Chapter 11 deals with Marketing Research in detail. One good exemplar of how a company designed and implemented a complete ‘brand shift’ by using marketing research is that of Diners, Pakistan’s leading and reliable retailer in the fashion industry since 2000 with over 100 retail outlets in the country. To achieve this brand shift it researched into understanding: its current bullseye audience; how elastic they are in terms of changing the communication; what is the current level of brand awareness and other indicators of brand equity; what is the quality of its raw materials, and how it can introduce new yarns and new dyeing and weaving techniques; should a brand ambassador be used and if yes, then who it should be; what prices are ideal; what would its BTL and ATL be; what should be its CSR policies and even how to motivate its employees so that they support the brand shift. The brand shift was successful, taking Diners to new heights. Diners illustrate marketing research’s importance as laid out in Chapter 11.
Revenues in the Fashion segment in Pakistan are projected to reach US$4,094m in 2021. It is expected that the fashion industry to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021-2025) of 8.19%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$5,609m by 2025. It is also pertinent to note that the fashion segment will be generating 18% of total market revenue through online sales by 2023. It is to note that in the Apparel segment, the number of users is expected to amount to 43.8m users by 2025 with a user penetration in the apparel segment at 12.5% in 2021. On one side, the market and the user base are rapidly growing but on the other side, the industry is facing constant challenges of rising costs, consumer shift, market shift, change in trends, and more importantly existing and new competitors’ landscape. It’s not that simple to compete and win along with continuity in growth. The only way to lead and succeed is to have a unique marketing strategy based on a building block of customers, products, and channels.
Diners is Pakistan’s leading and reliable retailer in the fashion industry since 2000 with over 100 retail outlets in Pakistan. Diners retail footprints have expanded globally partially through e-commerce platforms. In the last three decades, Diners has believed in satisfying customers around the globe through high standards and quality, exceptional customer service, and value. Diners have always been named as the most reliable retailer for formal wear and they realized the need for a brand shift.
Diners Brand Shift
Diners brand shift made a huge difference and contributed to improving customer satisfaction, growth in revenue, and increase in customer pie. It came up with a strategy to bring a new life into the brand by adding more product categories.
To be positioned as a brand for all generations, Diners added fashion wear for all age groups and various SEC of complete men’s, women’s, and kids garments & footwear which are being used all over the world. Diners intended to set high standards and have acquired a significant growth rate by increasing customer pies with a wider target audience. In the past, Diners was more focused on professional/corporate customers or formal wear customers but with a brand shift, Diners has aimed at a wider target market covering casual wear and footwear segments as well.
The new strategy of a brand shift was undertaken to achieve multiple objectives in manifold horizons. Diners brand shift was not transpired just in communication or advertisement, but it involved 360-degree change including product, price, place, and promotion, the four Ps of business change. According to the Diner’s management, the following were the top objectives:
To understand the brand current bullseye audience
To understand the elasticity- in terms of changing the communication with the current audience
To fix and finalize the brand way-forward strategy
To lock the brand archetype which initially didn’t exist
To increase and shift the product offering apart from regular products
Communication should be differentiated as there’s a lot of competition in all the categories
To increase the brand’s TOM and heart share
To increase brands equity and awareness by working on all the stages of brand funnel
To achieve the above-stated objectives and the process of the brand shift was a roller coaster ride and it was a long journey, and they are still into it.
The business mechanics of the apparel and fashion industry are unlike other industries as these have different demands in various seasons. The demand for the whole year may remain static or on average but in summer and winter and on celebrations the buying behaviour for each fashion category is distinct and may vary. Discussing the fact was essential before disclosing the brand shift impact. Amazingly, after the brand shift, in 2020 men’s winter campaign and 2021 women’s summer campaign from Diners achieved all of their objectives. Diners’ revenue with the new marketing strategy of brand shift increased by 70% and 52% respectively even during COVID-19, comparing with last season. Enhancing the target audience by introducing new product lines also impacted the consumer pie with an increase of 43% new customers in physical shops/stores and online on average.
Although it was a challenging phase, Diners kept all the strategic objectives aligned and synchronized to launch the project and campaign successfully. It is always challenging to design a campaign in a way that you successfully communicate and engage your targeted customers to achieve the desired objectives. The Return on Investment (ROI) of the campaign is the best predictor of the results and ultimately the campaign’s success. Diners’ marketing campaign proved to be a success from idea till execution, from execution to outcomes, from outcomes to customer engagement, and from customer engagement to brand loyalty. On the other side, the constant research into quality raw materials, the introduction of new yarns and new dyeing and weaving techniques, finishing, and extraordinary performance is the foundation on which the collections are created. But to capture the new young audience with old techniques were no longer on the cards. How to invite the young generation to visit the stores and experience the new casual product category and their guaranteed quality and value, Diners needed a young, youthful face.
To engage the masses and to attract youngsters, it was essential to opt for a youth icon as a brand ambassador for the campaign for this purpose, Diners engaged “Asim Azhar”, a famous youth icon in Pakistan as a brand ambassador to pull in youth and to create shout-outs for Diners’ new casual offering. The brand has the opportunity to shift from the formal segment to casual segment and from corporate customers to the younger generation. The strategy was beautifully articulated focusing on all building blocks not to just take beauty shots for the product display but also to connect with the relevant target market, to be intrigued to pay attention to the campaign and to visit the stores (physical/online) offering new product category.
As a result, when you enter the store, they receive you as they are delighted to serve you with quality products and with a clear aim of customer satisfaction. As the youth is more inclined towards online shopping and in addition to that Covid-19 has also paved the way towards online shopping, Diners’ e-commerce platform has not only increased the customer pie for them in Pakistan but also expanded borders digitally to get international customers. Stealing customers from competitors, quite simply, is a zero-sum, win-lose, game. It assumes that the market is a steady-size pie, and all that matters is how big a slice you get. But Diners believe that the REAL way to grow is to make your pie bigger.
As part of this strategic change in business, a new pricing strategy was introduced in the form of multiple prices in all the categories and sub-brands with low-priced capsule collections. These are being introduced to attract the young audience with a focus on celebrations, daily life events, and university-going students. It eventually gave the audience a reason to buy at affordable prices. A brand having the right product, right promotion, right placement but wrong pricing will fail and will not be able to achieve desired outcomes. Diners’ success building blocks have the right pricing and thus desired outcomes.
“Investing in your brand is not just a nice ‘extra.’ Brand shift can provide considerable returns, building perception, top line, and your bottom line— but it must be done right.”
The best part about the brand shift is that it doesn’t require a change only in the external environment and communication. The internal process and resource allocation also experiences a change. Diners went on to re-form the marketing department and increased some of the sub-departments like Below the Line (BTL) marketing, Information, and Research department, performance marketing department, public relations (PR) department. It engaged an external marketing agency on board for creative, Above the Line (ATL) marketing and digital marketing services. In this course so far, they have produced 5 Digital Video Campaigns (DVC’s) and shot around 7 other campaigns to engage with its customers.
Diners believe in growing human resources in the organization and providing job opportunities to the youth of Pakistan. They believe that if the growth pattern continues, they can be capable of generating more employment opportunities with an estimate of 2500 in the next 5 years.
Diners are an active Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brand. Their focus on CSR as a value and CSR as a marketing strategy both are contributing to achieving the organizational objectives and goals. Diners contribute a part of their production to different welfare trusts including Edhi foundation and Saylani welfare. Every month they contribute to help men, women, and kids who are associated with these welfare organizations. Diners are also used to distribute clothes among needy people. Not limited to this, Diners proved itself as one of those brands that have contributed to the prosperity and benefit of its own employees by not laying off any of its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bottom of a marketing funnel is feedback and customer support. Diners believe in “service” as its core principle. To ensure customer support, Diners has established their internal customer support department. They have developed customer feedback forms to encourage customers to heart out and have also developed a system for the customers to find Diners’ store near to them. To move the business further and facilitate customers, Diners have made available online catalogues where customers can also download the online catalogue of all new offerings and collections with just one click via WhatsApp. For customers satisfaction and care they are about to introduce another project as a marketing strategy for client engagement and that is the point redemption system, where customers will get points on every single shopping and afterward, they can redeem these points for discounts or can gift it to someone.
For customer care, they have also introduced a return and replacement policy. Customers can always return or replace items if they are defective or sent incorrectly with a written record of the reason within 24 hours of receiving the item. Diners are also aiming to contribute to improving the ways of doing business for individuals and businesses in Pakistan by introducing a new technology of production in near future, which is under research nowadays.
Diners add value to the lives of their internal and external customers, with a sense of pride and relatability. Customers can relate the heritage value of a brand that their fathers and grandfathers used to wear the attire by Diners and now they are wearing the new age blazers and jackets from the same brand. Internal customers/employees now take pride in working with new goals and achieving new key performance indicators (KPI’s) with visible growth rates. Certainly, the brand is very much working for nature to being eco-friendly, Diners have introduced the shopping bags as per directions of government and they have provided the waste bins all across the company and factories.
Diners brand success is the comprehensive set of processes, workflows, and tools that the marketing team has leveraged to manage, nurture and amplify communication with the customers. The approach includes — but is not limited to — the following aspects of brand management:
Brand asset management
Brand storytelling
Brand message control
Branded content optimization
Audience reachout
Community & reputation management
Performance measurement
Diners strategic planning (weighted investment in specific customer segments), value proposition (satisfying the needs of different segments), experience design (creating a signature experience that delight customers), brand development (connecting with needs and values of customers), customer lifecycle management (maximum customer value and loyalty) and interaction management (consistent treatment across touchpoints) have underpinned customer-centric marketing which has taken Diners brand to the new heights.
Diners’ brand shift strategy is making a huge difference with amazing facts and figures. A great marketing sense with a clear and definite marketing plan can achieve all the objectives. Diners is an example to take new initiatives of a brand shift without any hesitation but with proper preparations.
Questions to stimulate conversation on the case
- Do the industry growth indicators propel businesses to take bold decisions?
- What was the strategy used by Diners to position themselves as a brand for all generations?
- What was Diner’s recipe of success? How can a company cultivate success through customer centric marketing?
- How do you see the role of brand ambassadors in developing and building brand perception and positioning?
- What are the main ingredients of brand shift and what are the risks associated with it? How can a brand mitigate potential risks?
Links and media
Website: https://diners.com.pk/