Brand Report -Off-White

Chelsea Goodall

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he world of Off-White, trends, truths & competition.

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Exploring the Milan based luxury streetwear fashion label, Off-White and its creato ated one of the hottest brands in the world, without relying on the brands name ic black and white striped print. How the brand values millennials and is outlining a ne en competitors by collaborating with Nike to create the biggest sneaker release in 2017 and muc

Executive E

xploring the Milan based luxury streetwear fashion label, Off-White and its creator Virgil Abloh, the humble American fashion designer and how he has created one of the hottest brands in the world, without relying on the brands name or logo. Defining the brand’s identity, not just for their recognisably iconic black and white striped print.

or Virgil Abloh, the humble American fashion designer and how he has cree or logo. Defining the brand’s identity, not just for their recognisably iconew meaning of ‘luxury’. How they’ve quickly adapted to market pressures and beatch more. Consequently, what recommendations I created to beneficially impact the brand.

Summary How the brand values millennials and is outlining a new meaning of ‘luxury’.

How they’ve quickly adapted to market pressures and beaten competitors by collaborating with Nike to create the biggest sneaker release in 2017 and much more.

Consequently, what recommendations I created to beneficially impact the brand.

Intro The purpose of this magazine is to illuminate OffWhite as a brand. Within, I will delve into the brand’s history, consumers, competitors, market positioning and how the creator of Off-White has created one of the world’s hottest brands within 5 years and what I would endorse to shape the brand to be even more successful. This information will be displayed using primary and secondary research. Primary research being imagery and what interpretations as a customer I experience from visiting department stores that stock Off-White products, also specific data from staff at these stores.

Secondary research will incorporate references from books, magazines and websites.

oduction Virgil Abloh & The World’s Hottest Brand

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Virgil Abloh, the American fashion designer, DJ and architect masters graduate born in 1980, founded Off-White in 2013. He also has a civil engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Before this, Virgil arose into the fashion world at his internship at Fendi in 2009, alongside Kayne West. Subsequently, he won the British Fashion - Urban Luxe award and International Designer of the year at GQ Men of the year awards in 2017. Abloh’s interest in design developed from his love of skateboarding, he would spray-paint graphic t-shirts and gift them to his friends. These t-shirts had an edgy, industrial vibe which you can see he still incorporates into his luxury streetwear brand, Off-White.

Incredibly, Virgil became the first African-American Artistic Director at Louis Vuitton recently in March 2018.

His first show was in June during Men’s fashion week in Paris, at the end of the fashion show emotional Kayne West was waiting there with open arms, to congratulate him. Throughout Virgil’s career, he’s always had a passion for involving students/millennials in everything he does. Whether that’s inviting 3,000 plus students to his fashion shows or creating innovative luxury items/garments that can be purchased for a reasonable price.

“It’s race, It’s models, It’s the political eco-system” – Vigril Abloh

Off-White is a luxury streetwear fashion label based in Milan, Italy, the label produces clothing, accessories, shoes and remarkably even furniture. According to Vogue, OffWhite’s accessory: the industrial belt, was the 6th most purchased product in 2018. Virgil Abloh defines the brand simply as “the grey area between black and white as the colour Off-White” Globally, the brand has created monumental success over such a short period of time and has been named as the 2nd “hottest brand in the world” coming below Gucci and above Balenciaga. OffWhite has 37 stores around the world from Vancouver to Beijing, every store is kept within the theme of the brand. The brands situation current

in the market is highend luxury.

OffWhite’s products are stocked on designer fashion outlet websites such as Selfridges, Cruise, Farfetch and many more. Using multiple channels allows retailers to overcome limitations within any of the channels themselves. Selfridges has reported a dramatic surge in sales by 100 percent between 2015 and 2016. Virgil’s brand has generated triple-digit growth year-on-year since it’s 2013 launch.

Off-White collaborate with a lot of different brands, but they only collaborate with the best-of-the-best including Ikea, Timberland and Nike. These were highly successful as Virgil Abloh’s and Nike’s Collaboration was the biggest sneaker event of 2017.

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ff-Whites products are streetwear luxury, they range from £ 150 up to £3,000. Every piece of merchandise they have is unique and has a flawless design.

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Off-White is very popular within the styling world and a lot of the time ends up in celebrities wardrobes. Kayne West, Virgil’s close friend is always representing the brand by wearing their iconic white striped print.

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Wear Off-White?

Kendall Jenner was seen wearing this plain Off-White red t-shirt under a red blazer at the Royal Monceau Hotel. Michael B Jorda wore this pinstriped suit with iconic belt and orange panneling of text at the Met Gala , 2018

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Off-White’s consumers are mainly millennials that are highly interested in designer fashion. There are two types of income brackets for this customer, first being a very high-income customer who lives in an economically strong country, pays rent/owner of a home, dresses in designer clothing such as Balenciaga and Givenchy and someone who is a very loyal customer. Second type of consumer has a good income, will purchase designer items once or twice a year for a special occasion, possibly a student, living in rented accommodation and is a discount consumer, loyal but frequently hunting for discounts.

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Additionally, when I visited Selfridges I spoke to the staff and they informed me the age range for Off-White customers is 18-27 and orientation 98% Asian and 2% Caucasian. Interestingly, I found out 3/10 customers purchasing men’s products are women and male customers usually purchase clothing, whereas women customers usually purchase accessories.

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Virgil plays with humour and irony within his brand, for example writing with a permanent marker on £1,607 boots “FOR WALKING” (Farfetch, 2018) or writing with bold print where the product was manufactured.

The irony of it is, no one needs to know the location in which the product is made or what the product does. What sets OffWhite apart from all the other brands is his way of thinking, he doesn’t rely on the brands name or logo to produce sales.

Whether it’s the structure of a seam on his garments or his innovative way of thinking, he always has a unique selling point that leaves Off-White consumers wanting more. OffWhite even uses its packaging as a clever marketing strategy.

When you purchase a product from Off-White, you’ll receive an orange industrial looking clothing tag which has become a staple and recognisable piece.

People hang them in their car windows and even customise their shoes with them, it symbolises to other people you’ve bought an Off-White product.

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ff-White is recognisable for using quotation marks for double meanings, their iconic black and white striped print and using a certain type of typography font called Helvetica. Off-white believes in a new meaning of luxury, by taking streetwear and turning it into indulgent high-end fashion. The brand ambassador for Off-White is Virgil Abloh himself which is very unique, Versace is the only other brand to highlight the designer and they do this very successfully. The brand values how important millennials are, Virgil is always directly communicating with young adults and building the brand in a way that involves the ideas and creativity of millennials.

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Currently, Off-White has adapted quickly to market pressures and produced collaborations and new lines for global recognition, they’ve done this very fast and efficiently, whereas with other fashion brands such as Gucci took years to get as successful. Off-Whites emotional selling point (ESP) is how humble Virgil Abloh is, how he created a fashion empire in 5 years.

Brand Positioning

Competitors Many of his customers relate to him being ‘just a normal guy’, he also does this by his use of font -OffWhite’s typography is very plain and minimalistic.

Psychologically humans are triggered through words, colours, offers and fonts. “People buy on emotion” OffWhite’s unique selling point (USP) is

their innovation -how exclusively distinctive and fashionable their merchandise is. This is how Off-White regulate their business tactics to compete with their competitors, which is mainly Balenciaga. Balenciaga is a fast-growing with an increase rate of 49 percent in sales, brand and was the top-selling and mostsearched brand of 2017

Whilst I was gathering primary research, a sales assistant in Selfridges told me if anything in Gucci is sold out and the customer wanted it, they’ll just go straight to Balenciaga and buy whatever stock they have. Off-White and Balenciaga have the same consumers, with a massive percentage of them being from the Eastern market.

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Off-White as a brand uses their omnichannels better than any other brand. They have an online store with an optional newsletter feature for direct marketing, they especially use Instagram to its fullest, Virgil Abloh’s personal account and the main off-White Instagram account post their latest products daily.

This is an ingenious marketing strategy, their consumers/ target audience they are reaching on Instagram, don’t even realise they’re shopping and discovering new products as they scroll through

Instagram just using it to socialise. “The luxury goods market has been relatively slow to embrace social media”.

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This shows how deliberate Off-White have been in perfecting social media and making it seem almost natural to be thriving and so

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successful in a matter of years. Although Instagram is the brands main social media outlet they do more business-to-consumer communications such as, Twitter and Facebook, which they post on daily.

O The brand doesn’t do many magazine adffverts, but fashion magazines are an essential promotional toll for fashion brands White and buildings relationships with the involve important and influential fashion PR into editors can be a crucial factor in their brand brand success. The latest advert by gifting cewas released in the newest islebrities with sue of i-D magazine also the their own cusmodel Ian Connor posted tom products, the campaign on his Infor example Virgil stagram page. It was Abloh gifted Beyoncé quite a controversial her own pair of customadvert, as an Afriised Jordan 1’s (Monet, D. can-American is 2017). As another additionseen with his al piece of PR, Virgil Abloh hands tied as handed out golden raffle ticka white feets in a chance to win a visit to male male the “Nike Off Campus” in London stares (Davies, C. 2017) this is where they up at design all the products (mainly shoes) him, for the collaboration of Off-White X Nike. Virgil also gives many speeches at Universities, which gives the brand gratitude amongst the students whilst sharing his views and beliefs to engage on an emotional level.

““ R RE EC CO OM MM ME EN N Whilst researching and exploring Off-White’s website, I found that it’s very minimalistic and plain. As a customer this didn’t excite me and persuade me to purchase their clothes whereas, if I look onto their Instagram page it’s incredible to see how they market their products to build hype and the brilliant photography of the garments they showcase. As a proposal, Off-White should connect their Instagram to their online website, displaying a selection of images for each product. As an effect of this, it will bring in a selection of consumers they never engaged with before and will make the website ex

tremely effective and easy to navigate to all of their omnichannels.

Sales Promotion plays an important part in increasing the brands sales year-upon-year, OffWhite doesn’t have a loyalty scheme. This would be a perfect idea for their online website and future mobile app, mostly highstreet retailers have this option, therefore it would allow their consumers with a lower income to experience luxury as that type of customer is always on the look-out for discounts. Additionally, they could include a user-friendly referral system – referral marketing is one of the most least utilized schemes

N ND DA AT T II O ON NS S ”” Customers purchasing products love gossiping and telling their social network about the brand amazing products, OffWhite ought to have a section post-purchase on their website and mobile app. This could even be integrated into a reward system, i.e. ‘Refer a friend…

10% off your next purchase’ which is truly beneficially for both parties.

Off-White have done events recently, but nothing has really stood out boldly. Abloh handed out tickets to visit the “Nike Off Campus” in London), this is where they design all the products (mainly shoes) for the collaboration of Off-White X Nike.

Events like this should be taken to the next level, Off-White X Nike should have computer generated systems inside their stores that customer can design their own products on and purchase.

Generating more income for the brand, bonding with customers that are obviously highly interested in fashion and giving them a platform to design with their favourite designer brand and it will give the brand a chance to give back to the customers who love them!

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Off-White could include artificial intelligence in one of their flagship stores.

The artificial intelligence being the mobile app shown on tablet-like screens placed on the exterior and interior of the store, this will create hype for the new app being released whilst letting people purchase a product and not even having to step foot inside the store- this puts OffWhite on a whole different spectrum of marketing compared to their competitors. Also, this will be discussed within artificial intelligence and technology communities in articles, therefore creating new relationships with bigger and not-yet explored audiences.

Overall, Off-White have absolutely nailed it when it comes to social media, but there are a few recommendations that could have a beneficial impact on the brand.

Firstly, they’re active on their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but do not have a snapchat.

Snapchat is becoming increasingly popular and would be a successful way of conversing on a personal level with their consumers.

“MOBILE APP” Traditional fashion houses have many flagship stores, where they showcase their brand’s personality and products.

However, a lot of them don’t have a mobile app to showcase products.

Off-White has such a strong connection with millennials, I suggest they create an app to target their tech savvy customers. For customers, to be able to receive discounts, purchase

merchandise online and access product information, increases the customers satisfaction, especially when customers can have a 5* experience whilst being in the comfort of their own home.

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ImageReferences Noach, Lehava, 2018, Off-White’s Virgil Abloh’s Next Move?, Coveteur http://coveteur.com/2017/04/26/virgil-abloh-off-white-toronto-store-the-land/, (Accessed on 20th November 2018)

Eugene Rabkin, 2018, Ironic Fashion is Nothing New, Business of Fashion, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/op-edironic-fashion-is-nothing-new, (Accessed on November 19th 2018) Bende Donad,2018, Virgil Abloh, the new Louis Vuitton Artistic Director, Iconiqvision, https://iconiqvision.com/blogs/notizie/virgil-abloh-il-nuovo-direttore-artistico-di-louis-vuitton, (Accessed on 10th Novemeber) Off-White Canvas-jacquard belt, 2018, NET-A-PORTER, https:// w w w. n e t - a - p o r t e r. c o m / g b / e n / p r o d u c t / 1 0 8 9 7 0 9 / o f f _ w h i t e / canvas-jacquard-belt, ( Accessed on 12th November 2018) Vikram. A Kansara, 2018, Virgil Abloh “I’m not a designer”, Business of Fashion, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/virgil-abloh-i-am-not-a-designer, (Accessed on 12th November 2018) Pedro Lopes, 2018, Instagram:@ezcape, pinterest, https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/643311127996205958/, (Accessed on 25th November 2018) Chris Danforth, 2018, The Complete Beginners Quide to Every Nike X Off-white release, HighSnobiety, https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/nike-off-white-guide/, (Accessed on 21st October 2018) SunglassHut, glasshut.com/uk/ow,

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Mytheresa, 2018, Riding Leather Boots, https://www.mytheresa.com/ en-gb/off-white-riding-leather-boots-1072323.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAoo7gBRDuARIsANeJKUYQQi7JLqGs4lshe1tvC4DgcyhZydxKQt8Fk-EzuklegICdEBIZN9MaAp3jEALw_wcB&utm_campaign=google_sea&ef_id=WwCdTgAAARA8nnF@:20181202231530:s&utm_me-

ImageReferences Off-white, 2018, Tie Down, Pinterest, https://www.mytheresa.com/ en-gb/off-white-riding-leather-boots-1072323.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAoo7gBRDuARIsANeJKUYQQi7JLqGs4lshe1tvC4DgcyhZydxKQt8Fk-EzuklegICdEBIZN9MaAp3jEALw_wcB&utm_campaign=google_sea&ef_id=WwCdTgAAARA8nnF@:20181202231530:s&utm_medium=google&utm_source=sea_pla, (Acessed on 22nd October 2018)

Vogue Magazine, 2018, Kendall Jenner Hits Her First Front Row of the Season, Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/ pin/420805158921179275/, (Accessed on 30th October 2018) Izak, 2018, Pyrex- “Off-white” Wool Flannel(red), Pinterest, https://www. pinterest.co.uk/pin/568086940473026029/, (Accessed on 1st November 2018) Nick Carvell, 2018, Michael B Jordan, GQ-Magazine. co.uk, https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/met-gala-best-dressed-men-2018, (Accessd on 1st November 2018) TheFazeAdapt,2017, com/p/Bb5P3HDjOIF/,

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