About Chanel

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Inside Chanel

Channel is a French luxury brand established in 1910, nowadays featuring haute couture, luxury goods, makeups, fragrance, and clothing as well as small leather goods [Figure 1].

The story of Inside CHANEL, discovers Coco Chanel’s humble beginnings, from her birth in 1883 to meeting the love of her life Boy Capel. There is a short video that tells a woman’s legendary story, who in a stroke of genius transformed the female silhouette (YouTube) and Coco Chanel closed one era and launched a new century of fashion.

Figure 1: Chanel small leather goods (Pouch and wallet made of leather), source: Chanel (2016)

Customer – based equity model (CBBE) for Chanel 

The luxury business is is a business of brands and for luxury goods, brand identity is a very important element of the business(Chevalier, 2012). Chanel is a powerful brand in the luxury industry, which ranked #4 [Figure 1] in the top 10 global luxury-goods brands according to a report from Luxury Daily.

Figure 1: Top 10 luxury brands in the world (King, 2015)

The customer – based brand equity (CBBE) model is to identify what marketing campaigns or strategies have been used by Channel to understand and influence its customer behaviour, which approaches a unique point view of what brand equity is and how it should be built, measured and managed (Keller, 2012, p. 53).

Keller’s CBBE model includes four stages of brand development — Identity (who are you), Meaning (What are you), Response (What about you) and Relationships (what about you and me). The model comprises Salience, Performance, Imagery, Judgement, Feeling and Resonance (Keller, 2012, pp. 66-83).

“Salience refers to aspects of the awareness of the brand — Category identity and Needs satisfied” (Kevin, 2012, p. 66). Chanel is a simple and luxury brand, which is indicated by its logo  , and the Chanel stores’ decorations [figure 2]. The logo of Chanel is simple for the two C’s branded on all of its products, contributing to easy recognition of brand equity. Chanel is a brand that can be accessed easily. A new mobile-optimized site is available for customers to get access to beauty lines of Chanel via their mobile phone (Luxury Daily, 2013), which helps Chanel to meet customers’ expectations more easily.

Figure 2: Decorations of Chanel stores (Pinterest, 2016)

                                                                                      With the combination of gold, black, and white colours, Chanel gives customers a sense of luxury and elegance.

“Brand performance involves primary characteristics and secondary features, style and design, price, service effectiveness and empathy” (Kevin, 2012, p. 71). Also, it means the action taken to meet customers’ expectations, and to inform what the experiences customers have with your brand and what the brand stands for. Chanel charges its customers High price for high quality. The company made this decision to charge a high price for high luxury items and less expensive prices for less prestigious items.  Chanel is a pioneer in the France luxury industry. Creative hats featuring simple, elegant style dress have been imitated by all of Paris (Chanel website, 2016), giving customers a sense of sophistication and fashion (Kumari, 2014).  Chanel is a brand being reliable and creditable. Chanel shared a backstage video of Kristen in Cannes Film Festival, which makes people believe that Chanel contributes greatly to Kristen’s appearance. User profile: Chanel concentrates on classic kind of high-income women between the age of 23 and 55 (Academia.edu, 2016).

“Brand Imagery refers to User profiles, Purchase and usage situations, personality and values, as well as history and heritage” (Kevin, 2012, p 72).  Heritage: Symbols of Chanel such as lion heads, pearls, interlocking double-CLogo and camellias, contribute to heritage and enduring value (Yurtbay, 2013). Personality and Values: the video on the YouTube for Chanel No.5 called Chanel No.5: Le loup indicates that the brand is of sophistication, competence, and sincerity. 

Chanel No.5: Le loup

“Brand Judgements are about Quality, Credibility, Consideration, Superiority” (Kevin, 2012, p. 75). Additionally, customer’s judgement on a brand depends on the actions taken to improve brand’s perceived quality, credibility, and to be superior to competitors. Celebrities such as Kristen,   Marilyn etc, employed by Channel have enhanced the credibility, and positive brand awareness.  Also, the strategy of celebrity endorsement make Chanel superior to its competitors, as the fans of the celebrities employed are more likely to be fans of Chanel, instead of that of its competitors.

“There are six positive Feelings: Warmth, Fun, Excitement, Security, Social approval and Self-respect (Kevin 2012, p. 76 )”.

Figure 3: warm and cold colours (Fashion Gone Rogue, 2015)

Figure 3 illustrates three models dressing clothing in warm colours and standing in front of green leaves, giving a sense of warmth,

Figure 4: different smiles (Youtube, 2016)

Figure 4 demonstrates Jade de Lavareille and her friends employed by Chanel with different looks that are fun and cheerful.

One of the videos published by Chanel records that Jade de Lavareille is doing something exciting, Jumping into a swimming pool, dancing with friends in nightgown.

“Resonance includes four categories: Loyalty, Attachment, Community, and Engagement” (Kevin, 2012, p. 79).

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc has been used by Chanel to continuously engage with its customers, and also provide customers who are the fans of the brand with Chanel community. While Chanel posts its products onto its official Facebook, customers can interact with the brand or other customers on the Facebook, by making comments on the products. This is illustrated in Figure 5.  Pinterest helps the fans of Chanel to create a fans’ community, through which, the fans can post the images they like and interact with other fans, being demonstrated in Figure 6.

Figure 5: Chanel Facebook page (Facebook, 2016)

Figure 6: Pins of Chanel (Pinterest, 2016)

 

In conclusion, Chanel is a French luxurious and a powerful brand mainly for women across the world, with a simple logo, high quality products, and a long history. It features haute couture, luxury goods, accessories, fragrance and makeup as well as clothing. The strategies significantly contributing to the success of the brand include the use of celebrities, luxurious decorations, social media, and high price for high quality.

Therefore, with Keller’s CBBE model being taken into consideration, the new product — Timeless Leather Notetaking Wallet, will help Chanel develop a niche market for men in terms of small leather Notetaking Wallet, and can be promoted fast with the help of Social media, Chanel communities, celebrities. Also, the new product of Chanel should be simple, luxurious and of high quality. Moreover, it should be reliable and credible, and it should make the users of the new product feel sophisticated, competent, and sincere.

Reference:

Academia.edu. (2016). Luxury Marketing: Critical evaluation of Chanel &Hermès. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/8992537/Luxury_Marketing_Critical_evaluation_of_Chanel_and_Herm%C3%A8s [Accessed 13 Apr. 2016].

Chanel website (2016). “CHANEL Fashion – Small Leather Goods”. [Online]. Available from http://www.chanel.com/en_GB/fashion/products/small-leather-goods.html Accessed (11/03/2016)

Chanel website. Available from http://inside.chanel.com/en/timeline/1910_chanel-modes (Accessed 14/02/16)

Fashion Gone Rogue website. Available from http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/chanel-heads-outdoors-for-cruise-2016-campaign/ (Accessed 14/02/16)

Keller, K. Aperia, T and Georgson, M. Strategic Brand Management 2rd Ed (2012), England, Pearson Education, 67-86.

King, J (2015). Louis Vuitton contiKeller, K. Aperia, T and Georgson, M. Strategic Brand Managementnues to raise brand value despite industry challenges: report. Luxury Daily. [Online]. Available from http://www.luxurydaily.com/louis-vuitton-continues-to-raise-brand-value-despite-industry-challenges-report/ (Accessed 14/02/16)

Kumari, R. (2014). Chanel: Marketing Mix. ACADEMIA. [Online]. Available from https://www.academia.edu/8852820/COCO_CHANEL_MARKETING_MIX_Fashion_Marketing_Management_Document_submission_Submitted_To_PRASAD_SIR_Assistant_Professor_Nift_Hydrabad_Submitted_By (Accessed 14/02/16)

Yurtbay, M. (2015). Luxury Marketing: Critical evaluation of Chanel & Hermes. ACADEMIA. [Online]. Available from https://www.academia.edu/8992537/Luxury_Marketing_Critical_evaluation_of_Chanel_and_Herm%C3%A8s (Accessed 14/02/16)

 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/2G88zqPxJ00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnwHS3wc1B8  (Accessed 14/02/16)