International Brand Development project

TRASH TO TREND / BRAZIL Anett Randvee BA Fashion marketing & communication, Level 6, 2017-2018 6FAMK002C International Branding and Sustainability CWK2 Clara Mallart, Sergio Costa, Alejandro Gonzรกlez

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND INTRODUCTION Designer and founder of Trash To Trend has objective to elevate the platform to global scale, in order to succeed she would need to implement some new strategies to engage and gain audience. Expanding the company in certain country sharing the same values and lifestyle would generate perfect opportunity for the brand to gain awareness.

WHY EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS? Reasons to expand Trash to Trend are many: To stay relevant and meet the rich e customers needs.

Reach the audiences who are caring about the environment. As well, to reach new audiences. Getting attention and attracting new audience. Increasing earning potential coherent with boosting environmental stability. Seeking new marketing opportunities in Brazil and broader customer base there.

Why Brazil?

Recycling is becoming more popular in Brazil, which is the largest Latin America’s country. Therefore the waste generation is also in higher percentages. Recycling , sustainability and conscious consumption is gaining a lot of attention, hence seeing a potential to expand Trash to Trend in Brazil.

INTERNAL ANALYSIS

MISSION: to educate and offer possibility to designers, companies, universities and other interested in upcycle to use a platform that is sustainable and helpful to the environment VISION: to live in a world where mass producers of clothes stop dumping textile waste on the trash grounds, and rather donate or sell their textile waste to Trash to Trend users

TRASH T Reet Aus

BRAND VALUE Education, social organization and projects, en- vironment friendly manufacturing and garment care, recycle, reduce waste, act locally, redirect textile, minimal environmental impact, creative, cost-effective, human rights, sustainable and eco materials, reuse production and consumer waste.

BRAND IDENTITY Simple and straight logo, no fantasy.

Trash to Trend: the naming as well is straight to the point, it is a descriptive one. What is wasted is re-used for design and so trends.

Tone of voice: on the website as well as on the blog, the tone of voice use is very straight and formal, explained, no fantasy, facts.

Slogan: no particular slogan, if one it would “Up- cycled design�

Web design: sober design, intuitive, clear.

BRAND PROMISE Trash to trend offers the possibility to designers, companies, universities and others interested in recycle and upcycle a platform on which they have access to contacts in order to obtain or give away wasted fabrics and materials. The brand gathered projects concerning sustainability and reuse designs, moreover Trash to Trend has it own fashion collection.

TO TREND

TARGET AUDIENCE Primary target B2B, designers, companies, universities and others interested in upcycle and recycle, to ob- tain or give away wasted fabrics and materials (here the brand appears as a tool). Those com- panies or universities have as main concern the environment or want to improve their actions in this domain. It is also a way for them to save money from buying new fabrics (cost-effective- ness). Desire to appear as better businesses.

Secondary Consumers looking for recycled garments and designs (via Trash to Trend website and blog). Desire to appear as better persons by being sustainable in their shopping. Interested in DIY products, information seeking about social and environmental issues and involvement in the de- sign process.

THE EXECUTIVE CONTROL ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION FOR BRAZIL

REET AUS PLATFORM TRASH TO TREND

1. Trash to trend Model of design and manufacturing in order to provider solutions for designers use local waste in their creations while minimising the environmental damages. Trash to Trend model requires always producing after the order purchase, so this way the overproducing is eliminated. Model where the client is involved in the design process, where there is needed personal connection between the designers and clients through the whole manufacturing process, letting client choose the waste materials and details. This creates emotional value for the both parties. The materials are gathered from local manufacturing plat- forms from local producer.

1.1. Waste mapping platform www.reu- se.ee Database where designers can get overview of the locations where textile waste is produced with it’s further de- tails, like quantity, colour, materials etc. Information gives opportunity for co- operation.

1.2. Web platform Available information and opportunity for parties (waste generators, designers and clients) to communicate directly with each other creating a product chain with existing data and communication.

1.3 Reet Aus Upcycled collection An illustrative example for Trash to Trend model. Producing materials are gathe- red with the waste map generator and made from leftovers of fashion compa- nies like G-star and Masy Company. The products have been changed minimally and without a big environment impact.

ESTONIA COMPANY’S LOCAL ENVIRONMENT PEST ANALYSIS ESTONIA

BRAZIL THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT. BRAZIL

I N T E R NAT I O NA L I Z AT I O N BARRIERS Financial barriers - Capital cost to begin operating in Brazil is high, and there is also no governmental support or incentives, as the tax burden is high. Also, small and medium companies receive less funds financially, as the net interest margins are very high.

Human resources - low rate of education in Brazil - there might not be enough educated workforce to work for the company in Brazil.

Legal - the laws on import and export are difficult to understand, as there is information coming from various sources.

Information sources - difficult to access; high bureaucracy.

Infrastructure - poor or lacking in some areas External barriers that cannot be changed either by the company or the government - unfavourable exchange rate

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Trash to Trend doesn’t have direct competitors, regarding each individual and unique product or service the platform develops. Even though there are similarities in the way they cooperate with upcycling, production companies, track sources and educate and offer information for the customer to get involved, physically and emotionally. The main competitors for Trash to Trend in Brazil are Re-Roupa store, MIG Jeans, and Movin.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Porter’s five forces

COMPETITORS:

RE-ROUPA STORE

COMPETITORS:

MIG JEANS

COMPETITORS:

MOVIN

MARKET ANALYSIS/CROSS CULTURAL PURCHASING PATTERN ANALYSIS.

Purchasing behaviour Consumers like purchasing the products mainly thanks to the design of the products and thanks to the reduction of waste. They also like the creativity and innovation of the products.

Which cultural aspects make the new market good or a bad choice to internationalize your company?

Good - Brazilians are good people’s people as in they connect well with emotions and people’s opinions on products and services, and Brazilians are quite fashion conscious so they appreciate people being well-dressed in a trendy matter Bad - Brazil has a very strongly diversified economy and an unique culture which makes doing business in Brazil challenging, especially as a fresh trend starter

MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY Trash to Trend should enter the market by creating a representative office. A representative office has the possibility to act as a salesman for all contracts to cooperate with Trash to Trend. Trash to Trend should hire an agent who understands and ideally has the same point of view with the company. The agent or agents should also know and adapt Brazilian business procedures and should be able to communicate with Brazilian companies as to why this service could be the best to work with. This office would be an “offline� version of the website, however it is a good method of establishing itself in the Brazilian market, and it is relatively easy to close the office once Trash to Trend realizes it has established itself, and can move on to more effective ways of operating in the market.

MARKETING STRATEGY Pricing Strategy As Trash to Trend is mainly a service, it has to adapt itself and the prices with all the results of negotiations with clients. As Trash to Trend is quite an unique way of connecting businesses to produce environmentally friendly clothes, it would be best to start off in Brazil by price skimming, however it should also be open to the chance of offering other prices to companies wanting to cooperate, as skimming is quite extreme.

Sales and distribution As Trash to Trend is a service and there is no product, there can be no distribution.

POSITIONING

OPERATION OVERVIEW As mentioned in market entry strategy, Trash to Trend would set up a physical office in Brazil to make a presence in the Brazilian market.

The office would have five employees at least - the country manager who is mainly responsible for documentation and also communicates all progress made in Brazil to Estonian managers. There would also be an event manager who is responsible for all the processes concerning participation on events. Trash to Trend participating on events is very important as it is a key to make its presence known for different designers. Unfortunately, Trash to Trend is not very active on social media platforms. Therefore there would also be a social media manager who would be responsible for creating social media content and managing the social media platforms. There would also be two agents - one who is responsible for finding clients and collaborators and the second one would be responsible for negotiations and meetings with the possible clients

ETHICAL PART: PARTNERS Cradle to Cradle Research was done on Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, which is a NGO that oversees the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Product Standard, awarded to the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute by the Founders - William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart.

The Institute aims to empower and educate manufactur ers of the products that customers buy and use to become an epitome for the society to follow, thus helping the environment. The Institute, as mentioned before, oversees the Cradle to Cradle Certified™, which gives the target audience (consumers, regulators, employees, and peers in the industry) with a unequivocal, distinguishable and tangible affirmation of the company’s commitment to sustainability and its communities.

Cradle to Cradle (hereinafter referred to as C2C) is an ideal partner for Trash to Trend, as both aim to educate and educate their target audiences, both of them aspire to become a perfect example or role model to help the environment and the society.

C2C and Trash to Trend’s main cooperation could work through the certification platform. Trash to Trend is an ideal platform to be certified and to partner with C2C as both of them are continuous improvement platforms working online, C2C could also help with educating Trash to Trend’s primary market.

PARTNERS Improvements that can be made through the partnership:

Actions Trash to Trend will do to reach the improvements

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Trash to Trend is an unique platform that aims to improve, educate and work together with different companies, designers, and individuals in order to place emphasis on upcycling.

Through different platforms, such as waste mapping, Trash to Trend Incubator and their personal blog, they are organizing a new supply chain for the fashion business.

This analysis brought together information as to why and how to internationalize into one of the BRIC countries - Brazil, as Brazil is one of the countries in which upcycling is becoming more popular, and people are putting more effort into improving the environment by placing more emphasis on lessening as much waste as possible.

Sadly, there are quite many internationalization barriers, including financial, legal, and also human resource barriers, however if there is a lot of potential for Trash to Trend to succeed in the Brazilian market that in the author’s opinion overcome the internationalization barriers.

There are many recommendations that Trash to Trend should take into consideration before and while internationalizing to Brazil. First off, they should definitely start being more active on social media platforms - Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, maybe Tumblr for pictures as well. Secondly, more articles. Sadly, their website is not so known, therefore the blog is also not very popular, therefore they should upgrade their blog and start advertising it more for people to gain awareness of upcycling and of Trash to Trend. Thirdly, participating on more events. This, again, is in order for B2B partners and designers to gain awareness on Trash to Trend.

Overall, Trash to Trend and Reet Aus has done a good job on setting itself on the Estonian marketing, and there is very high potential to succeed in the Brazilian market as well, but it should really take into consideration its social media platforms and events.

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