Brand Monitoring Project: Forever 21

Who?

Forever 21 is an American clothing retailers with branches in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, S.Korea, Japan, Philippines, UK and 7 other countries offering fashion and accessories for young people.

The chain, originally known as Fashion 21, was founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by South Korean Dong-Won Chang and his wife, Jin Sook. Trendy designs were targeted to the Korean-American community. However, people from many other ethnicities began noticing the trend-setting fashion designs, and the store became increasingly popular. By the end of the first year, sales had risen from $35,000 to $700,000. Fashion 21 eventually expanded at the rate of a new store every six months and changed the Fashion 21 brand name to Forever 21. Adding new stores every six months, Forever 21 had reached a total of 40 stores by 1997. Read more about the Fast fashion empire here. The brand is also active in collaborating with other brands (Disney) or designers. Recently, they have put out a collection with Rory Beca (March 4th, 2011) and Petro Zillia (February 11th, 2011)
Did it create buzz?

Because the brand targets young people, its social media presence is extremely important. They are doing an excellent job to stay updated on twitter, Facebook, blog (Fashion, Tunes, Tweets, & News), and the online store.
On Twitter:

140,000 followers
On Facebook:

4 Million fans

200-350 Likes, 25 comments
3 posts per day
On their website:

On The Skinny (the blog):

The Forever 21 Retail Inc. owns and operates numerous stores in different formats:

• Forever 21: main and original store carrying women's clothing, accessories, swimwear, lingerie, and shoes.
• XXI Forever: flagship high square footage store carrying merchandise from all store formats.
• Heritage1981: offshoot format store carrying vintage inspired clothing, accessories, et cetera.
• For Love21: Accessory store.
• Twelve by Twelve: Upscale Los Angeles couture inspired clothing.
• Forever 21+: formerly named faith 21, is Women's clothing in extended sizes
• Love21: Contemporary line for women
• Forever 21 Twist: An exclusive limited edition collection, launching a new theme every 4–6 weeks. Collections so far include Cirque 21, Twist of Punk, Ballet- Tutu Cute, Disco 21, Tres Paris, Rocker Babes, Twisted Wonderland, All Dolled Up, I Love Nerds, Street Chic, and Boy Meets Girl.
• Forever 21 girls: formerly HTG81 Kid format equivalent to the Forever 21 adult line.
• 21Men: Formerly named Heritage1981 Mens, is the mens portion of clothes from the former Heritage1981 mens line.

The fast-growing retailer operates more than 450 stores under the Forever 21, XXI Forever, ForLove 21, and Heritage 1981 banners in the US, Canada, and a dozen Asian countries, as well as an e-commerce site. The chain, which helped to pioneer fast fashion, offers cheap and chic apparel and accessories for women, men, teens, and kids. It also carries women's footwear, lingerie, and cosmetics. (Yahoo Finance)

Controversy
-working conditions and payroll
-accused of infringing on designs from other fashion brands. (Read more here)

How?

Addictomatic

Twitter Search

Other bloggers:

I like what you're wearing
Hit it or Quit it
Little girl Big closet
Budget babe

(Future of groundswell, Wine company example)

Groundswell, Re-blogging, Creating Buzz

Trends:
Profile of customers
Importance of online store

Twitter search

Generally positive

Industry specific, no troubleshoot or crisis management

Photo search
Look Book for forever 21

(Lego case)

Things I have learned:
Reach young customers through social media
Energize the online community to talk about the products
Fashion bloggers are re-posting information
Word of mouth
Campaign with designers are not particularly effective, quality issues?
Excited customers, allows creativity
Developed online platforms
Updated all the time

Listening and talking to groundswell (Respond to reading #1)

Social Media marketing done right Youtube Video

Valentine’s day is coming up and I was looking for a place for dinner. First thing that came to my mind was to go to Yelp.com and look for a good restaurant in Boston. I was filtering the results with restaurants that are most reviewed, if the restaurant is just okay, people would not bother writing about the dining experience or uploading pictures for the place. Therefore, if a lot of people are motivated enough to write about it, it must be pretty popular, or at least worth a try. The thing I like about Yelp.com is that, there is no advertisement from the restaurant, but simply comments and reviews posted by real people who have eaten there. Sometimes, they even include coupons or special offers. Users could even share pictures taken at the restaurant and post it so that more people can check out the place. This is groundswell, interactions among the customers, and comments from real people, which is more cost-effective and popular than traditional ways of advertising. It is not to say that social media is the only way to market, but sure is an effective way to do so. 

If customers and users are on social networks, where should the companies be? Obviously, they should be listening to them through social networks. Listening from people who actually use the product or the service, companies can better market their prospective customers and understand what their customers think about the product.

Every company wants to sell lots of products and make profit. However, if the company only aims to make money without listening to what the people really want, they will never be successful. In this era, the only companies that can grow fast are the ones who can listen to its customers, respond quickly, and carefully monitor the brand through social media marketing. Therefore, it is extremely important to listen from groundswell and make changes accordingly in order to improve service quality or the product produced.

In the chapter, the author clearly asserted, “Your brand is whatever your customers say it is.” It is not the way you advertise it, it is not the way you imagine or present it. If restaurants owners were monitoring the comments on Yelp.com, they would be able to get insights from the customers through observing interactions among customers. Thus, they would know what do customers really think about their services and food quality. They could also search the brand on Google, blogs, communispace or youtube, and find out what customers are saying about the products. By carefully monitoring the brand, companies are able to take advantage of the groundswell by taking actions on the information gathered through listening, being responsive, changing future products and marketing plans, or generating new products.

Social media marketing with Youtube

After listening, companies can also talk to the groundswell by posting videos, joining social networks, blogging, or forming private communities. Building a community of loyal customers is essential, as they would help spread the word to their friends. As a result, conversations among users can be stimulated, and the brand image can be improved and monitored. So, wouldn't you begin to market through social media? 

This is a respond post to the Groundswell reading