IMC plan : Asos

Abstract

Established in 2000, Asos.com has become the United Kingdom's largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer; offering over 36,000 branded and own label products ("Annual Report", 2010). Asos's long-term objective is to expand the brand into five main international countries within five years. Within this time frame, Asos also aims to reach their sales objectives of £1 billion ("Annual Report", 2011). In 2011, Asos will be launching into the US. In order to support a successful launch, the following Integrated Marketing Communications plan was created. 2 Unlike many other clothing retailers, Asos is only available online. Forrester researchers predict that by 2015, the US online retail industry will be worth $279 billion (Wauters, 2011}. To assess where the company stands in relation to the industry, Asos' internal and external strengths and weaknesses were analyzed. Asos's strengths include their diversified product portfolio and their dramatic financial growth in the past few years. With a growing on line retail industry, Asos' strengths give them the opportunity to expand successfully in international markets. Asos' weaknesses include the issue of consumers not being able to touch or try on clothing in person before purchasing. As the company expands, they also face the threat ofthe US's current recession and retail competition. A survey was created and analyzed in order to provide Asos with more information on American attitudes and preferences towards online shopping and media choices. The study found that the main reason individuals shop on line is the convenience factor. To the dismay of Asos, the study also found that when deciding where to look for clothing, the majority of respondents stated that they look directly to retail stores. In contrast, the study also stated that 92 percent of respondents have purchased clothing online, and 88 percent intend to do so again in the future. After reviewing secondary research and performing primary research, a target market of males and females between the ages of 16-34 in the US was developed. Different levels of communication objectives were also created to reach this target market. The communications objectives include first accomplishing lower-level objectives such as awareness and interest and moving up to higher-level more difficult objectives such as stimulating a trial purchase and repeat purchases. Asos' positioning strategy will attempt to take the perceived risk of shopping on line and turn it into a positive benefit. Asos' positioning objective for this campaign is to establish within the minds of their target market, a link between the Asos brand and the new age way of discovering fashion on line. The IMC campaign's creative strategy is reflective of this positioning strategy. The campaign is going to be called "The Shopping Revolution". The "shopping revolution" is going to portray Asos as the new age way of shopping. Asos is going to show that they are the heart of global fashion, beauty, and shopping for the new generation. They are modern, stylish and ahead of the rest. Because Asos is going to represent revolutionary shopping, several new marketing tactics will replace traditional media. After creating the communications objectives, it was decided that it would be most beneficial for Asos to use a bottom-up approach to budgeting. It is important for Asos to build a budget around the strategies it will take to achieve their objectives. The strategies that will be implemented in order to achieve the communication goals are advertising, Internet/Interactive marketing, public relations/publicity and sales promotions. Several new marketing mediums such as fashion blogs, augmented reality, and Groupon will also be implemented. After the implementation of the following IMC plan, Asos plans to achieve their communications objectives and become a prominent and competitive retailer in the US.