Vans Benchmark 1 Marketing Plan Analysis

Vans: Benchmark Marketing Plan Analysis Vans is a footwear enterprise that specializes in designing and producing skateboard shoes as well as related clothing and accessories. It is a well-known firm owned by the VF Corporation located in Santa Ana, California. The Van Doren Rubber Company was formed on March 16, 1966, by brothers Paul and James Van Doren under the name "The Van Doren Rubber Company." Vans unique style caters to a specific target audience, their outreach is well focused and a reliable resource to learn and utilize research from when developing future marketing plans. The company has come a long way from its upbringing. The original canvas and rubber shoes have origins in old-school California skate and surfing culture and grew in popularity during the mid-70s skateboarding revolution. Their brand had developed an image for that made the consumer feel unique, trendy, and stylish. In 1984, a horrible marketing mistake was made when the company lost track of their established image and started to make specialty shoes. This was an attempt to reach a larger audience in the basketball, soccer, and football community. Instead of focusing on their niche of the extreme sports market and dominating at one element, they began producing suboptimal shoes for a wide range of customers. Of course, this led to a significant bump in the company’s sales for a while. After switching management in 1993 the company shifted back to the culture that they had already established a good reputation with. By partnering with warped tour, a huge music and skating convention, they were able to squeeze their brand back into the hearts of their target audience. Steve Van Doren Jr., son of Vans’ co- founder said, “Basically Vans is a company that sells to teenagers, 65% male and 35% female. What did a teenager do before he was 16 and could drive? He skateboards, he surfs, he rides bikes. Then he finds the sheila’s and needs a car to go do stuff. But both boys and girls like music, so we tied ourselves into a punk rock scene cause a lot of the guys that were in bands would wear Vans.” Vans made the best decision they could have made. With this knowledge of their target market, the company planned an event that would attract many consumers and brand enthusiasts. By maintaining that image to this day, Vans has stayed in business. Vans mission statement is “to enable creative expression and inspire youth culture by celebrating and encouraging the Off the Wall attitude that comes from expressing your true self.” Vans displays their willingness to go above and beyond to bring out the best of young people in this statement. It accomplishes this by using its merchandise to promote creativity and sportsmanship. Vans vision statement is “designed for the creative pursuit of being you.” The focus of this remark is clearly on assisting consumers in not just enjoying life but also realizing their potential. Vans marketing objectives are solely focused on their target audience and are no longer trying to be something they are not. Vans does release original artistic projects, however, a significant number of shoes that they release are basic designs that aren’t meant to stand out. Good examples of this are the all-white low cut shoes that are an extremely common footwear in both the high school and college scene regardless of gender. Another example would be the “old skool” shoe that they recently released which is again generic yet widely popular. By making the shoes basic and eliminating the exclusivity of each release customers find comfort in those items even though everyone else may have the same shoes. The objective is really to stay locked into a “cool” and trendy style that is fashionable amongst teens everywhere. Promotion is the biggest avenue of marketing that Vans utilizes. They consistently release new fashion in order to reach potential new buyers or sell to already established loyal customers. By sponsoring sporting events, promoting the brand by launching skateboarding parks, and becoming title sponsors of numerous global sports events, the brand has built a strong brand value over time. The utilization of social media in the company is remarkable, the brand is able to utilize quantitative research by seeing how many likes a post about a specific product gets. Then a sort of qualitative method of research by calculating the number of people who visited the link to their website through social media. People who click the link after visiting a social media sight inadvertently signify to the Vans company that they have caught the interest of that individual. The brand's social media marketing campaign is unmatched and speaks volumes about its reputation, with 18 million likes on Facebook and 17 million followers on Instagram. They always provide original material on their main pages, as well as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Strengths:  Established and loved fashion brand by today’s music lovers and extreme sports enthusiasts.  Design of the shoes, fashion, shops, and website all speaks to a teen audience and expresses a creative eccentric feeling. Weaknesses:  Stuck with mostly the same target audience as this is what they built their brand on.  Can’t compete with high fashion companies like Gucci or Prada. This is due to already having an established price range and most customers would be unwilling to buy a very expensive item from this store. Opportunities:  Having an audience amongst the youth creates good working relationships with pro athletes and artists who would further promote the brand.  The company can and has breached further into skating, snowboarding, and bmx culture by providing exclusive items for sale printed with Vans own designs. Threats:  E-commerce and online business draw a lot of traffic away from Vans and more towards individual retailers.  The world of sports and music are constantly changing, and Vans must keep up with trends in order to stay relevant.