Contents
Executive Summary 4 Consumer Analysis 5 Competitive Situation 9 Brand Analysis 19 Brand Objectives 23 Action Plan 27 Appendices 31 Bibliography 32
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The aim and objective for the this project is to correctly translate the current Lululemon brand essence with a twist of my own style through a fashion film to further promote the brand. I will be mimicking Lululemon’s style, with my own selection of clothing, model, and crew to complete this film. It will be roughly 1:30mins. The music and cuts will be fast paced in order to give off an active mood to the audience; which essentially serves as a motivation and aspiration to a healthy lifestyle.
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Lululemon caters to a very specific demographic. This market could be considered very niche, therefore, Lullemon relies heavily on its cult-like loyal customers. These people have a very active lifestyle, mostly originally started with doing yoga. According to Mintel’s research on fitness clothing retail (appendix 1), people tend to just buy what they like. 79% often makes shopping decisions themselves without researching. Therefore, our consumer would most likely be someone independent and difficult to influence. However, as Lululemon is also selling a healthy lifestyle and an entire community, consumers are more likely to be moved considering the benefits the brand can bring to them individually. A demographic
trend on Mintel shows that the female aged 25-34 population will continue to grow over the next year (+8.2%), creating further potential for expansion of this market segment.
CONSUMER
ANALYSIS 6
MUSIC
Artic Monkeys Lana Del Ray The Neighborhood The xx Bastille The Rudimental
The Lululemon consumers are loyal to the brand. They are both genders, but mostly women. These adults are above the age of 18. They are confident, health-aware, and hard-working adults. They make at least $100k, therefore they would pay high price for quality activewear. Their social media habits include Facebook, Instagram and online shopping websites. A Lulu woman probably has kids, and she spends a lot of time with them. But she takes out free time and squeeze work out within these limited time frames. A Lulu man probably works in corporate, but also takes free time to work out. He could be single or married.
CHARACTER Peaceful Creative Hardworking Free Resourceful
LIFESTYLE
Vacation with family Honeymoon Stable Spontaneouse Coffee in the morning Juices Bourgeois
INTERESTS
Indie Art Yoga Running Hiking Reading novels Finding new recipes Photography
EXPECTATIONS Quality Sustainability Durability Virtue Peace Supremacy Transcendence Zen
FASHION
Sweaty betty Athleta The North Face Canada Goose Calvin Klein Ted Baker Kate Spade Nike
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COMPETITIVE SITUATION
As a sports apparel company, Lululemon has many intense competitions in this industry. Brands including Nike, Adidas, Under Armor‌etc. These brands are internationally known and recognized, therefore takes majority of the market share. Lululemon as a small player in this intensive industry, has stood out amongst its competitors and earned many loyal followers and consumers. Even though Nike and Adidas are the big names in this industry, they’re not exactly Lululemon’s direct competitors. Lululemon is a niche brand catering chic and fashionable audience who desires style and quality. This audience does variety of sports such as surfing, skiing, running, but predominately derived from yoga. Lululemon not only sells its high quality products that keeps customers coming back, but it also sells a lifestyle and a community. Hence, its direct competitors are the ones doing similar things to keep its customers coming back. I picked out two brands that resemblance Lululemon the most, which are Sweaty Betty and Athleta (GAP Inc.). Both Athleta and Sweaty Betty strongly sell their lifestyle of the brand and the yoga community. There are blogs, vlogs, Instagram and fashion films revolving yoga, healthy food, independent women, athletes and other positive topics.
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To better create and justify my fashion film, I analyzed both image and moving image from Sweaty Betty and Athleta. On Sweaty Betty’s website, all the product images are presented without a model or a mannequin. Sweaty Betty’s lookbook images tend to vary depending on the seasons and collection. For fall and winter collections, the images tend to be less bright, and colder. The use of colors is very minimal. The photoshoots are shot in a vast grassland, or near big mountains. The color palette of winter clothing is very basic, consisting colors such as black, white, taupe, navy blue, and dark gray. In contrast, the spring summer collection uses bright colors and more flamboyant prints. The color palette includes neon colors, pink, purple, red and yellow. Therefore, the imagery completely changes. The photographs are brighter, more colorful and the tone of the imagery becomes more cheerful.
Fall/Winter Collection 2016 There are many campaign videos and fashion films on Youtube in the Sweaty Betty channel. There are roughly 190 videos. Some of them are yoga tutorials, introduction on fashion technology, interviews of athletes or ambassadors. There are only small amount of videos that are actually fashion films and campaign videos. The fashion films introducing new season collection also resemblance the lookbooks. Winter collection consists a colder color palette in the video, whereas summer collection has a warmer and brighter color palette. Unlike Sweaty Betty, Lululemon has a warmer imagery overall regardless the season. Except for its ski wear, where absolute a colder tone required.
In majority of Sweaty Betty’s videos, there is only one model. The camera is focus on the model, and zooms in the products from time to time while the model does sports.
These videos use more upbeat music in the background such as dubstep, dance or electronic. The music suggests a more motivational and aspiring tone, more likely to appeal to the target market. The model is often seen running, boxing and surfing. Hence, we can conclude that Sweaty Betty caters an active audience that does all kinds of sport. The consumer could be someone who doesn’t do yoga at all, because the brand does not base itself heavily on one sport like Lululemon.
Spring/ Summer Collection 2016 12
To better understand Sweaty Betty as a competitor, SWOT chart is made to analyze and compare Sweaty Betty and Lululemon.
Strengths
Strong brand image, well recognized in the UK Very popular online store Well established Strong consumer relationship Quality products
Weaknesses
Very specialized product, therefore does not appeal to a big market
Women's active wear only Depend heavily on loyal customers Limited new marketing strategies Very little promotion, hence making the brand not very well known globally Overpriced products
Opportunities
Expansion on international distribution Men and children’s active wear Big room for improvements when it comes to new marketing strategies and promotions Improvements for online site
Further development of existing products
Threats
Strong competitors such as Lululemon, Athleta, Nike‌etc. These competitors are way more well know internationally
Rising interest rates, business can be affected internally as well as externally
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Athleta is still currently a less known brand, but it is under
the mother brand Gap Inc. Athena is said to be the next Lululemon. In fact, Gap has already have big plans to launch new Athleta stores across the States and Canada, and they’re looking to expand the brand globally after some success. Athleta’s style lean more to Athleisure. Even though their activewear is fully functional and in good quality, the product still is still very casual compare to Lululemon and Sweaty Betty. First glance at the Athleta website, I noticed that it is very similar to Lululemon’s website; grey and white color palette. Though, Athleta’s website is majorly white, while Lululemon’s site has a lot of grey panels to fill in the whiteness. Athleta also tends to use skinnier models compare to Lululemon. Lululemon’s models seem to have more of athletic figures. There are more diversity when it comes to Lulu’s models as well, most of them are quite tan, and healthy looking. These
models faces are also shown in the photos, while Athleta’s models’ faces were never shown in photos, except for the lookbook photos.
Fall/Winter Collection 2016
Athleta does most of the lookbook shoots in studio with a white background, while only few photos from the lookbook are shot in nature. These photos shot from outside has a similar style to what Lululemon has; simple, straightforward, and good lighting. The in-studio photos focus more on the product and the models rather than emphasizing other things. The main different between Athleta and Lululemon can be seen through photography; Lululemon’s lookbook photos are shot mostly outside, hence emphasizing that they sell a lifestyle and a community; Athleta’s look photos just emphasize on their products which doesn’t really sell anything else along the brand. .
Spring/ Summer Collection 2016 16
To better compare and contrast both brands, SWOT chart is made to analyze Athleta against Lululemon.
Strengths
Athleta is a sports apparel brand under Gap. Inc Strong presence in USA Strong workforce Products include activewear, and accessories
Weaknesses
Womenswear only
No presence in other countries No presence in department stores
Opportunities
Expand worldwide. Since the brand is under Gap, it would be easy to get recognition and expand internationally Expansion in menswear and children wear
Threats
Intense competition (Nike, Lululemon, Under Armour, and Sweaty Betty Trends and quick changes in consumers lifestyle, hence impacting their spending pattern as well
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BRAND ANALYSIS
Lululemon prides itself of offering the “Yoggie Community” to its customers. The brand differentiates itself among its competitors by selling the yoga lifestyle, identity and cultural loop that have been instrumental in its success. The company was founded aiming to prioritize women activewear; stylish and high quality yoga and sports apparel that was not being provided by sportswear giants such as Nike or Adidas. Lululemon treats these active women as their main target consumer, not an afterthought to a men’s line as what Nike and Adidas have done. Lululemon has taken a big chunk in the yoga community, by allowing the spiritual, yogic world to be integrated to the brand, and let the brand to act as a desired and attachable identity for their consumers. Therefore, that further drives their loyalty, and even expand consumer base. Lululemon encourages values such as healthy and active lifestyle, independent, and woman empowerment. The brand personality is active, independent, and calm. If the brand is a person, it would be perceived as such. Lululemon videos on youtube are mostly campaign videos, interviews, short story of ambassadors, and collection sneak peak. The fashion films of Lululemon are always quite bright, and shot with warm light. Lululemon’s videos always include elements like yoga, running, friendship, and nature. Majority of their videos are shot in Canada, especially British Columbia, where the company’s headquarter is based. There are also some videos include activities such as surfing, and swimming. And the rest are the ones featuring ambassadors and designs. These are done mostly in interview form, and then cut to what they do (sports for Lulu ambassadors, designing and pattern cutting for designers). The interview videos cut back and forth from their activities to sat-down interview shots. Some of them are also available in french. Lululemon’s tone of voice is always calm. It reinforces independence, empowerment, mindfulness, fun and zen. All the voices featuring in videos are calm, and nicely paced. The zen is also integrated in a lot of its quite and undisturbed nature shots. All these elements motivates Lululemon’s customers to buy more, and to be inspired by the yoga world. The target market desires the calmness that’s being advertised, therefore, the brand being desired. Reading through Lululemon’s blog, a lot of the posts are addressed to the consumers aka, the Yoga community. The wording is quite simple and straight to the point. In the articles, there’s a lot of use of quote, because majority these articles are about someone being featured. Lulu’s literature is easy to read, and it doesn’t feel extra or overkill.
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I also made a SWOT chart for Lululemon, to help me analyze the brand, and understand the elements in their photography and videos.
Strengths
Continuously producing new styles of sports apparel for men and women Joining with fashion designers to produce new styles and widen product lines Has presence at over 140 locations Employee base is nearly 3,000 Good advertising and great brand image Campaign collaborations with fitness professionals, through fitness ambassador program where feedback is received to improve products Offering free yoga classes open to public Strong social media presence
Weaknesses
Limited global recognition despite high quality apparels
Weak brand recall compared to international players Overpriced Limited sizing. Currently offering size 2 - size 12 (while Athlete offers size 00 - size 16 along with tall, petite, plus, and maternity sizing
Opportunities
Unique brand essence in the sports apparel industry The market is driven by a trend toward healthier, more active life styles, with older demographics becoming more active Better reach into emerging economies. (eg. recent campaign in Beijing and Shanghai)
Threats
Sports apparel industry is highly fragmented, with many brands com peting; from basic discount brands to high-end fashion names. Challenges such as constantly changing fashion trends, tough compe tition and more price-conscious shoppers
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Long story short. Lululemon is a brand selling a variety of stylish and high performance sports apparel. Alongside, it promotes itself with its massive yoga community and social media offering yoga classes, and events. Its objective is to encourage and motivate more people to a healthy lifestyle. To meet Lululemon’s usual video criteria, the location of the shoot has to be carefully considered. After a long day of location scouting, I’ve decided it to be at Alum Chine (the beach, the tropical garden and the forest nearby). This location mimic the nature landscape in Vancouver, where a lot of Lululemon’s videos are shot. Using “into the blue,” a video posted on Youtube by Lululemon as a reference. I wanted to recreate the kind of mood for my project as well, but without the swimming as main activity. The only way to replicate the lighting is to shoot it very early in the morning, which is the sunrise. To deliver to the brand identity, I chose a model that has a low-key athletic figure. I decided on one model because I didn’t want more complications, and unmatched personalities between multiple models. The model would be doing yoga poses, stretches, and running in my video. To convey independence and empowerment through my video, the model would have to seem concentrated and calm. Therefore, I’d advise the her not to smile. For the background music, I looked through some playlists with deep house, and tropical house songs. I’d like my video to give off a calm and relaxing vibe but still looks like the model is having fun of doing activities. I am considering “Fais Rien (Petit Biscuit Remix)” by Moi Je, or “Indian Summer” by Jai Wolf. “Fais Rien” is a great song, but the lyrics don’t match the my video. I’d still consider, because it would be very cheeky and ironic. Both are the same genre, but “Indian Summer” has a stronger beat, which would make the video more active.
BRAND OBJECTIVES
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To better show the brand’s identity, a brand onion is being made to map out the core, values, and personality of Lululemon. This will help me get the vibe I want for my fashion film.
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ACTION
PLAN
Product
Dana Aburamadan is the model. Only one model, focusing more on activities and products. The model should have an athletic figure, and should be toned and slightly tanned. This model choice shows Lululemon is a healthy brand. The location is at Alum Chine; natural, calm, and good lighting. It mimics some places in Vancouver. Dana would do activities such as running, stretching, yoga, and walking. The film will have some still shots, and strong active ones. All clothes are in sports apparel, with a pair of Lululemon leggings. I will be avoiding bright color garments, but will choose clothes with some colors to bring out the whole scene. There will be a yoga mat, water bottle and a key chain of the Canadian flag; these props can build context to the video.
Placement
The film will be on Youtube (Lululemon’s channel). Small clips will be displayed on Instagram, and behind the scenes shots are on Snapchat. The whole video is also available to be shared on Facebook, and Twitter. Physically, the film will be displayed on bus stops ad screens, and video billboards in downtown Toronto, Times Square, and downtown Vancouver.
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Promotion
Process
This is for Lululemon’s Spring/ Summer 2017 campaign. It will be heavily played and promoted around this time, so by spring/ summer next year, people already know about the new products. There should be few sneak peaks on Instagram to get some attention. Also, clips can be made into GIF’s and be shared on tumblr, since a part of Lululemon’s consumer goes on tumblr. Also this video can be advertise through Lululemon’s email list, allowing customers to click on the link to the video in the email.
Brainstorm brands, ideas, storyline - two weeks Find a model, cameraman, editor - two weeks October 28th - Location Scouting November 5th - Shooting (full day) - Specific timing of the day see Call Sheet (appendix 2) Editing - 2 weeks
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Bibliography Bayley, S. (2013, December 4). Lululemon Athletica Case 1 - SlideShare. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/StevenBayley/lululemon-athletica-case-1 Carron, A. (2012). Lululemon Athletica Retailer Profile (with images) · acarron. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://storify.com/acarron/lululemon-athletica-s-history Johanson, C., Komvopoulos, J., & Kadakia, S. (2012, December 12). Lululemon Athletica Brand Audit - SlideShare. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/JoannaKomvopoulos/lululemon-athletica-brand-audit Lululemon & go [Video file]. (2014, September 16). Retrieved November 15, 2016. Lululemon Into The Blue [Video file]. (2015, October 20). In Youtube. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=6px6oOyXDM4 Lululemon L’appel du grand air [Video file]. (2016, November 15). In Youtube. Retrieved November 15, 2016. Lululemon Pipe Dreams [Video file]. (2014, April 1). In Youtube. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=0vR5e9gXaPg Lululemon Summer 2015 Sneak Peak [Video file]. (2015, May 7). In Youtube. Retrieved November 15, 2016. Lutz, A. (2013, March 25). Why Gap’s Athleta Will Overtake Lululemon. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http:// www.businessinsider.com/reasons-athleta-will-beat-lululemon-2013-3?IR=T Oursler, A. (2013, October 02). Lululemon Competition Is Heating Up. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http:// investorplace.com/2013/10/lululemon-stock-lulu-nke-ua/ Portwood-Stacer. (2013, December 16). The Lulu Life. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://cci13.wordpress. com/2013/12/16/the-lulu-life/ Savitt, R. (n.d.). Lululemon Case Study. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.samfoxschool.wustl.edu/ files/RebeccaSavittFSFCaseStudy.pdf N. (2010, May 27). SWOT analysis of GAP Inc. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://outputusa.wordpress. com/2010/05/27/swot-analysis-of-gap-inc/ Tsang, J., Chu, J., Pothecary, M., & Chung, M. (2014, May). Lululemon Athletica. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.sfu.ca/~sheppard/478/syn/1137/G_1_1137.pdf Walmsley, D. (2013, July). Market Drivers. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://academic.mintel.com/display/638221/ Wishlow, A. (2010, June 10). The Sweaty Betty Brand Marketing Plan. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://issuu. com/amitywishlow/docs/marketing_plan
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