Description

Introduction and background

You are a group of marketing consultants that has been hired by the management of a brand licensee company called CC Brands Canada (name is fictitious) to assist them with the development of their marketing plan for one of three brands that they represent in Canada: H. Huntsman and Sons, Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney.

CC Brands’ management is looking for growth, in terms of both sales and profit, but has yet to determine the strategy, although they believe that a menswear line under either brand name would provide the company with a competitive advantage over other brands. A short description for each brand is provided in the Group Project Assignment folder on Blackboard.

According to CC Brands Canada, although these brands have strong potential in Canada, distribution is considered limited, and for some non-existent. The management company needs for you to determine the right strategy for the brand that you have been assigned and to develop the marketing plan in terms of the product assortment, the types of stores that should carry this line, the way it should be displayed, packaged, named and communicated. You need to present CC Brands Canada’s management with an oral and written plan on how you intend to market the brand.

Your brand to represent:

H. Huntsman & Sons

According to Wikipedia, H. Huntsman & Sons (known as Huntsman of Savile Row) is a high-end fashion house and tailor located at No. 11 Savile Row, London. It is known for its English bespoke menswear tailoring, cashmere ready-to-wear collections, and leather accessories.

In 1886, the company earned its first Royal Warrant as Leather Breeches Maker to HRH the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). In September 2017, Huntsman served as the inspiration for Matthew Vaughn's blockbuster movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Founded in 1849, Huntsman is a Savile Row tailor,[3] producing traditional bespoke tailoring for gentlemen and ladies. Huntsman has been granted several royal warrants bestowed by British and European monarchs, including The Prince of Wales, (later Edward VII) and Queen Victoria. Huntsman is also one of the founders of the Savile Row Bespoke Association[4] - the trade body responsible for protecting and promoting the working practices of Savile Row.

Huntsman clients have included King Edward VII, King Edward VIII, King Alfonso XII, Winston Churchill, Rudolph Valentino, Lord Mountbatten, Gregory Peck,[15] Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Laurence Olivier, Ronald Reagan, Marc Jacobs, Lapo Elkann, and Gianni Agnelli.

In February 2016, Huntsman became the first Savile Row tailor to open a permanent location in New York. American clientele now enjoy a permanent home in the States in a pied-à-terre in New York with antique Huntsman tweed covered furnishings and historic photographs from Huntsman's past adorning the walls.

Alongside regular visits to the east coast of America, visiting clients based in New York City, Boston and Washington (as well as Chicago), the house also undertakes regular west coast tours, visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles. Huntsman expanded its trunk shows, pioneering visits to different corners of Asia, including a trunk show in Seoul and visits to Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.

In May 2020, the Chairman of historic tailors Huntsman Savile Row since 2013, Pierre LaGrange discussed the impact of lockdown on the business – and why the tailors’ core values of ‘discreet luxury, timelessness, style over fashion, personal attention, handcrafted individual creations and sustainability’ are more desirable than ever…’ (Walpole, 2020)

Project objective

To recommend the strategy and positioning for either H. Huntsman and Sons, Bottega Veneta or Stella McCartney, and develop the marketing plan for the introduction of either brand’s Fall 2021 men’s line in Canada in order to help the company increase sales and make profit.

Scope

The following should be included in your business plan:

1. Brand Strategy and Rationale.

Each group will be assigned a brand. The group will then give a short explanation as to the choice of strategy that you have decided to pursue along with the rationale for using that strategy. Remember that CC Brands is looking to increase sales and make profit and is open to any of the three strategic approaches:

·               Market penetration

·               Market development

·               Product development

2. Positioning of the Brand

Identify the brand’s current positioning and provide verification that the positioning for the menswear line does not deviate from the brand’s current positioning, which would cause confusion in the consumers’ mind.

3. Marketing plan:

a)      Situation Analysis

b)     Marketing Objectives and Strategies

c)      Marketing Plan—four P’s

Important Note: Even though you have a free hand in the development of the marketing plan for the line, you will operate under a couple of assumptions:

• The clothes are designed by the individual brands’ designer(s) and you do not have any say as to what they look like other than to recommend product categories (if necessary), colours and fibres that either company’s design team should use for their Canadian customer. In other words, you are not the design team; you are the marketing team and as such you are leading the development of the line but you are not designing it.
• This scenario takes place in current economic and environmental conditions in Canada, which you should identify based on research and factual information.