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FRENCH CONNECTION BRAND EXTENSION PROPOSAL

‘FOREVER COUPLES’

by

Irina Lazova

CONTENT:

1. French Connection Group …………………………………1

2. The Brand………………………………………………………2 – 3

3. The consumer………………………………….……….…..4 – 5

4. Perception map, SWOT, brand analyse….6 – 8

5. Extension Proposal ‘Forever Couples’……………..9

6. Trend Research………………………………………..10 – 11

7. Consumer Segmentation…………….………….11 – 12

8. Forever Couples marketing strategy.….13 – 15

9. Bibliography

10. Appendix

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French Connection UK was founded in 1972 by Stephan Marks, who is still a chief

executive of the company, with a clear intention to offer well-designed, excellent quality

and affordable clothes that appeal to the broad market (French Connection, 2012)

The idea behind the company has not significantly changed through the years and it is

clearly stated in the brand’s mission statement:

“French Connection now offers a fashion-forward clothing range with a quirky spin on

design, priding itself on quality and affordable prices. Having established a strong core

clothing business, through unique design and a true sense of style the company has,

over recent years expanded its portfolio into exciting new areas including men's and

women's toiletries, sunglasses and opticals, watches and shoes. Driven by innovation

and change, the brands strength lies in balancing new and exciting ideas with the basic

promise of quality and affordability, established when the company was founded.

Throughout this expansion and diversification the principles have remained the same;

design-led products presented in a unique and innovative way.”

French Connection UK, Fashion is our Business

French Connection Group French Connection is a part of the French Connection group PLC, which consists three

other brands: Toast, Great Plains and YMC. The architecture of the company tries to

cover main targets of the market, offering a great mix of brands.

Last year the group included in to their portfolio brand Tegan, wich aim is to target

“slightly older women” (Barnett, 2011).

Nevertheless the brand French connection is a part of the aforementioned group and it is

responsible for more than 90% of the company’s revenue (French Connection, 2012).

The brand offers a wide range of products, covering the entirety of its target segment’s

lives.

The Brand: Retail, Price, and Consumer French Connection brand operates mainly within its own retail channels – online and in-

store, but at the same time is presented worldwide in some of big department stores.

According to the brand’s web site, the clothing line is obtainable in over 30 countries

around the world, which does not include accessories and beauty licenses (French

connection, 2012).

Regarding price strategy, the brand visualizes itself at the higher-end of the high-street

market, which comes logically as the brand uses premium fabric and invests into an in-

house designer. The marketing director of the company Will Woodhams, recently noticed

extremely popular sale strategy within the high-street market, which French connection

does not follow as it is trying to attract ABC1 consumers (Barnett, 2011).

According to the brand website, French Connection is targeting comparatively young

consumers: 18 up to 35 years old. However the marketing director of the company

admits that the real consumer is between 25 to 35 years old (Barnett, 2011). The gap is

probably a result of the company high-pricing strategy, which keeps younger consumers

away of French Connection outlets.

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Moreover, the brand has been

repositioned twice in less than 15

years (1997 and 2009), resulting in

French Connection noticeably losing

its core target. The first change was

made in 1997 as a result of a new

marketing plan, involving the

replacement of French Connection

UK with “fcuk” brand. During that

period, it seemed like the majority of

an efforts were focused on the male

segment, as 40% of the brand

products were for men but “awareness

that they made clothes for men was very low” (Brvicevic&Kay, 1998, ,p.5). The following

advertising campaign, based on direct proclamations, involving the acronym “fcuk” as

FCUK: Fashion; FCUK me; what the FCUK, maintained the masculinity image of the

brand. Nevertheless thanks to the extreme success of the campaign and the sizeable

sales for nearly 10 years, FCUK lately gained massive amount of unattractive male

shoppers, considered as unfashionable and down-market, who have started to demolish

the brand image. Similarly to Burberry, whose sales in affordable clothing and

accessories were mainly made by the youth market, notably the “chavs” segment (lower

class) French Connection suffered a serious hit to the brand image. FCUK had to

sacrifice the profit to save its image (Tungate, 2005).

As a result, in 2009 new target was presented within fresh advertising campaign, created

by London based APG agency (Hudson, 2011). The campaign defined the core

consumer in both genders: men and women. As French connection woman has not

changed that much during the years, the accent was on the man again. Hudson

described that the new type as “laid-back, relaxed and human”, who is not afraid to be

him self, even if that does not means perfection in a polished and metro sexual way. The

agency was looking for potential brand ambassadors among the real and rough men and

they found “hairy bread man” as an ultimate symbol of that image. Consequently the

campaign, named The Man/The Woman was born (Hudson, 2011).

Typical FCUK consumer before rebranding in 2009 Source: French Connection, WARC, 2011

Who is the French consumer now? The consistently changes within the brand values, strategy and statement undoubtedly

affected the performance to the stage where the core consumer is not clearly clarified

anymore. The only constant factor is French connection woman and the fact that the

brand has always been working simultaneously on both – men and women line. These

specifics could be used for developing the new strategy, which can drive the brand to the

new wining concept.

• The French Connection woman - Stylish and practical: fashionable, but not a fashion victim; “concerned about

quality and the comfort level of the clothes”, but does not exclude the price

importance (Brvicevic and Kay, 1998, p.5)

- Feminine: play with her femininity, but knowingly; she enjoy being a woman and

recognize the effect of it (Hudson, 2011)

- She is Angelina Jolie, Pippa Middleton and Kate Middleton (Woodhams, 2011)

- Also she is Fearne Cotton; Stacey Duguid (Elle’s executive fashion editor); the

actress Olivia Wilde (French Connection twitter, 2012)

Picture by Irina Lazova

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Better understanding of the brand requires use of the Kepferer identity prism. Looking

deeply into the brand it is noticeable that French connection is:

• Simple (white in-store atmosphere) – states purification, honesty, even simplicity

• Traditional (black and white logo) – classical colors

• Urban and modern – Italian designer Aldo Novarese created the used “eurostile”

font in early 60s. The inspiration came out of modern architecture and recent TV

appearance - the rounded corners reminds of television screen (Friedl, 1998).

• Quality – French Connection produce most of its collection within Europe (French

connection, 2012)

Brand values completely coincide their core women target profile, which is visible at the

Kepferer prism (please see below).

Both – consumer

and product

present the same

values and reacts

to the same

symbols.

Furthermore,

FCUK retailing

strategy – key

places around the

big cities

(Shopping malls

and flagship stores), which brings comfort and flexibility to the shopping process. Despite

the right mix of factors behind the brand, it has been struggling to survive during the last

5 years (since 2007). The profit of the company was consistently decreasing and French

connection announced that in 2012 it would be forced to close 14 out of 72 stores in UK

(Mintel, 2011).

The table above shows French connection performance within 5 years period. FTSE

index is being used to present the function of the small market capitalization companies

at the London Stock exchange main market. Despite that all market is declining recently,

French Connection performance is sensibility below the rest of registered establishments.

Understanding the reasons led the company to that results behind its own actions, are

also located within the high-street market situation and mainly in French Connection

competitors. Nevertheless the brand has direct opponents, it is competing with almost

everyone on the high street market – from Primark up to Jaeger.

The situation on the UK Market oblige French connection to present a new concept or to

find a new direction through exciting channels to reestablish itself and go back to the

growing stage. The brand is directly competing with companies as Ted Baker – purely

British, with clear design strategy developed through the years and Karen Millen – also

Source: French Connection Annual report, 2011

FCUK Perception Map

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British, which brilliantly design in term of its target and which could be considered as an

precedent in womenswear market.

The longevity of French Connection could be blamed for the difficult position in which

brand currently lies. Created and developed to the stage of the “coolest brand” in the 90s,

ten years later the British company finds itself facing many difficulties. Their previously

loyal followers has grown-up, changed their values and made it impossible for the brand

to remain their profile in the new competitive market, filled with fast and cheap fashion.

Undoubtedly after any grow, there is stage of decline. However that stage lasted too

long for French Connection. The map below presents the story of the brand.

The company is among very few, which achieved enormous success through advertising.

Adopting the acronym FCUK could be indicated as a main factor behind the brand

realization. Brvicevic and Kay state is their report about the brand triumph back in 90s

that only for a year, the French connection sold out 260 000 t-shirts, printed with the

campaign copy, which generated a gross revenue (at retail price) 5,2 million

(Brvicevic&Kay, 1998). The advertising t-shirts has never been considered as desirable

and “cool”, except Diesel campaign (“Be stupid for successful living”) and FCUK (Rosso,

2011). While Diesel made a short campaign, FCUK built a brand on it. As the creative

minds behind the strategy said: “focus was on the attitude, not the clothes”

(Brvicevic&Kay, 1998). Consequently, after 10 years of lacking interesting designs and

dismissing innovation led to the disappointment. As soon as the FCUK abbreviation had

been overused and all collocations was created, printed and sold, the consumers walked

away from the white flagship stores. The reason could also be found in the strategy,

created by advertising professionals rather then fashion ones. As Mark Tungate observes

in his brilliant book about fashion brands tactics, using advertising agency to create a

strategy for the fashion brand is extremely rare in the industry. The reason is that the

fashion brands, unlike any others, are selling ideas and dreams rather then reality.

Therefore big companies rely on people, who work creatively within their structure and

who can understand, develop and feel the brand’s pulse. In terms of execution there are

only art directors, stylists and photographers, who adds an extra value through their

names (Tungate, 2004).

Created by Irina Lazova

2008

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Another reason for FCUK failure is the consumer psychology. The time passing not only

evaluated him in terms of an age and status, but also in terms of taste and preferences.

Consumer who was during the 90s involved in to the night club lifestyle, using drugs and

rebellious culture represented by Tarantino’s movies and Irvine Welsh’s books, which

proclaimed as much “fcuk”’ as possible, nowadays is often already family-oriented and

professionally positioned. His new status needs a new style, which suits better to his

personality.

BRAND EXTENSION PROPOSAL: Changing FCUK with Forever Couple (LOVE) Developing the brand extension, which would be attracting French connection previously

loyal consumers, but also the one that the brand aims to posses, the young target.

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TRENDS RESEARCH

The trend of borrowing the boyfriend’s clothes was circulating for a while within society.

Since Katie Holmes was caught publicly with Tom Cruise jeans, many celebrities and

brands adopted the strategy. However fashionable the idea might seems, there is also a

psychological drive in it. Women need to underline their relations and to feel secure.

Although boyfriend concept has already exploded, the idea of loving couple has not. It is

a recent trend, which will increase extremely in the next few years. The main idea behind

it, is that individuals involved into relations feels the need to demonstrate their connection

through visual signs as outfits in the same way as mothers dress their kids alike

themselves and pet lovers outfits respond to their favorite animal accessories (see

appendix Real Couple similarity page 1).

The trend has emerged naturally as a result of the current active generations demands,

which are the certain target of French connection.

Consumer Segmentation

Years Names Characteristic Decade of Influence

Generation Y 1982-2002 Gen Why?

Echo Boomers

Millennials

Net Generation

• Afraid for finance stability and partner

• Prioritize family over work • Positive attitude

to the future • Stable in term of

priorities • Close to their

parents

Late 90s, 2000s& 2010 Pop music,

Internet,

Americanized

Generation X 1961 - 1981 Yuppies • Heterogenic and individualist

• Highly adaptive

• Dream to build steady families

• Very educated and intelligent

• Sensitive

80s and 90s Unstable times: free sex, announced in 70s, followed by AID’s epidemic in 80’s, loan crisis and economic boom; influenced by TV

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Nevertheless differences between generations, both of them (X and Y) have common

features. As they came out of an unstable periods (economic boom, followed by loan

crisis for first and American dream, signed by overbuying and followed by economic and

employability crisis for Y’s) the demand for family “sharing” is among their highest

priorities. Both generations were exposed for a long time on media propaganda about

successful living, signs of prosperity, TV sitcoms like “Sex and the city” and ideas about

individuality and career achievements. Massive amount of individuals representing those

generations moved to the big cities and stayed single for a long time. As a result they

clearly recognized the need of the family and cherished the idea about having a partner.

Nowadays people strive for Brangelina model, more then Elizabeth Taylor, Edie

Sedgwick or even Hue Hefner.

As finding a partner is relatively difficult in the current world, filled with individualist, the

few who succeed wants to underline it. The new sitcoms reflects the couple trend and

even the most naïve among them give priority to love (Gossip girl for example went

through the idea of prosperity and fun to end up looking for a real love and returning to

the family values and roots. The show Fashion icons like Chuck and Blair often can be

seen dressed up similarly (see the appendix: figure 1 and 2).

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Reason For French Connection to support the concept:

• Always had menswear and womenswear

• Last advertising campaign tried to ultimate The Man and The Woman

• Natural extension

• Niche market – the one brand, which operates is The Kooples, but they achieve

“couples” idea rather with advertising, then product

• On emerging trend

FOREVER COUPLE MARKETING COMMUNICATION PLAN

The Product As French Connection became leading brand mainly because of advertising, it is about

the time to behave as Fashion Company. To establish that it is necessary to hire famous

designer and to set up the new sub brand Forever Couples. Hiring relatively popular

designer to stand behind high street brand is not a precedent in the industry. Lacoste and

Gap applied that strategy before (Tungate, 2004). Apart from the new line, the designer

could be used later to support the main brand clothesline and to represent it during

fashion week’s catwalk. Again, the strategy is not rare used as Diesel did it with Sofia

Kokosalaki and Lacoste with Christophe Lemaire – formerly Thierry Mugler and Christian

Lacroix (Tungate, 2004). The designer could be also used for:

• Repositioning – French Connection need to reestablished as luxury high-street

retailer

• PR – apart from the news of hiring, he has to be involved in every-day media

communication

• To bring extra value through his own “celebrity friends”: Sienna Miller is always

sitting in the first row for Mathew Willimson, everyone have their groupies

The collection needs to offer enough choice, as it will pretend to cover every occasion:

formal, everyday, spare time and so on. Also, rapid turn-around of the stock should be

applied as the target is well informed and younger of them are used to visit shops for

entertaining, which often ends with a small purchase.

The Retail Channel Special corners needs to be created and to stand out within flagship stores. They have to

be designed in the way, which complement the main area. Also, changing room for

couples, supplied with “boyfriend coach”. Extra services:

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- changing lightining in the changing rooms – ability to see yourself in diferent light:

daylife, diner, nighclub and so on

- couple stylist – to help you match even better

- boyfriend sofa+newspapers and drinks

- personal shopping profile

Communication Strategy: Launching As the main target is Generation Y and X, which both are “suspicious of anything

corporate”, prefers to obtain the information through their own channels (friends, word of

mouth and so on) and they are result of digital era, the campaign have to be very

interactive and non-standard. Using digital and BTL:

Method Place Mechanic Benefits

Video Boxes Around

big cities • /BTL/ Big boxes will

be montaged in key

city places; everyone

can record their

message to his

beloved

• Later all videos will

be uploaded in

specialy created

web-site, called:

“Forever Couple”

• The branding of the

site must be very

discreet

Suitable not only for people in

relation, but for singles

• Don’t be afraid to find the

love!

• You might saw yesterday

the girl of your draeam, but

was afraid to stop her.

Now is the chance: found

her even if she is on the

other part of world!

Forever Young web site

Online /Digital/ Uploading users

videos from around the

world

Could change naturally in

social network platform,

where people get for fun,

looking for love or share

videos

Burberry did trench coat web-

site: very successful

Celebrity endorsement and PR: To different from its main competitor The Kooples, Forever Couple will announce

only real couples, which are proved as fans of the main brand. They will work with

pairs as Ferny Cotton and Jesse Wood; using them through the digital channels of

the brand and for promo-video of Love box (how it works). Ferny Cotton is no

married to Wood yet, therefore their public video could be very successful. The

video has to look almost amateur to achieve the real viral effect.

Supportive channels:

• Twitter – at the moment the brand account that is divided by menswear,

womenswear is fairly boring and self-centered (see appendix, figure 3).

There are many mistakes such as not enough information which could be

related to target lifestyle, posts are only linked with the brand and speaking

from “I”. The brand would benefit from refreshing the page with news about

real love, real friendship (French connection with the celebrities)

• Facebook – similarly to twitter: presenting mainly information about the

brand, but including the 10 best love songs, advices for in loved people and

so on will build bigger audience

All channels will build a relation with the consumers and will teach them to include French

connection into their daily life.

Later Stage After the launch, Forever Couple will sponsor some “love movies”. As the brand is

targeting educated urban consumers, the chosen movies will need to be intelligent, rather

then comedy. Good examples are Lost in translation, Closer, P.S. I love you, In a mood

for a love. Movie sponsorship creates extremely strong relation with consumers as they

much more recognize themselves through the culture, favorite melodies and movie

scene, than through direct aggressive advertising. Moreover using that strategy, the

brand can specify itself locally and support the culture in the specific country. It is proven

that consumers’ reacts with actions to the messages, which are exclusively related to

them, rather than to the general communicants. As world brand French connection need

better local positioning.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Barnett, M. (2011) ‘French Connection moves upmarket with a Royal connection’ [Online]

Available at: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/french-connection-moves-upmarket-with-a-

royal-connection/3031296.article [Accessed: 17 November 2012]

Brvicevic, M. And Kay, G. (1998) ‘Giving French Connection the F factor.’ [Online]

Available at:

http://www.warc.com.arts.idm.oclc.org/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=

9a1c5052-0350-4588-a368-4ea4cfcbef4c&q=french+connection [Accessed: 4 November

2012]

Cannon, S. (2010) When Gen Y speaks, Boomers must listen in Huff Post Buisness.

[internet] Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-cannon/when-gen-y-

speaks-boomers_b_692694.html [Accessed: 28 Nov 2012]

French Connection (2012) ‘Annual Report’ [Online] Available at:

https://www.frenchconnection.com/content/marketing/fashion-is-our-business.htm

[Accessed 4 November 2012]

Friedl, F. (1998) Typography an encyclopedic survey of type design and techniques

throughout history. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers

Gibbs, N. 2010 How Millennials perceive a new generation gap in Time, [Online].

Available from: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1971433,00.html

[Accessed: 28 November 2012]

Hudson, J. (2011) ‘French Connection’. [Online] Available at:

http://www.warc.com.arts.idm.oclc.org/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=

1446a8b9-7595-45a8-a1d9-a6be32c1b6b3&q=french+connection [Accessed: 4

November 2012]

Mintel (2012) ‘Clothing Retailing UK’ [Online] Available at:

http://academic.mintel.com/display/642270/?highlight=true#hit1 [Accessed 4 November

2012]

Rosso, R. (2011), Be stupid for successful living, Milano: Rizoli

Tungate, M. (2004) Fashion Brands Branding Style from Armani to Zara. London and

Philadelphia: Kogan Page

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