As an award-winning full service digital marketing agency, we are familiar with working on an array of projects with the integration of various digital solutions. But the diversity doesn’t stop there. We are also a pan-industry digital agency, with the expert ability to deliver brand engagement across an extensive portfolio of clients.
From Education and Automotive, to Charity and Financial Services, Avenue Digital has a wealth of experience in delivering campaigns across a multitude of leading industries. This has enabled us to work with some of the top brands in each sector and has earned us a pocket full of accolades and awards.
This week, we are taking a look back on our portfolio of featured work within the Fashion and Retail industry, with a particular focus on clothing brands All Saints,Kurt Geiger and Sweaty Betty.
Fashion and the Internet
The fashion market is one of the UK’s leading industries, with an estimated £46 billion spent on clothing and footwear per year, averaging at 5.3% of the total UK household consumption. In 2013, UK shoppers spent £91bn in online sales, with particular growth being seen for clothing. It’s estimated that 2014 will see 17% growth in online retail sales, generating £107bn by December.
With the rise of smart phones, our purchase habits have evolved. We are now much more likely to engage with brands and make purchases from the comfort of our sofas or when commuting on the train. And with 40% of online sales currently coming from mobile and tablet and a noticeable year-on-year growth in this area, more fashion retailers are turning towards digital to make their user experiences more…er….user-friendly.
Leading digital campaigns for fashion
Constant advances in mobile technology have made the digital arena a competitive playing field for fashion brands. Websites are becoming more visual, with compelling and engaging features a-plenty, such as The Trend Report from Net-a-Porter, to ASOS.com’s Upload a Look function. Ecommerce solutions are more streamlined and brands are more social.
Digital services that are on the rise for the fashion and retail include responsive designs, web apps, smarter ecommerce solutions and social media management. These are certainly some of the solutions we are most frequently appointed to deliver, including that of clients All Saints, Kurt Geiger and Sweaty Betty.
All Saints
All Saints is a UK fashion retailer that originally began trading as a menswear store in Spitalfields in 1994. It now has 100 stores across the UK, Europe, United States and Canada selling menswear, womenswear, footwear and accessories.
All Saints’ digital requirement was to grow their fan base back to their ecommerce site via social media, with a view to increasing conversion. Their main focus was Facebook, but other social networks were targeted to grow a loyal fan base from this medium.
Avenue Digital were appointed to implement a winning social media strategy and after just 3 months, grew the Facebook fan base by 150%. The result; a very happy customer in the fashion and retail sector.
Kurt Geiger
American-owned footwear retailer Kurt Geiger has 50 UK stores, including retail spaces within Harrods and Selfridges. It sells a majority of the designer shoe brands as well as own brand designs.
Kurt Geiger’s digital objectives spanned across a range of solutions, including stock management systems integration, a successful email marketing campaign and improved usability.
Working with the client for over 4 years, we delivered successful digital solutions in line with their objectives. Using SOAP with the intention of each store communicating with the central warehousing system, we designed a stock management integration system that was both bespoke and technically advanced.
The email marketing campaign was largely used to communicate must-have trends and seasonal styles over a number of weeks. Utilising their print activity such as magazine competitions in Vogue, Elle, Glamour and Grazia, we were able to increase online awareness by creating targeted email shots from this offline activity, driving traffic to competition microsites where we could collect consumer data and manage the CRM database for each campaign.
Implementing the email marketing campaigns alongside usability consultancy and brand experience strategy, led to an increase in open rates, click throughs and conversions.
Sweaty Betty
Women’s active wear retailer Sweaty Betty has 30 UK stores, after opening the first store in 1998. They have a number of accolades under their belt, including Sports Retailer of the Year 2001 and Best Single Etailer 2011, but were keen to further enhance brand recognition in the online sphere.
Avenue Digital's challenge with Sweaty Betty was to design and implement a creative website that would communicate the brand’s authority within the sports and fashion world. This required a fresh new website design to encompass a flawless user experience, enhanced content and improved engagement.
Working to strict brand guidelines under the watchful eye of Sweaty Betty’s founders, we delivered a solution that not only visually captivated users, but also engaged them with rich content, whilst allowing them a seamless user experience when browsing clothing ranges.
By creating a blend of functional, authoritative and aspirational designs for the new website, the Sweaty Betty brand has been positioned as an industry leading voice in female sport fashion and community.
A question of trends
If ever there was an industry whose mantra is about emerging trends, fashion is it. But digital marketing is not all that different. Digital agencies to internet users are essentially what clothing brands are to fashion houses. They analyse trends, manage supply and demand and ultimately bring the consumer closer to what they desire.
Two completely different industries, with similar mantras, we are aligned on what we deliver to consumers in the name of popularity and this mutual understanding comes through in the work that we deliver.
