MUJI attaches great importance to brand building, but rarely carries out large-scale advertising ; on the contrary, UNIQLO attaches great importance to both brand and advertising, so it is very valuable to study the two together.

I recently systematically studied the Uniqlo brand and read Yanai Tadashi's "One Win, Nine Losses". Combined with my previous investigation and analysis of MUJI in Japan, I have the following thoughts, which I hope will be helpful and inspiring to the majority of brand marketers:

1. Market analysis & positioning

Tadashi Yanai's father was an old-fashioned businessman who opened a suit shop in Japan in 1949, the year Tadashi Yanai was born.

In 1963, Tadashi Yanai began to inherit the family business. Until the first Uniqlo store opened in 1984, Tadashi Yanai had worked hard at "Ogori Shoji" for 20 years.

We started out making men's suits and later casual wear. Men's formal wear is expensive and has a high profit margin, but like Japanese kimonos, the product turnover period is very long, turning over 2-3 times a year. If the products sell well, you can make money; if they sell poorly, there will be inventory backlog. This is also the golden rule often mentioned in today's Internet circle - high frequency beats low frequency. It can be said that Uniqlo had the seeds of an Internet technology company very early on.

"Sometimes I feel like those taxi drivers who only want to pick up long-distance passengers, and the time I wait for the opportunity to come is always a long time," Yanai wrote in his autobiography "One Win and Nine Losses."

In the 1980s, stores like LIMITED and GAP were born in the United States. These stores could earn hundreds of trillions of yen just by selling clothes, which had a great impact on Tadashi Yanai.

Uniqlo started out as a boutique. Yanai Masaaki first went to the United States with a business delegation from an industry association. Later, he went to the United States and Europe alone to purchase goods, and then opened a store specializing in overseas products. Despite this, suit shops and casual wear stores have always been the two driving forces of the company's operations. Tadashi Yanai also realized that purchasing his favorite products from abroad and selling them in his own store could only be considered a personal interest and could not be considered a formal store operation.

Tadashi Yanai decided to open a "huge warehouse where you can choose clothes at any time" and "let customers buy casual clothes like buying weekly magazines."

2. Target group/core users

Compared with fashion, basic clothes for daily life are more popular. When Uniqlo learned about this consumption trend, it adjusted its target customer market to a market that encompasses people of all ages and genders and can cater to people of any status.

There were also mistakes made during this period. For example, it had once launched the sportswear brand SPOQLO and the home furnishing brand FAMIQLO, which later ended in failure. The reasons are summarized as follows:

1. The positioning is not significantly different from Uniqlo.

2. Dispersing one's attention. In order to ensure that these stores have supplies, one sometimes has to mobilize Uniqlo's products, causing Uniqlo stores to often be out of stock and out of stock.

3. Dispersing customers’ attention. Previously, customers could buy all kinds of clothes in one store, but now they have to go to three stores.

3. Build a business model

Traditional clothing retailers usually select and purchase goods from factories and wholesalers and adopt the consignment sales method.

The agency sales method does not put much pressure on the seller. If the products do not sell well, they can be returned to the supplier, so the operating risk is relatively small. But the wool comes from the sheep, and this part of the investment will eventually be added to the original price, reducing the gross profit margin of the product. In order to maintain a certain gross profit margin, merchants must raise selling prices, and as a result, this part of the price will eventually be passed on to consumers.

This approach also has one major drawback - the production of goods is dominated by factories and wholesalers, and the goods that ultimately appear on store shelves lack consistency.

In addition, pricing is decided by factories and wholesalers, and there is no room for free pricing.

Uniqlo also initially purchased its products from clothing manufacturers. Although the prices were cheap, the quality was not ideal. Later, it outsourced its products to overseas processing through Japanese clothing manufacturers, but a quality management system had not yet been established at that time.

Among products processed overseas, we often find some low-quality clothes because the purchase price is low. If we require the production of high-quality products, the factory is unwilling to do so because there is no profit. So Uniqlo began to consider doing its own production and quality management.

When operating low-priced goods, the turnover rate of goods becomes the most critical factor. Due to the lack of funds at that time, we only bought whatever products were selling well and implemented a quick in and out policy. Goods that do not sell well should be disposed of in the same season and never put on for sale in the next season. As the number of stores continues to increase, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure the supply of goods.

In order to control sales prices, retailers turned to special orders. As the number of stores continued to increase and their purchasing power continued to improve, Uniqlo decided to develop its own products and then entrust manufacturers to produce them. Although as a retailer, it is impossible to directly produce ready-made clothes, it is feasible to participate in production management when entrusting manufacturers to produce and process them. This is also the origin of the Uniqlo SPA model.

Uniqlo introduced GAP's SPA model into Japanese innovation. Using Uchida Kazunari's "Rule Disruptor Model" to analyze, it is an order-disrupting type - without changing products and services, it introduces new profit models to change the rules of competition and provide new value to consumers.

Uniqlo designs and plans its own products, entrusts factories to process them, then buys out all the products and sells them in stores, while also feeding back the sales results into the design and planning of the products.

Efficient operation can be guaranteed in every link from product design to terminal sales. Throughout the entire process, UNIQLO assumes full responsibility for the products, eliminates all unnecessary waste and ineffective labor, and returns the profits saved to customers, allowing them to enjoy more low-priced and high-quality products.

The above is the core of UNIQLO’s business model.

Since all risks are borne by Uniqlo, all the company needs to do is to control the risks within the maximum range that it can bear and then take action. At this time, the buyers who originally controlled the products became product planners (MD) who decided the direction, quality and quantity of the products.

It is worth noting that MUJI also uses the same SPA model, but moves in another product and brand direction.

4. Product iteration, technology-driven

In the beginning, Uniqlo’s products were indeed not as good as they are now. There is nothing new under the sun. You see, the following operation methods are very similar to the MVP (minimum viable product) and grayscale testing of the current Internet:

In October 1995, UNIQLO placed an advertisement in major national newspapers and weekly magazines, offering 1 million yen to collect complaints about UNIQLO.

Tadashi Yanai believes that it is better to listen to consumers' voices directly rather than obtaining their feedback and dissatisfaction indirectly from consulting companies.

As a result, nearly 10,000 consumer opinions were collected, almost all of which concerned product quality.

"I bought a 1,900 yen sweatshirt and it started to unravel after one wash. It started to tear under the arms after two washes. I will never buy your products again."

"I washed my T-shirt only once and the collar started to loosen up."

After reading these feedbacks, Tadashi Yanai felt very depressed. But on the other hand, these opinions are very helpful for understanding the quality of the company's products and are first-hand data for research and improvement.

Tadashi Yanai insists that the greatly improved quality of Uniqlo's products is inseparable from the countless experiences of failure in the stores, and that "controlling the stores" is the foundation of its operations.

Failure is the mother of success. Without the failure of those years, there would be no hit product - polar fleece series launched at the turn of the century in 1999, and HEATTECH series launched in 2003.

In addition, when it comes to the research and development of new materials, Uniqlo makes no secret of its fascination with technology. In many ways, it has the core of a technology company. UNIQLO’s technological innovations make clothes - our second “skin” - more comfortable and fashionable.

In China, technology is limited to the information technology department in most companies. Today, digital technology, mobile technology, big data and other technologies are used to support and drive innovation throughout the organization, including new product development, production and manufacturing, and market development strategies, covering many industries.

The key is to build a platform and create influence by repeatedly using it. The revelation of this platform is not limited to the "Internet".

Uniqlo is such an Internet+ platform.

5. Brand: Outputting Values

In 1984, the first UNIQLO store opened in Hiroshima.

Yanai Tadashi's dream of opening a "huge warehouse where you can choose clothes at any time" and "let customers buy casual clothes like buying weekly magazines" has finally come true, as can be seen from the early name - "UNICLO CLOTHING W AR E HOUSE".

Although the name was meaningful, it was later found that it was difficult for customers to remember, so it was changed to UNI.CLO. Later, the dividing point in the middle was removed: UNICLO.

"No matter how much effort you put into the name, it's meaningless if customers can't remember it," said Tadashi Yanai.

The change from UNICLO to UNIQLO was a beautiful accident:

When the joint venture was established in Hong Kong, the person who handled the registration procedures mistakenly wrote Q as C. Later, from the perspective of font, the visual effect of Q was better, so it was decided to change the names of all the company's stores, including those in Japan, to "UNIQLO".

From the opening of the first UNIQLO store, Tadashi Yanai was determined to turn the store into an "environment where customers can choose freely."

For example, when decorating a store, the main aisle in the store must be straight and spacious. Try not to have a suspended ceiling, and it doesn’t matter if the concrete frame is exposed, so that it appears open and has a sense of space.

Store clerks are required to maintain a spotless environment, ensure that merchandise looks neatly arranged at all times, and replenish stocks in a timely manner.

Store clerks do not need to pester customers all the time, but they should provide the most enthusiastic service when customers ask questions or need help. Shop assistants must wear aprons to make them easier for customers to identify them.

This means thinking from the customer's perspective - turning the store that customers most want to visit into your best-selling store.

Slogan——LifeWear

Uniqlo was originally a collection store of famous brands and did not produce its own clothes. For example, CHAMPION, Reebok, ELVIS PRESLEY, and Badboy are all other people's brands.

The failure of the acquisition of VM made Uniqlo realize that its operating model of planning its own products and bringing them to the market under other people’s brands (paying brand usage fees) was no longer feasible. It is necessary to quickly use the "Uniqlo" brand to unify the company's external brand image.

But, what is this brand image? In addition to tangible products such as clothes, what does it advocate? What kind of lifestyle does it represent?

"We sell style, especially lifestyle. We make clothes to allow people to express their attitude towards lifestyle... We hope to provide customers with comfortable clothes based on Japanese values ​​of simplicity, quality and durability, and thus make people's lives better," said Tadashi Yanai.

To express that technological progress makes people's lives better. At the end of 2013, UNIQLO changed its slogan from Made For All to its current Life Wear.

Compared with its competitor, the equally successful MUJI, which eliminates the unnecessary and pursues the essence in terms of products, the brand is also exporting its values ​​to the world - a simple, environmentally friendly and restrained lifestyle.

Revelation: A great brand should give special value to people’s lives - what is the meaning of your existence besides making profits?

UNIQLO's first global advertising film

“Why Do We Get Dressed?”

6. Marketing activities

When UNIQLO opened its first store, Yanai Tadashi was already aware of the importance of advertising:

“If you want to do business in an unfamiliar area, if you don’t advertise, customers won’t know about it and won’t come to you.” Even though it has gained a certain degree of popularity, Uniqlo still has to advertise every time it opens a store.

Since the opening of Uniqlo's first store (located in Hiroshima City), Uniqlo has been advertising on radio and television. It was also from that time that Yanai Tadashi personally felt the effectiveness and influence of Uniqlo's advertising among the public.

The advertisement that Yanai Tadashi was most satisfied with, and the one that had a direct impact on sales, was the polar fleece sweater TV commercial that aired in early winter 1999. Written by John Jay, Creative Director of W+K, Yanai Tadashi spared no effort in praising this creative genius in his autobiography, One Win, Nine Losses. (Unfortunately I can’t find this ad, if anyone can find it, please send it to us).

John Jay believes that Japanese television commercials are completely useless. They only know how to say what they want to say. In terms of expression methods and expressions, they overuse exaggerated voices and weird expressions, and blindly pursue novelty. They do not show respect and reverence for the listeners, and the information that clients want to convey to consumers is not effectively disseminated. (PS I think it is much better than domestic advertisements)

Uniqlo's advertising experience

Uniqlo's advertisements should show respect for the listeners and should not impose their will on TV viewers. They should let the audience judge the content of the advertisements based on their own minds.

It is not a one-way information transmission, but to let the audience realize it for themselves after watching the advertisement.

If an advertisement has no real content, then it is a waste of time to advertise. If the content of the advertisement is rich and substantial, it will become a major selling point for the promotion and will achieve twice the result with half the effort. The substantial content of an advertisement is like the turbine engine of an airplane; without it, the airplane cannot fly.

Modern people's living habits are influenced by various information. Therefore, if good products are just placed there quietly, they will not be sold at all. What is good about the product, to what extent is it good, what is the price, where is it available, when will it go on sale, and other such information must be accurately informed to consumers.

Effective use of advertising agencies

Advertising should be done by advertisers themselves, not by creative people or advertising agencies. Advertisers need to plan their own campaigns and can only use creatives or advertising agencies as one of the functions. Otherwise, the desired effect of advertisers will not be achieved.

A good advertising creative person can understand the real thoughts of the advertiser, give full play to his or her wisdom, and use appropriate media platforms to produce advertisements that satisfy the advertiser. Advertisers without their own ideas who entrust advertising agencies without creative capabilities will not be able to produce successful commercials.

Advertisers cannot just throw everything to advertising agencies. They must fully inform advertising creatives of their company's business policies and philosophy so that they can understand the company's corporate culture.

Anyone who engages in creative work must be in a free and relaxed environment, allowing his thoughts to run wild and to go his own way.

Uniqlo Marketing Case

Uniqlo's 2018 spring shirt advertisement is very beautiful

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Marketing Innovation: Brand New Retail Exploration - Ahead of the Times

In the logic of UNIQLO's new retail, the most important thing is the two-way traffic flow online and offline:

Same price online and offline

Order online, express delivery - pick up in store

Try on clothes offline, or go back to order online and have them delivered to your home

The electronic POP UNIQI "code" is the most powerful bridge connecting offline and online. It is like the "identity card" of the product, helping users obtain all the information about the product. It can also query the color, size and related store inventory information of each product in real time; by sending the real-time location, you can find the store closest to you.

Unlike many brand WeChat accounts that cannot get rid of the self-media attributes of "content aggregation platform", UNIQLO attaches more importance to its functional attributes.

It has achieved true omni -channel marketing, with complete integration of online and offline. In this regard, it can be said that it is absolutely ahead of all brands.

In the above, we analyzed from six dimensions including market analysis & positioning, target population/core users, building business model, products, brands, marketing activities, etc. Starting from the origin of business, extending from users to products, brands, and then to marketing expression, this should be a relatively comprehensive analysis of the Uniqlo brand case.

Source: Camp Creator Lab (ID: mktcreator)