very interesting feedback here....
www.theage.com.au
Many unhappy returns for Stella
Rachel Wells and Peter Weekes
April 15, 2007
READY, SET GO: Shoppers grab whatever they can, regardless of size, colour and style, to ensure they get a piece of the latest must-have.
Photo:
Andrew de la Rue
A MONTH ago, women would have swum the English Channel to get their hands on a piece of the much-hyped Stella McCartney for Target collection. But it seems the clothes that sparked scenes of mass hysteria — including a physical scuffle between two women at Target's Chadstone store — when they hit racks nationwide on March 12 are out of favour with the country's fashionistas.
When
The Sunday Age visited the retail giant's Bourke Street store soon after the launch, racks were laden with hundreds of the unwanted designer garments — many being returns from disappointed customers who admit to having been "sucked in by the hype".
One such shopper is 26-year-old marketing director Georgia Moore, who drove from Fitzroy to Target's Bendigo store to try to avoid the opening day crush. She spent $2000 on the designer threads, only to return all but two of the garments last week. Her sister spent $800 the same day and has since returned the lot.
"I just got caught up in it all," admits Ms Moore. "It was more about the thrill of the chase and just knowing that you could have it. Then once you had it, it was like, 'Oh, what have I done? Do I really need all this stuff?"
Rachel Kennedy, associate professor of marketing at the University of South Australia, said that, despite the regrets of some shoppers, the marketing campaign was a success — it got people talking and into the shops. The coupling of celebrity with inexpensive fashion, plus a savvy marketing campaign, hit the mark for young people.
"We want excitement and want to be part of things other people are talking about," she said. "Celebrity is absolutely critical to creating the hype because people want to emulate them and be seen to be like them."
It wasn't only in Australia that the line of clothing designed by McCartney whipped shoppers into a frenzy. Similar scenes where played out in Britain, Europe and North America where the merchandise was hotter than a ticket to a Beatles gig. "STELLAMANIA" blared London's
Evening Standard.
This would have helped with Target's launch, said Mat Medcals of Spin Communications, the company that produced a landmark report on marketing to the internet-savvy youth market, the Sweeney Report.
"They are extremely fickle," said Mr Medcals. "It is a demographic that really needs to discover a message or a product of their own accord. It's cool to discover then share that discovery with their friends rather than being told what's cool."
He said that while many older people became aware of the range only when images of wild scenes of the launch were shown in the mainstream media, young people had already embraced the hype and were eagerly waiting for the line to hit the racks.
"It was seeded in channels that these people see and interact with every day: online, msn and myspace," Mr Medcals said.
Rather than "falling for the hype", they absorbed it because their lack of finances meant inexpensive fashion was one of the few ways they could express their individual tastes.
Yet Georgia Moore, like many customers, was disappointed with the fit and quality of some of the garments and was worried about committing one of fashion's most serious faux pas — bumping into someone in the same outfit.
"Once I got home and tried it all on again I was like, 'You know what, I would actually prefer to buy something that's going to fit me a lot better and something that not everyone else is going to be wearing.' There is just so much of it around that there is a real chance of bumping into someone wearing the same thing," she said.
Target merchandise general manager Larice Lewis said the surplus stock was due to a rush on customer returns and a consolidation of leftover stock from 100 branches nationwide to 35.
"We were absolutely delighted with the way the whole program started but what happened was that customers were so keen and didn't want to miss out that they grabbed a whole lot of merchandise and then took it home knowing that they could return it to Target if it wasn't the right size or if they made a different selection," she said. "So that's more been the case."
Many of the returns are also believed to be from people who bought, in some cases, trolley loads of the garments to sell on auction site eBay.
Since the launch about 4000 garments have appeared on the site but, according to eBay, only half have been sold — most at little profit.
Despite the widespread media coverage and initial sales, the jury is still out on whether the exercise was a successful one for the retailer, which reportedly paid McCartney just over $1 million to design the range in a bid to lift its fashion profile.
Stephen Downes, from market research company QBrand and a marketing lecturer at RMIT's School of Applied Communication, says the exercise may have done more harm than good, given the ugly scenes of women scrapping over clothes and stripping mannequins that accompanied the launch.
"They certainly generated a lot of coverage in terms of column inches and air time but a lot of that coverage seemed to be about this frenzied stampede for a bargain," he said.
"And if the intention of the exercise was to heighten the perception of Target as a designer or fashion discount retailer than I'd certainly say … the focus of that was more on the discount than the designer end of things. I think the discount image came out well ahead of the fashion one."
Ms Lewis, however, maintains it has been a success and says more local and overseas designer collaborations are in the pipeline.
But I'm glad you guys seemed to like the stuff more!
