, using swear words, nudity, brutality, crude humour etc. This I feel appeals to their target audience effectively, but puts them at the top of the map as it gets the brand noticed.

Supreme have publicly used celebrities to help market their brand, by putting pictures of them on their clothing (mostly T-shirts), Supreme have used people like : Raekwon & Elmo (2005), Mike Tyson (2007), Kermit the Frog (2008), Lady Gaga (2011), Kate Moss (2012) and Neil Young (2015). As well as using celebrities for clothing, they also have publicly expressed certain celebrities who like the brand, wear the brand and buy the brand. People like Tyler the Creator, Kanye West and Skepta are people who make it clear they wear Supreme. By Supreme having this celebrity boost, it helps influences everyone to but the products as well. 

By using these effective methods to prove quality and following this has gathered Supreme a huge following and allows them to now charge significantly high prices for their products to allow only well off people to purchase and push the brand to a higher end street wear brand. 

Where Now? - Future Plans

Supreme seems to be a spontaneous brand that doesn't give much a way and likes to surprise it customers, so making predictions on what they could do next is very tricky. What I can put my trust in, is that Supreme will continue to collaborate with big well know, related brand and keep working with quirky/controversial celebrities. I believe that the following will expand more and more and Supreme will become as big over in the UK as it currently is in America. 

Branding - Google - The overview.

Branding 

Google - How did they do it? 

History Of Google 

In 1995 Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford School, Larry was 22 and Sergey was 21 when they met. A year later the duo began to collaborate on a search engine called BackRub, it was at Stanford they noticed this search engine as it had been running on their servers for over a year there. On the 15th September 1997, ‘google.com’ was registered. The name ‘google’ comes from word play on the word googol, which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Larry and Sergey felt that this reflected their mission to provide infinite amounts of information on the web very well, and also had a nice ring to it. On September 4th, 1998, Google files for incorporation in California. Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly established company's name and Google sets up workspace in a garage on Santa Margarita Ave., Menlo Park, Calif.and in 2000, Google win their first Webby Awards: Technical Achievement (voted by judges) and People's Voice (voted by users). In 2000 google made great progress and added features to their search engine, such as 10 variations of languages you could search in, which were : French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish. Today, search is available in 150+ languages. In March 2001, a man called Eric Schmidt, is named the chairman of the board of directors. In February, 2002, the first Google product for enterprises is released: the Google Search Appliences is a yellow box that businesses can plug into their computer to enable search capabilities for their own documents. In December 2003, Google launched - Google Print (now known as Google Books), which included small extracts from books to appear in search results. In 2004, the programme expands through digital scanning partnerships with libraries. To date, more than 20 million books have been scanned. In December 2004, Google.org was established, this was dedicated to the idea that technology can help make the world a better place, which is something Google as a brand stood by and believed in strongly. In February 2005, Google Maps went live and just two months later,satellite views and directions were added to the product. In November 2005, which is really interesting is that Google Analytics was released, this is for measuring the impact of a website and marketing campaigns. Analytics is based on Urchin, a company Google acquired in March 2005. In October 2006, Google spoke openly about its acquirement of Youtube, the worlds biggest video sharing company. From around this time onwards, Google continued to expand by creating and acquiring so many sub brands and sub projects such as : GooglePlex, Google Chrome, Google Safe Browsing, Google Map maker, Google Voice, Google TV, Google Art Projects, Google Wallet and Google Ventures.

As I'm sure you have now imagined, Google are a company that have come up with innovative, smart and efficient ideas to stay up-to date and impress their consumers in a futuristic way by providing them with options they are astounded can even exist. 

Target Audience 

Google’s target audience are literally everyone living. The internet and computers tend to be used ever so slightly more by the younger half of people, however are widely used by everyone. Spanier, Google’s marketing director, said ‘when you have a potential customer base of eight billion-plus you’ll never get a marketing team big enough. How do you make decisions, how do you organise, how do you scale? I could have a team of a thousand people and still not have enough,”. Google have obviously proved that this can be done, and marketed enough with quality, to show everyone that google can be simply used as their number one search engine. 

Branding (Logo/Image)

From 1998 to 2015, the Google logo has gone through various twists and turns. But this latest redesign by The Tech Giant is decidedly its most significant one. Commentators find that the new logo is friendlier and more dynamic. The colours have been retained. It's the font and animation that have had a makeover.The company on 1 September, not only created a new logo, but a new brand identity.

McDonalds - The History and Story.

Branding 

McDonalds - How did they do it? 

The History of McDonalds 

Dick and Mac McDonald opened their first McDonalds branch in 1940. This first store was located on 14th and E Street, in San Bernardino, California. It was a typical drive through restaurant with a large menu with lots of variety. Shortly after this opened Mac and Dick realised the demand was high but shut their restaurant down to make improvements and altercations. Their self service, drive in restaurants then re-opened in December with a more concentrated menu consisting of nine items - Hand-burger, Cheese burger, Soft Drinks, Coffee, potato chips and pie. In 1949, the potato chips were replaced with ‘the worlds best french fries’, and the thick milkshakes made their debut also. In 1954, Multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc visited the McDonalds restaurant intending to sell the brothers more multi-mixers however was so impressed with the operation that he got on board and started helping the brothers with supplies etc. In 1956 Kroc hired Fred Turner to work as the counterman, Turner then became the head of operations and did things like quality checks, services and cleanliness. In 1958, McDonalds sold its 100 Millionth hand burger and in 1959 their 100th McDonalds branch opened in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. In 1962, the McDonalds in Denver became the first food and beverage outlet with indoor seating and in 1963 McDonalds opened their 500th restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, which mean many branches where set up through the whole of the USA. In 1965, McDonald celebrated their 10th birthday by offering shares in the company, the first public stock offering was $22.50 per share. In 1966, Ronald McDonald appeared in their first TV commercial which included him on a flying hamburger. 1967 was a big year of the brand, McDonalds went international and at this time has branches open in more that 119 countries around the world. McDonalds continued to expand and add more and more branches and more variety to the menu, in 1975 McDonalds introduced the breakfast menu, including the famous Egg McMuffin. in 1978 McDonalds opened it 5000th restaurant in Japan. In 1979, Happy meals made their debut which helped satisfy the young end of the target audience. 1980 was the year of McDonalds 25th Anniversary. On January 14th, 1984, Roy Kroc unfortunately passed away. In 1987, McDonalds began to receive some negative coverage for being unhealthy, so this year a salad was added to the menu as a healthier option. In 1996, McDonalds launched their online website as a means of up-to-date communication with consumers. In 2005, McDonalds celebrated its 50th Anniversary. In 2007, the packaging was updated to something nicer and fresher. In 2009, the McCafé goes viral, and it is marketed very well to spread awareness. 

Clientele 

McDonald's aims to offer a friendly, fun environment for everyone to enjoy. They seek to appeal to a wide range of people, from families who love our Happy Meal, to workers grabbing breakfast on-the-go or eating in to enjoy our freshly ground coffee and free WiFi. Because their target market is so large and varied and they pretty much target everyone, they alter each meal to a different sub market. For example the happy meal is ideal for kids, the coffee etc for older sociable people, and thing like chicken nuggets share box for large groups of teen agers etc. 

Effective Marketing Methods 

Most of the best things McDonalds have done is read trends and patterns in the market effectively and acted to provide the certain products they feel they need. For example they noticed that their image was for people to nip in and out and quickly grab food, so the way they have been advertising recently is to have people sit down and spend some time there socialising with their buddy’s. They have marketed effectively to try an adapt this image which I think consumers are catching on to. 

McDonalds have also been very effective with their ‘Im Loving it’ slogan along with the well know whistling theme song. They have made it very recognisable, with a friendly, inviting vibe. 

Future Plans 

McDonalds plans to continue to stay up to date with trends and introduce more and more to the menu, this will help ensure they are meeting their consumers needs. They will also continue to work on producing products that are healthier and have less fat in them, to make McDonalds an option for healthy eaters also. 

Nike - The brand's journey.

Branding 

Nike - How did they do it?

History 

Nike was founded in January 1964 and was originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), it was created by a track athlete from the University of Oregon, Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowman. The company initially operated as an organisation that distributed for a Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger - which is now ASICS. Within the first year of business RBS sold 1300 units for the Japanese running shoe, making a gross profit of $8,000. However by 1965 ‘RBS’ has recruited some full time employment and sales reached a more respected $20,000 by the end of that year. To prevent the employee’s from having to sell from the boots of their cars, they opened their first retail store in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1966. Nearer 1971 the relationship between RBS and Tiger was coming to an end but BRS bounced back by releasing its own line of footwear, which had the ‘swoosh’ which was newly designed by Carolyn Davidson and re-branded by changing the name to ‘Nike’. In 1976 the company hired John Brown and Partners as their first advertising agency which were based in Seattle. The following year Nike created its first ad called ‘there is no finish line’ This was the first ad which showed what the company was about and gave the consumers an idea of the brand image. By 1980, Nike had attained 50% market share in the US. The founder of Nike’s advertising agency Dan Weiden cam up with the simple yet very effective slogan ; ‘just do it’ in 1988. During the 1980’s Nike continued to expand and release different products to satisfy athletes of many different sports and regions. But it was during this decade they got some very valued celebrity endorsement on boar - Michael Jordan, who helped make record breaking sales and sponsored the likes of Tiger Woods in 1996. Nike kept launching new editions of their landmark training shoes. They developed Nike Shox in 2000 which was very well recieved worldwide. Today Nike is a vast empire which encorporates various sports like tennis, baseball, soccer, cricket and athletics. Phil Knight’s innovative business mind and Bill Bowman’s drive to find better solutions has resulted in Nike being one of the most profitable and well recognised brands on the planet. in 2012, their annual revenue was more than $24 billion dollars. Nike today has over 44,000 employee’s and is a brand valued at around $10billion dollars. 

Target Audience 

Back in the day Nike or RBS as it was once known as, was all about providing for athletes and sports people. The brand image is still similar and the brand continues to provide sport wear for their active target audience. These days Nike have noticed an increase in demand with female consumers. Nike have been increasing production in sports bra’s and sport tights which are very popular in the active female. Nike says that the woman’s line has the potential to add $2billion to sales by 2017. Another market segment that Nike target are children. Sport is a very common hobby with kids at school. Nike provide sports wear for kids to support through many sporting leagues, clubs and federations. And because Nike have managed to get all the big stars and children's idols in Nike wear this influences their desire to want nike clothes when playing sports to look like their role models! When Nike released the ‘LunarTempo’s’ in 2014, these were very popular with runners, which are another huge target audience for Nike. 

Future Plans 

In 2018 Nike have plans to expand their head quarters, near Beaverton, Oregon as they brand is constantly expanding they’ll need room for more employee’s etc.