THE FASHION CHANNEL: MARKETING ANALYSIS Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

THE FASHION CHANNEL: MARKETING ANALYSIS

1. Statement of the marketing challenge

The Fashion Channel, one of the pioneers in broadcasting fashion related content on its channel is a 24/7 cable network. The targeted audience for the channel is fashion savvy viewers who want to keep themselves up to date. The Fashion channel was found in 1996, and since then the company has managed to sustain a persistent growth rate from both increase in viewership and revenues alike. Although has sustained a strong position in the market by focusing primarily on broadcasting fashion oriented content, the channels like CNN and lifetime has started threatening the market share of the channel. Because the market share of the company is threatened, the Senior Vice President of the company, Dana Wheeler, felt an urgency to develop a novel branding strategy(Ries & Jack, 2000). The SVP now have three options or strategies to choose from: a broad multi segment approach, another approach that focuses on one segment and the last option is the two segment strategic approaches.

a. Option Evaluation

1. One Segment Approach

This scenario offers the company a narrowed down strategic approach that focuses primarily the Fashionistas. This option takes into account the clusters that are very valuable to the advertisers, although it constitutes a very small portion in the whole target. This cluster accounts for only 15% of the households accessible by the company.

2. Two Segment Approach

The second option that constitutes pondering on two segments is Fashionistas and Shoppers & Planners. This option is also a narrowed down approach to bring transition in the company’s current marketing efforts.

3. Multi Segment Approach

The third option is a diversified option that constitutes many segments at a time. This would let the company focus on its current marketing strategy, having died hard focus on the women whose age falls in between the range of 18-34. This option also looks at the Situationalists segment too, along with Fashionistas and Planners & Shoppers.

a. Decision Criterion

The company’s vice presidents now have complete discretion over the decision regarding the market share revamp. Therefore, whatever decision is implemented needs to focus on three things and help the company in regaining the market share, improving the brand awareness amongst the targeted set of viewers and helping it achieve a competitive advantage in the industry, through its implementation(Baker, 2008). The company, though has tremendous popularity amongst its viewers yet it needed to compete with the satisfaction rate per viewer. Moreover, the company has successfully sustained its position in a niche market as an exclusive fashion broadcasting channel. However, the success of the company was dependent on several assumptions about the market and the viewers’ demand for the channel content. That suggests that the company didn’t do extensive research on the consumer demand(Baker, 2008).

2. Analysis of the current situation to include:

a. Product analysis

The product for the company is their fashion channel that solely broadcasts fashion related content. The point of differentiation for the channel lies in its sole fashion oriented content for the fashion savvy viewers. The channel helped in accumulating healthy revenues initially until it started losing its market share to other hybrid fashion channels. The product’s positioning wasn’t in alignment to the existing needs of consumers(Baker, 2008).

b. Market analysis

The market analysis shows the following factors that fashion channel needs to take into consideration. These factors include:

Product Life cycle stage
Price elasticity of demand
To what extent the buyers hold bargaining power
Growth rate of the company versus growth rate of the industry
The size of the firm versus peer’s size

The customer analysis according to the facts given suggests that there are four groups of customers in the channel and each is unique in its own way. These four groups, namely, Fashionistas, Planners & Shoppers, Situationalists and Basics share common attitudes when it comes to fashion(Baker, 2008). The most active amongst these group members are the Fashionistas, which represents a small cluster yet an intense viewer for the fashion content. On the contrary, the males fall into the basic category who aren’t excited much about the trends in fashion, and therefore are less likely to engage in the content displayed by the Channel(Kotler, 2006). The surveys in essence show that fashion is a broad topic to consider that has a broad viewer base. Also, it reflects that the current strategy of the company is shying away from the market trends and therefore, the channel needs to implement a focused segmentation strategy(Ries & Jack, 2000). The Fashionistas segment, forexample, is fashion freaks and flip channels through and through to get the knowledge on the latest trends. Trends like these should be taken into consideration by the channel when it plans to broadcastnews programs.

The fashion channel has succeeded in developing a consumer perception that it is an all in one channel for fashion oriented information..................

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