Report on Zara Brand Research

Introduction

The purpose of brand research is to gather the physical, financial, psychological, functional and social evaluation of the brand. This research helps to recognize the current situation of the brand and analyze its positioning is in the current market, among other competing brands.

Background

Zara was founded in 1975 by two fashion designers, Amancio Ortega, and Rosalía Mera, in Spain. Ortega launched his first store in Galicia Spain, by the name of ZORBA, named after a famous Spanish classic film, "Zorba the Greek". However, he had to rename the brand since there was a bar down the street with the same name. Therefore, Ortega changed the name to ZARA.

They started off featuring low-priced and popular clothing, keeping the high-end style and fashion. Ortega launched more store throughout Spain. In 1980’s, Ortega altered the design, manufacturing, and distribution process in order to reduce times and respond to the new style, fashion, and trends in a quicker way, which Ortega referred to as "instant fashions" (ZARA). Among all other changes, Ortega also improved the use of information technologies, and he hired groups of designers, instead of individuals to run the business more efficiently, and resourcefully.

Mission and Vision

Mission: Zara’s Mission is, “ZARA aims to contribute to the sustainable development of society and that of the environment with which we interact. " Zara has created environmental awareness among their employees, and encourage to responsibly recycle, and create less waste. In Zara factories, they use ecological fabrics, such as organic cotton for the production. Their footwear is manufactured without PVC, in order to reduce heavy-metal pollution and lower eco-hazardous plasticizers. Zara transport products using biodiesel fuel to reduce Co2 emissions by 500 tons per year.

Vision: Zara’s vision is, “ZARA is committed to satisfying the desires of our customers. As a result, we pledge to continuously innovate our business to improve your experience. We promise to provide new designs made from quality materials that are affordable” (leonor, 14)Zara continues to follow its vision and work on getting themselves at the desired level. Their priority is to understand and satisfy their customers, providing them best designs, great quality product in an affordable price, and give their customers a great experience.

Brand Overview

Logo

Zara has a very simple yet successful brand logo. The logo is the name of the brand itself, ZARA. It’s a combination of four Latin letter. These letters were to encoded the brands latest strategy of making trendy and stylish designs, yet keeping them simple and elegant.

Colors

The logo has a very basic, black-and-white color palette. The logo has "ZARA" written in black, on white, and vice-versa. the black color represents the style, elegance, and excellence of the brand. It took a couple of months for the Zara logo to position exclusively unique articles.

Slogan

Zara has a very unique identity in the fashion industry. Just like its simple and generic logo, its slogan is also Zara. Ortega believed in keeping the brand, and its identity simple and, elegant, exactly like their articles.

Brand Essence

Zara is a high-street apparel, retail fashion store. Zara dispenses Hot, trendy, and stylish designs for the fashion-oriented women. Their designs are trendy for every situation, making women feel good about looking good. Zara caters very modern and trendy product lines for a moderate price. Their designs include various blends and combinations of colors and beautiful feminine cuts. Zara is a very customer-centric business. Their main focus is to create a positive experience for the customers.

Brand SWOT Analysis

Strengths: Zara has been catering high quality and low priced products for years. They have innovated in terms of their designs and style, providing the customers the most trendy and latest articles of clothing. They have maintained their repute, serving their customers with a great shopping experience. Using cost leadership business strategy, they have managed to gravitate more customers towards their brand. Their high quality and low priced products have helped them establish a different image in the industry, that customers value the most. Zara does not spend its revenue on advertising, however, they do choose the locations very strategically. When choosing a location, they make sure that its accessible to their target market, and they try to place it next to the high-end brands to portray similar level of the brands. Zara has a very fast and strong distribution system. It can deliver goods to its American and Asian outlets within 440 hours, and it takes only 24 hours to deliver to its European stores.

Weaknesses: The main internal weakness that Zara has, is the fact that Zara does not spend its revenue on marketing and advertising. Instead they utilize that money to open new stores at new locations. They are behind all their competitors who are spending their money on marketing to reaching out to their target market. Hence, this is one of the biggest drawback of Zara. Although Zara has a fast distribution system, but it has only one distribution center in the world. Having one center makes the manufacturing and distribution process a little challenging and though. Another weakness that Zara has, is the fact that they have limited stock. Since they have so many stores worldwide, they can only deliver a specific number of items to each store, since they want to keep their clothes consistent in every store in the world.

Opportunities: Zara has high demand of high-fashion products in low prices. More customers are gravitated towards Zara due to the customer value they offer. Therefore, Zara has a competitive advantage over other competing brands. Since there is a fast-growing market in Asia, specially China, it’s an advantage for Zara to make more revenues off their new stores. Zara can also expand by segmenting its product lines. Zara can also explore the global market more. Having an online store, and being able to market online can also help incline new customers and towards Zara.

Threats: One of the worst threat that Zara faces, is the competitive brands trying to replicate Zara’s products, and selling them for an even lower cost. It not only depreciates the value of Zara’s unique products, but also shift Zara’s potential, and existing customers towards the smaller brands with, who offers Zara’s replicated products for cheaper. Hence this increases the competition within these brands. It also diminishes the brand equity. Another major external factor that can cause an extreme shift in the company’s stability is the economic downfall, or recession. During recession, most businesses make less revenue, which causes tension in the industry. Shifts in the Euro currency can also effect the global competition, because that makes Zara sets the prices according to the Euro currency that effects the stores in other countries as well.